You do find a lot of your time in the West kind of searching for your place in the world – your voice, your identity, like, who am I? Like, what is my reason for being here, you know? And in that same way who am I to be partnered with, you know?
AASIF MANDVIThis was in the ’70s and there was a lot of racism towards South Asians and there was a lot of hazing and bullying and racism that really probably shaped me in some way in terms of, like, wanting to get out of there.
More Aasif Mandvi Quotes
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I think you had the GOP down there in North Carolina reaching out to African-American voters and this guy coming on television and using the N-word and saying what Don Yelton said.
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I think that hijacks the spirituality and beauty that exists within Islam. I believe in allowing Islam to be seen in context and in its entirety and being judged on what it really is, not what you think it is.
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I thought [when I was 16] my days were just going to be spent hanging out on a beach and my girlfriend was going to be Miss Teen USA and my best friend will be a dolphin.
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Re-colonizing it and sort of reverse-colonizing it to the point that today the national dish of Great Britain is Chicken Tikka Masala.
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Now the bigots have to get creative. Good luck coming up with slurs for Chechens. Go back where you came from, Ushanka head.
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People lament that there’s no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don’t want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don’t get it both ways.
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I don’t want to tell people what they should think.
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The idea that I had anything to do with speaking about Islam or about the Muslim world was just absurd to my family. … I hadn’t been to the mosque in like 10 years.
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I think politicians and comedians have a lot in common. One is a group of approval-seeking narcissists who will say and do anything to be liked… and comedians are always talking about politics.
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Getting chased home from the bus stop after school by English kids, boarding school, being targeted for praying to what they call Allah wallah ding dong.
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If you don’t acknowledge differences, it’s as bad as stereotyping or reducing someone.
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If you choose to be a Muslim then you believe that it is on some level wrong to show the image of the Prophet Muhammad.
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I mean, but obviously, in people’s eyes, it still – it can still link Islam to terrorism. I mean, why does it make a difference that they’re white?
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For anybody who’s ever been on the other end of, like, racial violence logic is not something that can be used.
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I was born in India – but never really lived there.
AASIF MANDVI