Commercials aren't outwardly racist anymore, they're subversively racist. The company can't use real minorities and poke fun of their culture, not because of morality concerns, but rather because it might just cause a backlash in the viewing public. However, that doesn't mean the companies can't use symbolic images to represent a targeted group, and poke fun of their culture anyways. It's been done throughout history, often in printed media as caricatures. Africans have been represented as monkeys, crows, and worse. Asians were portrayed as rats, tigers, and worse. Of course back then, racism was mainstream and such images were tolerated even adored by the public. The blatantly racist images served to push the political agendas of a few by mongering fear among the masses, and succeeded partly because they were printed on the covers of very respectable and heavily circulated publications at the time. In our modern time, racism still exists, but now hides under an ocean of hypocrisy and political incorrectness. Media can't say all the racist things they believe in. The racism now lurks in subtle symbols, and the pretense of humor. Nothing has changed but the way in which things are shown.
The commercial below played during this Superbowl, using animated panda characters named "Ching-Ching" and "Ling-Ling". Of course, when there's a panda shown anywhere, someone needs to bang the gong and light the fireworks. It's understandable that the panda, being cute and benign looking, will always be used as a mascot for marketing purposes. The World Wildlife Federation, the Olympics in China, and this company called Sales Genie, now all share the same marketing ploy. But was it truly necessary to portray these pandas as business-motivated, and engrish speaking? of course not, it was just fun. A joke with no ill will intent.
