Via DailyKos, I came across this ad, in the current Arkansas Senatorial Primary race. Bill Halter is a Democratic challenger to the sitting Democratic Senator, Blanche Lincoln. The ad is technically sponsored by the Arkansas Chamber of Congress, not Blanche Lincoln’s campaign.
You thought it was dead, didn’t you? Nope, the “our jobs are going to India” bogie is also still alive and well in American politics.
According to Kos, the backstory is that Halter was once on the Board of Directors of a firm called WebMethods Inc., which had opened an office in Bangalore some years ago, though there’s no evidence that the opening of that office actually cost any American jobs. This type of ad is a bad precedent, since it basically puts anyone who has run a high-tech company or a financial services company at risk of attack.
The ad is also clearly a form of “race-baiting” — a cousin of the nasty kind of racial attack ad that would prominently feature some sort of threatening black person (sometimes a criminal) to scare white voters. But apparently it’s not Willie Horton with which these folks are trying to scare people in Arkansas, it’s smiling middle-class people in Bangalore!
Here’s Bill Halter’s website.
Haven’t read all the comments…so if this is already pointed out sorry; but I really don’t think the “Indians” depicted in the ad are real Indians? To me they look like somehow different…could be completely wrong, and maybe just hoping that no desi would participate in this ad.
@EkHindustani – Funny but true.
I will tell you this – there are Indians in USA who are raised and (‘highly’) educated in India, standing up for the rights for immigrants from Mexico. They join the campus chapter of Amnesty international and go all bombastic on gitmo and what not. Later on during unguarded moments – they complain about “immigrants” (i.e. Indians from poorer parts of India) squatting in their beautiful city Mumbai/Kolkotta/Bangaluru/… And look … even I am bitching about bitching Indians. 🙂 Lol
@nyx
Hope you are not holding your breath for that informative post. The dude defaulted on loans and god knows who all he screwed, he was all set to start a new life in homeland which means he was pretty much on a beaten track – his time square detour was the only anomaly.
What an awful ad. I’m glad there’s been at least some push back in Arkansas against it. In any case, something is off in the way the ad looks (besides the racist message). It was probably produced with stock footage, with the actors thanking Bill Halter superimposed on the footage. They probably acted in front of a blue screen here in the US, which explains the American accents.
I’ve noticed that Amardeep doesn’t post on anything except brownn vs. white crap. What a big racist!
jyotsana, those were not Indians. I work with many people from India. They looked nothing like the people with whom I work. They looked either hispanic or gasp boot blacked.
Because Chinese are not the “other”? Chinese are very integrated into the America what with every other male in this country wanting to marry a China girl.
Wait, what? Chinese (and Japanese, and Koreans) are very much still the ‘other’ in Western societies. What to think of the Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts depicting racist caricatures of East Asians? Or ‘me love you long time’? I rarely see East Asians in films who are not portrayed in a very simplistic manner, if they are not already replaced by white people (21 and Avatar: The Last Airbender anyone?). Or do you think orientalism and exotification is better than being invisible?