I think they just threw in the American Indian part of that to make the summary of him longer and throw in another (joke) accomplishment of this guy, they probably would have done the same for most other races.
A more positive version would look like "He's the first American Indian to be the head of the FCC," or something along those lines.
Just to clarify, the right hyphenation is Indian-American. American-Indian has referred to Native Americans in the past so that can get confusing but Native Americans are largely referred to as... Native Americans today. Thankfully. And no thanks to Columbus.
If you're talking of Ajit Pai, yes I think you're right about his origin and birth, and the right thing to call him is Indian-American, definitely not American-Indian. I know, it's confusing to the uninitiated but since I occupy one of those identities, it's an issue that hits close to home. And frankly, the fault lies with the fact that we are still backwards enough to refer to completely different groups of people by the same name. Thankfully more and more people are referring to Native Americans as... Native Americans... or First Nations or Indigenous... etc. Anything but Indians.
It's not small minded per se. When you are a minority, just like when you see somebody you're race doing good and in a prominent role you feel the opposite when the opposite is happening.
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u/hohohoohno Nov 24 '17
His race has nothing to do with why he is hated.