Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktAll of Michigan talk radio is a buzz with praise and criticism of Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra’s Super Bowl ad. He’s running against long time incumbant Debbie Stabenow and well…
To summarize, we have an asian woman…riding a bike…. through a rice paddy… and speaking in less than ideal english…with “asian” music playing in the background.
Effective?? Racist?? Offensive?? Politically Corageous?? I report…you decide.
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All Things in Moderation 
Racist and offensive. And not even funny.
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I did not think it was racist. Did it stereotype “Asians” as babes on bicycles whose English beats my Vietnamese, or what?
But I thought it was heavy handed, and sophomoric. “Spend-it-now”? “Spend-it-not”?
Meh.
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I didn’t find it racist either, but it is being criticized all over the place for its portrayal of asians, including by many on the Right. I thought the “Spend-it-now” was somewhat clever, but the “Spend-it-not” was a bridge too far.
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I’m offended.
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The pidgen English is where it goes off the rails. She might as well be saying “Me love you long time, Joe.”
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I can’t even see it, and I’m offended that a politician is boneheaded enough to run that as a political ad. 😉
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I take Mike’s word as definitive. Seriously.
Ashot, I have often been less than tonally qualified on these matters. I know discrimination when I see it, but often miss what is socially offensive, as opposed to what is legally verboten.
YJ, that makes sense, too. I marvel when none-European language speakers have a basic grasp of English. I have clients of Indian and Pakistani and Vietnamese backgrounds and their native tongues are not cognate to English in any way. I do not think I could learn them in any compact period of time. So I am personally deferential to what you refer to as “pidgen”. The babe-on-the bike was not supposed to even be living in an English speaking country. But if I get out of my own skin I see your point.
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Ashot, I have often been less than tonally qualified on these matters.
I think whether someone is offended or not is a pretty personal decision. I do think we lawyers sometimes are corrupted on matters like this. I certainly would not say someone is overreacting if they think this ad is racist or find it particularly offensive. In other cases I would urge someone to back down on that opinion, but I think this ad is bad enough that yelo and mike have plenty to back up their feelings.
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ashot:
I think whether someone is offended or not is a pretty personal decision.
Sure, and Hoekstra is clearly not trying to win the vote of my demographic. East Asian-Americans probably make up less than 2% of the total population in MI.
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I’m wondering for whom this is designed? Is the average MI voter going to see this ad, guffaw at the Debbie spend-it-now pun and think “Yeah! Hoekstra’s my guy!”
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Is the average MI voter going to see this ad, guffaw at the Debbie spend-it-now pun and think “Yeah! Hoekstra’s my guy!”
Probably not, but they may think we are owned by China because Stabenow spends money and “Yeah! Hoekstra’s my guy!” On top of all the other problems with the ad, it also makes the argument that jobs are shipped to China because we are spending so much and borrowing money from China. If there is any connection between the two, it would be the reverse of what the ad argues.
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bsimon:
I’m wondering for whom this is designed
The cynic in me thinks the ad was designed to play the xenophobia card, bringing back the anti-Asian furor in Michigan from the 1980s when it was about Japanese car imports. Let’s hope that someone doesn’t have to lose their life over it again.
It’s not a “Hoekstra’s my guy!” ad, but a “Stabenow’s no good for real Americans” ad.
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