He told BuzzFeed News that his so-called arrogant demeanor was his response to the instructions he received backstage to “move the show along” and implied in a Facebook post that comments reducing his behavior to arrogance are racist.
“Racism doesn’t always look like a tiki torch held aloft or a swastika on an armband. Sometimes it looks like a double standard in defining ‘arrogance’ or other undesirable qualities,” he wrote. “Sometimes it looks like projecting ‘aggressiveness’ into neutral behavior.”
Raut said his love for quizzing began when he was a child. His parents, who moved from India to New York City before he was born, praised him for memorizing and reciting facts like the states and their capitals.
“I think subconsciously, my father encouraged it because felt like he needed to show everyone what a good American his son was,” he said.
The Jeopardy clip from the show’s official Facebook page featured Raut quickly answering a question about the Statue of Liberty, which he referred to by its official name, “Liberty Enlightening the World.” Host Ken Jennings jokingly called him a “show off,” a phrase that commenters repeated.
“I don’t know why people were so shocked that I knew the name of the most popular statue in the city I was born in,” he said. “Why does that make me, as they said, ‘the worst kind of smart person?’”
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/kelseyweekman/jeopardy-facebook-posts-yogesh-raut
