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(h/t Daily Kos) A strange Asian-themed ad has cropped up in the Arkansas Senate primary battle between incumbent Blanche Lincoln and challenger Bill Halter.
The spot accuses Halter of outsourcing jobs to India in his business career. It's a rather bizarre commercial that features South Asian actors saying "Thank you, Bill Halter" in stereotypical accents against a phony backdrop of Indian street scenes and vaguely "Indian"-sounding music. (The spot is funded by a group called Americans for Job Security.)
Daily Kos calls the ad "racist" and "sickening." It certainly makes me uncomfortable to watch it; it circulates pretty crude caricatures of Indians and seems aimed at tagging Halter with some kind of sinister "Asian" influence. But what do you think? Is this ad racist?
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If it looks, smells, sounds racist, it probably is. Think about how you would feel if the ad depicted Chinese people speaking with thick accents and saying the same thing.
I just hope those American actors get a really really big TV or awesome summer vacation out of the deal.
No kidding. I'm going to suggest they donate half their earnings to APAP.
Ugh. Well, this commercial certainly doesn't do anything good for TV's reputation for being a cesspool of mis-information and caricatures of us colored folks.
They should have at least hired Indian actors. These accents are so bad I am convinced they picked up a few Latinos at the Arizona stateline who were willing to work cheap. After all, these Latinos need many, many jobs. Thank you, Thank you, Bill Halter.
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