IF STEREOTYPING OFFENDS US, WHY NOT POOR WHITES?

By Juan Montoya
You've seen them.
The ads for Direct TV feature a backward, ignorant, "settler" family who are too dumb to switch from cable to Direct TV.
The message is that if you want to be like them, you will remain with cable. If you don't you will switch to Direct TV.
In the ads the family is portrayed making things by hand, farming using a horse-drawn plow, and the woman is washing by hand. A little boy years for modern Direct TV while his skinflint, backwards father idealizes his backwardness.
They are ignorant, backward, old-fashioned, plain dumb and set in their ways.
Now, think about this. What if the family featured on these ads was a family of Mexicans (Hispanic), Blacks, Asian, Jews, LGBT, etc. and were portrayed the same way that the white family is portrayed by Direct TV?
Wouldn't there be an outcry and some anti-defamation league protesting in front of the Direct TV headquarters?
As someone who has borne the brunt of stereotypes all my life, I find it particularly offensive that this group – poor whites – are stereotyped in this manner. Yes, perhaps there are people like this is the backwoods and hollows of the South or even in some Midwestern states. They are called hillbillies, rednecks, trailer park trash, etc.
You know, the way we are called spicks, Meskins, beaners, etc.
And the way Blacks are called their odious names.
And the way Asians are called chinks, etc.
Does this make it alright for a national corporation to defame an entire group?
When I was a migrant worker in Michigan, my family often worked with poor whites harvesting cherries, apples, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, and whatever crop there was available. I can tell you from first-hand experience that many are hard-working, diligent, family-oriented people just like us.
That they carry racial prejudices about other people is also true. But, hey, so does everyone, don't we?
When I was in the military, I got a chance to live in close proximity with many of them from different states from throughout the United States. They are different than we are, that's all.
No race has a monopoly on ignorance, prejudice, intelligence, or economic disadvantage. In fact, there are more poor whites on welfare simply because they are the majority. But does this give a national corporation a right to defame the entire group to sell a few Direct TV subscriptions?
Personally, I am offended when I see this ad.
We have grown too  myopic and self-centered when it comes to racial stereotyping. It seems that since we as minorities have been the target of this unfair characterization of our groups, it's alright when some other group is targeted.
Remember the Baake affirmative action decision? The case was about a white applicant to the University of California medical school who was denied admission and minority students with lower scores were admitted because of his race. The Supreme Court narrowly decided to allow race to be a criterion for admission but said setting quotas was illegal.
During that trial, it was found that the University had formed a committee to determine whether students would be admitted under the schools' affirmative action program. All of the committee members were minorities and not one disadvantaged white student was allowed through the program.
The minorities which made up the committee – and the university – simply assumed that economic and social disadvantage meant minority.
At that time, I commented to Rudy Acuña, the author of Occupied America who at the time was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, that I could see the day when minorities would be marching in the streets for the rights of poor white students.
There is a personal angle to this, too. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, Mexican-Americans were imbued with a movement of self pride called Chicanismo. At times, this newly-discovered sense of culture spilled over into dislike ot even hate for the oppressor, the white dominant culture and its institutions of oppression. I confess I sometimes fell over that edge. But when two of my sisters married white men and my nieces and nephews hugged my leg, as children often do, all sense of hatred melted away. I could not hate my own flesh and blood. And besides, what fault did they have?   
Now is the time to step forward and say that defamation of any group is wrong..
I feel offended by the portrayal of poor, obviously uneducated white people just as if it were Black, Hispanic, Asians, who were the brunt of the discrimination. Next time you laugh at the Direct TV commercial, imagine that it is your group's image that is being exploited for the profit of a corporation.