Supposing for a momment I grant that most Canadians (or Albertans, for that matter) can associate the "Grewal", "Dosanjh", and "Punjabi" with India without some sort of prompting, is the potential tarnishing of the image of the East Indian community because of this incident a valid concern?

Here you ask of the potential of the Grewal matter to tarnish the image of the East Indian Community, and whether or not it's a valid concern. What I'm getting at is how the real point of this concern is the lesson that I believe your father is telling to you, which is to learn from this, don't repeat history, and don't bring dishonor to your community. Thus a normative standard is placed upon you specifically (and to the community in general), instructing you to operate in a way to avoid another event such as Grewal. Whether or not this lesson is based on valid concerns is covered by Jess I think.

Bryan Neilson?

Quake gun??

But the immediate point is that there's a normative standard. This person should not have fallen into such a terrible problem because he's brown, yellow, black, whatever. A lesson to whoever is listening at the time: don't do that. That's what I think when experiencing similar parallel events occur anyway.

hey, check it out; my definition of "checkmate" is official now at urbandictionary.com.

Whodathunk?

I dunno man... I think a show like The Sopranos influences cultural stereotypes MUCH more than Alfonso Gagliano could ever do on any given day of the week. As for Grewal, I personally couldn't care less. Politics is full of dumb fucks, what does race have to do with it? I think most people realize this. If anything, Raj Pannu was so level-headed that I think a lot of people are in fact stereotyped to believe that people of indian ethnicity are the sorts of people who SHOULD be in politics. It'll take a lot more than Grewal to destroy the good-favour earned by people like Pannu. And furthermore, the most despised politicians are hands-down caucasians anyways. Ralph Klein, George Bush, Tony Blair... the list is never-ending. I'd say that at MOST only 10-25% of people will be even remotely influenced by racial opinions in this instance... and I'd bet good money that those 10-25% are the types of people who have racial prejudices to begin with.

Also, I once discussed the issues of ethnic minorities in government with some of the kids I work with. These kids are the kind of high-school students who while not being mind-blowingly open-minded about ethnic identities, nevertheless surprised me with their insights. They told me that they think ethnic minorities, especially first and second generation immigrants make the BEST politicians. I was pleasantly shocked when they told me this. Do you want to know what their reasoning was? I'll tell you:

They said "we (as white males in general) have lived here all of our lives and therefore take for granted what we have; they don't."

In a way, their process of rationalization makes a compelling amount of sense.

That gungrave gun could actually do some serious damage. To be honest, that video scares me a bit. It's not that the gun itself scares me; in fact, I think it's pretty cool. What actually scares me though is that the type of person who's willing to sit down and MAKE A gungrave gun is the last type of person who I'd feel comfortable with having ANY gun.

That's like if Brian made a QUAKE gun back in high-school. I'd fuckin drop out and go to another school if I found about that shit. You couldn't even trust that son-of-a-bitch with a hammer; he damn near hammered my brains out, the dumb fuck!!!

While I agree that Grewal's actions will have greater repercussions for his profession than his ethnicity, these sort of things can be damaging nonetheless. Take for example Alfonso Gagliano and more recently Joe Morselli. It's difficult enough for people of Italian descent to live with the usual stereotype of being linked with organized crime, but then to have them going out and perpetuating this popular view through their reckless behaviour just makes it that much more difficult for the rest of us to deal with that image. So even though all East Indians are not going to be tainted by Grewal's actions, nor have to try harder to overcome a stereotype further perpetuated by this, it will reflect badly on the community regardless.

(Did I just say what P was trying to say? I never can tell with him...)

also check out his sweet ass website:
http://www.gurmantgrewal.ca/
and be sure to Rock the Vote on the main page:

Do you think it was appropriate for Mr. Grewal to hand over his taped conversations with Mr. Dosanjh, Mr. Murphy, and Mr. Kalia to the RCMP?

haha. unbelievable

yeah i kinda agree. if the public has any type of racial prejudice it's against the race known as politicans

Par, the race filter will always exist. First take of an issue will always be a concern as to the implications of a said person's actions unto his own community (or perceived membership to a community). Of course when time passes it'll turn to a bah politics item. But the immediate point is that there's a normative standard. This person should not have fallen into such a terrible problem because he's brown, yellow, black, whatever. A lesson to whoever is listening at the time: don't do that. That's what I think when experiencing similar parallel events occur anyway. As to whether or not someone will actually become prejudiced as a result of the Grewal thing, I agree with Jess.