On last Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons, Marge and Lisa had an awkward mother-daughter conversation about a children’s book that Marge loved as a child, but which, upon revisiting, turns out to have an embarrassing colonial subtext. “Well what am I supposed to do?” Marge asked. “It’s hard to say,” Lisa said. “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?” Then Lisa looks at a framed picture on her nightstand of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, an Indian-American character at the center of a debate over racist stereotyping on the nearly 30-year-old show.



Apu has been a Simpsons fixture from the start, and is far and away the most famous Indian-American character in popular culture. Like many of the show’s characters, he’s a broad stereotype, a miserly convenience store owner who speaks with a pronounced accent. There have been murmurs of criticism about Apu since his appearance in the first season, but he’s more controversial than ever due to The Problem With Apu, a documentary last year by Hari Kondabolu, a New York–born comedian who is the child of Indian-American immigrants. The scene in Sunday’s Simpsons episode was clearly a response to Kondabolu.

#TheSimpsons completely toothless response to @harikondabolu #TheProblemWithApu about the racist character Apu:



"Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect... What can you do?" pic.twitter.com/Bj7qE2FXWN — Soham (@soham_burger) April 9, 2018

When I first heard about the film, I was dismissive. Like Kondabolu, I’m part of the desi diaspora and a Simpsons fan. I was born in India and grew up in an immigrant milieu in Toronto. My family even ran a convenience store in the 1970s and early 1980s. I never had a problem with Apu. I recognized he was a stereotype, of course, but saw him as affectionately done, in the manner of some of the broadly depicted Jewish characters on Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Nor am I the only desi who is indulgent of Apu. Some writers have been similarly inclined to give Apu a pass.

“Kondabolu’s complaints are not without some basis,” radiologist Pradheep J. Shanker wrote this week in National Review. But he insists that racism to Indian Americans pre-dates Apu, and would exist even if the character had never existed. “I grew up largely before The Simpsons ever aired. Was I exempt from the random racial epithet? Of course not. And this is where Kondabolu’s complaints are so ridiculous. Racists and bigots will find something to use to denigrate the ones they hate, regardless of the available source material.”

