Bobby Jindal channeled comedian Richard Pryor on Monday when asked about a portrait depicting him with light skin: "You mean I'm not white?"
As ABC News reported, Jindal, the nation's first Indian-American governor, was confronted about the painting at a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor in Washington, D.C.
The portrait, which hangs in the capitol building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was circulated last week by a blogger, and generated some local buzz on social media.
The blogger erroneously reported that the oddly light-skinned depiction of Jindal was his official gubernatorial portrait, and many people soon accused the governor of intentionally commissioning such a portrait of himself.
The governor's chief of staff corrected the record, however, tweeting a picture of the truly official portrait – one Jindal presumably sat for.
When asked about the original portrait at the breakfast in D.C., Jindal rattled off the Pryor joke from the movie "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" to many guffaws.
"I think the left is obsessed with race," he said, striking a more serious note.
"The dumbest thing we can do is try to divide people by the color of their skin. … The left is devoid of ideas and this is, unfortunately, what they've resorted to — name calling, attacking, dividing people by the color of their skin. This is nonsense. We're all Americans."
He made it clear he did not sit for the supposedly controversial portrait.
"The painting in question is owned by a constituent. It will go back to the constituent."
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