La. Gov. Bobby Jindal's Office Defends Unofficial Portrait Against 'Race Baiting'

The office of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is firing back after some social media users criticized a painting that portrayed Jindal, who is of Indian heritage, as having a lighter skin tone.

A photo circulating on Twitter this week showed a portrait of Gov. Jindal created by Louisiana artist Tommy Yow Jr., who tells Politico that he created the unofficial portrait of the governor from a photograph.

The painting was then purchased by a local businessman who loaned the piece of artwork to Gov. Jindal's office for a short time. Although the painting is unofficial, the piece of work has mistakenly circulated Twitter as the official painting of Governor Jindal in his Governor's office.

The photo that sparked a massive amount of criticism from Twitter followers was shared by well-known Louisiana blogger Lamar White Jr. Jindal's chief of staff Kyle Plotkin then took to Twitter to defend the portrait and to accuse White of "race-baiting."

Plotkin shared a photo of Jindal's official governor portrait with the caption: "Hey @CenLamar-that's not the official portrait. Constituent loaned it.This 1's official. Thx 4 ur race-baiting tweet."

"I am now going to retweet all the liberals who are trolling me and think that the Governor looks insufficiently brown in the painting," Plotkin added.

Yow, the artist behind the painting, has decried White's "hatchet job" when taking the photo, saying he took advantage of the office's lighting to make the color of the painting appear lighter than it is.

The artist told Politico that the photo causing so much outrage was an "excellent hatchet job of using either light reflection or flash on [Jindal's] head area to even further lighten the head area of the painting."