This has been making the rounds via news sites like CNN (see the above video) - and you can also catch an article at The Beaufort Gazette - but in his attempt to help his failing business, dumbass O.C. Welch decides to go where everyone else has decided to go in the past - Asian bashing:
"On them Japanese cars, even when they're brand new, how come they don't smell like a new car?," Welch asks in his ad. "All those cars are rice-ready, they're not road-ready. When you gonna wake up?"
Are you fucking kidding me? Rice-ready?
I don't have any problems with people focusing on the U.S. - obviously since I'm Asian American I want my country to be doing well economically - but I have a problem when dumbasses like O.C. Welch keep on using the excuse that our downturn, recession, depression - whatever you want to call it - is the fault of Japanese car makers.
It's old. It's tired. And invariably you always get the racist statement that's thrown in there as well, which directly affects Asian Americans here.
I mean do I have to bring up Vincent Chin?
Isn't it funny how we never hear statements like "On them German cars, even when they're brand new, how come they don't smell like a new car? All those cars are gas chamber kraut ready, they're not road-ready. When you gonna wake up?"
It's perfectly fine for The Hoff and Klum to get on T.V. and sell Fahrvergnügen but the moment we're feeling a pinch in the auto industry who do people look to blame?
I know it's not The Hoff and his people.
And Buying American Really Means?
Now don't get me wrong - support American business (and that means American business of all colors) - but in a lot of ways - especially in regard to the auto industry - we need to start thinking about a new mantra to roll out in addition to "Buy American" - because it's a little outdated (just like O.C. Welch).
How about something more along the lines of Made By Americans?
O.C. Welch probably doesn't know - or even care - that a lot of import cars are produced here in the U.S.
He probably doesn't know that by 2010 Toyota alone will have about 21,000 employees - American workers - in its manufacturing facilities here in the U.S., and that between Toyota, Mitsubishi, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Isuzu, and Subaru that these "rice-ready" car makers create jobs for about 100,000 Americans right now - and that's a lot of jobs.
So buying American and supporting the American economy?
It doesn't mean that you have to buy a Ford anymore.
You can roll in your Honda, Toyota, Nissan - whatever your flavor - and know that the car you're driving actually does help our economy.
