Racial slur in dealership ad prompts firing

[reuber1]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/5184015.html

Wow. How stupid do you have to be, or did he think he'd not get away with it?

The offending ad is here...see how long it takes you to find the problem.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/reuber1/image_5910991.jpg

[Tsmalldon]

Not cool especially if your hispanic

[budafist]

Never heard of that term - we don't have many Hispanic people here. And here's little old me wanted to get all offended and stuff.

[teniworks]

Totally, understand where you are coming from reuber1. I don't know what's worse the ad itself or the comments about it. Sometimes I think that people are just itching to get a rise out of someone however they can.

[Tsmalldon]

I heard this term alot when I was in school. Its not the most common racial slur you will hear, but it is offensive none the less

[reuber1]

Given that this place is down in Dallas, Texas, you can imagine a lot of Hispanic customers got this ad.

Tsmalldon, I hear you on that. When I was in school, a large amount of the student body was very cavalier about using those kind of terms, and it disgusted me to no end. Many people were self-admitted racists, and seemed to take pride in that (as in, "I'm a racist...SO?").

[cornfed]

That's pretty offensive. However, I find the layout of that ad to be equally, if not more, offensive. That's a really ugly ad.

[frankster]

I'd heard the term before on TV, but didn't really know where it came from. Made me go and have a look and I had no idea that in the 1950s the US government had an "operation wetback" that resulted in over a million people being deported, including their American born children and often because they "looked mexican" and couldn't provide papers. Wow! :eek:

[morea]

tacky.

[mattbing]

What's brutal about it is that racism must be so rampant down there, that they probably thought of it.

[PrintDriver]

I think you'll find it is a term used more in anger than as racism. I don't condone slurs to describe a certain group of people but this term is used to describe people doing something illegal in one of the states bearing the brunt of the illegal activity and they are tired of it and the lack of Federal support. I certainly wouldn't take the term to mean or include all people who come from Mexico that did so legally.

That said, the ad is tactless as well as tacky. One has to wonder how something like that got by the higher-ups. Oh wait. It's a car ad... LOL.

[Blanket_509]

Why would the word "wet-backs" have anything to do with Mexicans? I'm pretty sure Mexico has been physically attached to the US for at least a few million years.

[reuber1]

I think you'll find it is a term used more in anger than as racism. I don't condone slurs to describe a certain group of people but this term is used to describe people doing something illegal in one of the states bearing the brunt of the illegal activity and they are tired of it and the lack of Federal support. I certainly wouldn't take the term to mean or include all people who come from Mexico that did so legally.
From the people I've heard use this term, it is pretty much an all engrossing description of Hispanics in general.

Good lord, some of the comments in that article take hyperbole to a totally different spectrum.

[Jriddim]

wow couldnt just say sticky back...

[jessicam]

Here in AZ I hear it used to describe people from Mexico in general. The term comes from people having swum across the Rio Grande to get here.