7/29/2004 » Politics

The Michigan GOP has this ‘parody’ home page up until end of day today (via Ennis):

The text at left is just English in a Punjabi font. It reads, ‘I have no idea what this is saying but for some reason I find that is very funny and I can’t stop.’

They’re trying to highlight the outsourcing issue, but all they’re really doing is putting their ignorance on full display. Basically, someone decided to type in some random text in English and change the font to Punjabi. And then the same idiot had the devastatingly original insight that hey, other languages sure are funny-lookin’!

• It’s the wrong language. The main language of India is Hindi, not Punjabi, and the high-tech regions speak Kannada and Telugu.
• It’s gibberish. They didn’t bother to ask any of the hundreds of thousands of desis in the Detroit suburbs to actually do a translation.
• It’s the wrong symbol. The Taj Mahal is an ancient tourist symbol in a non-high tech region. But showing off sleek new high-tech campuses in Bangalore wouldn’t serve their purpose.
• Politically conflicted. The national Republican party is pro-outsourcing, so this is a strange way of making a point.

Why am dissecting this waste of electrons? Because it’s damn culturally disrespectful. Can you imagine a state political party posting gibberish in Spanish or Hebrew? The authors of this page are aggressively ignorant, proudly provincial (they even issued a press release about it), reveling in their anti-internationalism, and secure in their knowledge that desis in the U.S., small in numbers, won’t do shit about it.

But you’ll prove them wrong, right, my pretties, my preciousss, my winged minions? Use their email form to send a quick complaint. Takes just 30 seconds.

Anna and Daily Kos have more.

Update (7:20pm ET): Blink and it’s gone, they took the page down earlier than they’d promised. Maybe complaining had an effect. Still, please be a dear and send a complaint.

Update (8:54pm ET): Well, at least they’re responsive.

Subject: RE: Feedback from MIGOP.org Website

 

I feel bad the website was construed as offensive.  We tried to make clear that we were not intending the site as an insult towards anyone.  Our goal was to draw awareness to the hypocrisy of the Democrats, not offend anyone''''''''s culture.

Chris Paolino
Communications Director
Michigan Republican Party