Chris Cuomo referring to a White House aide as “Raj whatever-his-name-is” on Monday wasn’t CNN’s first instance of perceivable racism against Indian-Americans.
On Monday morning, Cuomo forgot the name of White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah, and instead called him “Raj whatever-his-name-is.” Shah called out the mistake on Twitter, forcing Cuomo to apologize. (RELATED: Chris Cuomo Apologizes For Forgetting Indian-American Trump Aide’s Name)
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However, a quick scrub of the history books reveals that this isn’t the first example of CNN’s casual bigotry toward Indian-Americans.
Just last month, they made another error related to Trump aide Raj Shah, showing a picture of an Obama-era White House official with the same name. (RELATED: CNN Torched By Sarah Sanders For Mistaking Trump WH Staffer For Obama Official)
“CNN, this is definitely not @rajshah45,” press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted, tagging the correct Shah.
In June, anchor Alisyn Camerota suggested that Indian-American national spelling bee champion Ananya Vinay would be used to studying Sanskrit, an odd assertion since usually spelling bee champs would focus on Latin roots.
(RELATED: CNN Asks Spelling Champ To Spell ‘Covfefe’) When Vinay had a hard time spelling Trump’s made-up word “covfefe,” Camerota assured her that it “is a nonsense word, so we’re not sure if its root is actually Sanskrit, which is probably what you’re used to using.”
Back in 2015, anchor Jake Tapper mistook a random tan woman for then-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, an Indian-American.
But the woman was not actually Nikki Haley — it was just a tan brunette woman who looked nothing like her.
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