Talk about a lack of self-awareness. Last week on ABC’s The View, host Sunny Hostin criticized former UN envoy Nikki Haley for going by “Nikki” and not her first name, Nimrata, in an effort to, by Hostin’s lights, hide her ethnicity. Yet maybe the host should go by Glass House Hostin.
After all, Nikki is Haley’s actual middle name.
While Sunny is for Hostin a fake one — her real first name is Asunción.
What’s more, unsaid in the ensuing debate is that while Haley may not be hiding her ethnicity, assimilating by adopting names congruent with your new land is status quo in culturally cohesive (i.e., healthy) nations and could even be considered good manners. Whatever the case, politeness certainly isn’t reigning between the two women: Haley responded to Hostin’s hostility by calling her a “racist.”
The Independent has the story, writing:
Hostin took a potshot at Ms Haley when political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin said she was an “incredibly effective governor in South Carolina” over her potential 2024 presidential run.
“There are some of us that can be chameleons and decide not to embrace our ethnicities so that we can pass, so that we don’t have to go by…” Hostin said on Tuesday’s edition of the daytime political talk show, asking her real name.
She was quickly interjected by co-host Sara Haines who pointed out that Hostin “goes by a different name” herself.
Hostin whose real name is Asunción Cummings “Sunny” Hostin said it was difficult for some Americans to pronounce Asunción because of their “under education”.
Well, it sure is charitable of Hostin to consider our pitifully benighted state. Of course, though, having difficulty pronouncing foreign names doesn’t reflect “under education” but something else: being human, which means being of a certain culture. When I spent time in Taiwan, my Chinese friend had his acquaintances call me “Shau-win”; it never occurred to me to accuse them of lacking education. Doing so would have reflected ignorance on my part, as there’s no reason to expect people to be acquainted with culturally unfamiliar names whose pronunciation may be contrary to their language norms. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
And when combating leftists, Haley may believe, do as the leftists do. Below is a tweet in which Haley responds to Hostin’s criticism, along with a short video of the host’s remarks.
Ironically, Hostin isn’t the only View host playing the name game. Whoopi Goldberg’s real name is Caryn Elaine Johnson; what’s more, with her professional name sounding Jewish, she could be accused of “appropriation.” Then there’s Joy Behar, who was born Josephine Victoria Occhiuto and still uses her ex-husband’s last name despite now being married to a different man. In an added irony, Sunny isn’t very sunny and Joy doesn’t exude much joy. But, then again, my father had a grouch of a golf buddy everyone called “Happy.”
In reality, Haley, born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, may be engaging in what Hostin, Goldberg, Behar, and other famous people regularly do: branding. And what’s in a name? It can have a great bearing on success.
I remember when, commenting on a Maine Senate race many years ago, Democratic commentator Eleanor Clift remarked about the Republican running back then (I’m paraphrasing), “With a name like Olympia Snowe, you can’t lose in Maine!” (Snowe did win her election, too.) “Nikki Haley” has a ring to it, too.
Commentator Monica Showalter provided further perspective, writing that Haley is doing what many Americans have,
which is assimilate their names into a more easily recognized name and spelling. To claim that people with Asian or African or Hispanic names are the only ones doing it (and they’re doing it wrong, according to the left) is nonsense. My own last name, “Showalter,” is an Anglicized version of the original Swiss-German name, which was either “city councilman” or “pretty forest,” with that “Sh” beginning not a German thang. While we are at it, note that the British royal family has partaken in this practice, too, shortening one of their family names from “Battenberg” to “Mountbatten” to detract from the German origins and then just tossing the matter and calling themselves “Windsor.”
For that matter, my last name, “Duke,” is a shortened Slavic one, altered by my ancestors. And if Haley does embrace her name partially or completely for the same reason my ancestors made their change — to sound more American — this should be applauded. This phenomenon’s demonization, calling it “hiding your ethnicity,” is a sign of balkanization, of a civilization coming apart at the seams. It bodes ill for our future.
As for Hostin’s lack of self-awareness, this typifies leftists because, operating emotionally, their mouths tend to be one step ahead of their brains — and reflect their hearts. Moreover, they really do often feel they deserve a special dispensation from the norms governing others.
This is partially why they can rail against “carbon” emissions but buzz around on private jets. What the psychology behind this may be was expressed by journalist Peter Schweizer in 2008. Explaining research showing that liberals are actually greedier than conservatives, he wrote that such “progressives, sure that they are not overly interested in money and possessions, believe they are then free to acquire them.”
They also may feel free to change an “ethnic sounding” name while criticizing others who do so because, being “superior” people (read: supercilious), they’re not bigoted or afraid to be who they are. They’re not doing it for the rubes’ reasons, but for the “right” ones.
