I am unusually thick skinned when it comes to things deemed offensive.  I don’t get upset over terrorist jokes or slurpie innuendo. If the joke is funny, I have no problem laughing.

That said, non-Indian people of the world, you need to know that merely mimicking an Indian accent is not funny.

Furthermore, IF what you’re actually saying or doing is not stand alone funny, it’s just stupid.

“Apu” from The Simpson’s is funny because what he says is highlighted by the accent.

“Hello, how are you?” in an Indian accent and then laughing, though?  Is neither clever nor as remotely hilarious as you might think.

And mimicking an Indian accent to someone whose parents or husband has a similar accent is both ignorant and rude.  Oh my goodness, I cannot even begin to count the number of times this has happened to me.

Disagree?

Let’s drive this point home in an unexpected way.

A few years ago, I was at a restaurant with a bunch of Indian friends.  Unlike me, none of them were born here, so they spoke accented English, although most of their accents were very slight.  One of the women at the table was relating a conversation with one of her American co-workers.  When this Indian woman repeated her co-worker’s words, she slipped into an attempt to speak English like an American.

Only, she’s not American, so it played as a bad impression of American accented English.  Apparently, we Americans obnoxiously drop “g’s” all over the place and our “a’s” are said with our mouths open entirely too wide.

Being the only person at the table who spoke American accented English, frankly, I was embarrassed by it.  I listened quietly to her do this accent which by virtue of subtext was a mockery of the way I spoke and realized if the tables were turned, I would have offended everyone at that table.  Worse, there was no joke.  The accent was supposed to be the joke.

The way I talk was the butt of her joke.

Nice.

Why don’t you just make fun of the fact that I wore glasses in the second grade while you’re at it, lady?

So, let me repeat, the accent is not the joke.  The words actually have to be funny, or one runs the risk of looking like an ignorant and slightly racist jerk.

And, apparently, the folks who run the marketing department over at Metro PCS are ignorant and slightly racist jerks.

Seriously, the only way this could be more insulting to my heritage is if it were two white guys with brown shoe polish smeared on their faces.

(Facebook readers will have to click through to my blog to see this ridiculous commercial).