confucius say shut up

Last week, a Salt Lake City-based car dealership stopped running a series of television commercials involving a Confucius-like character, after receiving complaints from at least two Asian American groups: TV spots pulled after complaints of ethnic insult. In the ads, a person would ask a character representing Confucius a question, and a voice in broken English would answer. Ugh. I know a regional Honda dealership usually doesn't have a lot of money and resources for advertising... but come on. How many times have we seen this ridiculous stereotypical scenario, or its many variations, played out in countless TV commercials? University of Utah's Asian American Student Association and the Utah Organization of Chinese-Americans sent letters of protest to Ken Garff Automotive Group, saying they found the commercials offensive and wanted the ads taken off the air. Here's a copy of their letter. Fortunately, upon hearing the complaints, the company's advertising president immediately pulled the ads. Of course, one hopes they would have had the sense to avoid coming up with such an idiotic commercial in the first place. The ignorance is truly aggravating...