he wasn't some tech billionaire with white concubines and in shadow control of some former "colonizer" nation, so to the inferiority complex haveing pajeets (protip: they all have that complex, even the "well off ones") that had the modicum of sway and power to get him cancelled, he was a "racist stereotype" (even if he embodied nothing but good and admirable traits that all men should strive to have). he wasn't portrayed as some indian "god among men", so it triggered the one's who could get him cancelled, who saw themselves in such an over-inflated and god-complex light, and saw anything other as being a racist caricature an butt of all jokes, just because he was working class and a somewhat realistic portrayal of what a fresh of the boat indian was like in the 80's. apu did nothing wrong.
United States