(Rep. Hoekstra - R/MI) Latest Candidate To Run Xenophobic Ad Showing Prejudiced Chinese Stereotype
In what has become a sad, bipartisan exercise, an increasing number of campaigns are using xenophobic Chinese stereotypes in advertisements to try to gin up nativist sentiment among voters.
During the 2010 campaign, then-Rep. Zack Space (D-OH) began the recent trend with an ad supposedly depicting a parade in China — the actual footage was of Asian Americans in San Francisco — and a tagline “thanking” his opponent: “As they say in China, xie xie Mr. Gibbs!” An anti-spending front group, Citizens Against Government Waste, followed suit with a cryptic ad raising the prospect that our national debt would cause America’s economic downfall and soon force us to work for the Chinese. Most reprehensibly, Mark Amodei ran an ad in a Nevada special election depicting a Chinese military invasion in front of the U.S. Capitol building as it flies the Chinese flag.
Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), currently running to unseat Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), is the latest to try to stoke anti-Chinese fears for political gain. His new ad, entitled “Now”, shows a woman in what’s meant to be rural China speaking broken English and thanking Stabenow because “we take your jobs.” “Your economy get very weak, ours get very good,” the woman says. “Hoekstra’s mock website hosting the ad features Chinese characters adorned with two Chinese flags. Watch it:
These ads are not-so-subtly intended to provoke nativist fears, and do so by purveying unfortunate stereotypes. Yet despite Hoekstra’s fear-mongering, the fact remains that China still holds just 9.5 percent of the United States’ debt, over four times less than what American bondholders own.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/02/06/419235/pete-hoekstra-xenophobic-ad/
The portrayal of a young Asian woman speaking broken English in a Super Bowl ad being run by U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra against Michigan incumbent Debbie Stabenow is bringing charges of racial insensitivity.
GOP consultant Nick De Leeuw flat-out scolded the Holland Republican for the ad. “Stabenow has got to go. But shame on Pete Hoekstra for that appalling new advertisement,” De Leeuw wrote on his Facebook page Sunday morning. “Racism and xenophobia aren’t any way to get things done.”
The nonpartisan Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote group’s Michigan chapter said it was “deeply disappointed” by the ad, noting that the Asian-American community is a major contributor to Michigan’s economy. ... “It is very disturbing that Mr. Hoekstra’s campaign chose to use harmful negative stereotypes that intrinsically encourage anti-Asian sentiment,” the group said in a statement.
Democrats were quick to challenge the premise of the ad, referring to Hoekstra’s 18 years in the U.S. House and the fact that he joined a Washington-based law and lobbying firm last year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/hoekstra-super-bowl-ad-raises-racial-sensitivity-questions-with-language-references-to-china/2012/02/05/gIQAabZNsQ_story.html
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It is hard to decide what is the most despicable thing about senatorial Republican hopeful Pete Hoekstra’s Superbowl ad attacking rival Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. The ad has a Chinese young woman speaking broken English and gloating about the indebtedness of the US to China and the export of US jobs to China. Given the ugly history in Michigan of Asian-bashing over economic competition in the automobile industry and the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit, Hoekstra’s ad is incendiary and has offended right-thinking people in both major political parties.
Although the controversy that ensued mostly focused on the scapegoating of Asians and Asian-Americans for current US economic difficulties, there are other heavy duty issues in the ad.
The current US deficit was primarily the work of the Republican majority under George W. Bush, as this chart demonstrates:
Hoekstra and his colleagues voted to go to war with Iraq, which was an unfunded war, most of the so far $1 trillion price tag being borrowed. Hoekstra and his colleagues voted to cut taxes on the rich, much reducing revenues. And Hoekstra and his colleagues voted for an unfunded Medicare prescription benefit. The tax cuts on the rich have gone on raising the deficit every year since enacted by hundreds of millions of dollars. Hoekstra voted for the TARP bailout. Iraq was still costing billions in 2011. And the Medicare prescription benefit likewise. Hoekstra’s votes are an ongoing budget disaster, long after he got out of government.
http://www.juancole.com/2012/02/hoekstra-blames-everyone-but-himself-for-the-deficits-he-voted-for.html
