"Asian Invaders" and Michigan Congressman Joe Knollenberg

Michigan Congressman Joe Knollenberg (R-9th district) had a post on his official government website entitled "Protecting our Families from Asian Invaders," later changed to "Protecting our Families from Harmful Products", which was about a recently passed House Bill that gives stronger oversight of foreign imports to The Consumer Product Safety Commission. There was an understandable uproar over the original title from the local Asian-American community (see copy of email below), as there should be from everyone.

This is not just some semantic quibble, for example if the original title had been "Protecting our families from harmful Asian [or Chinese] Products". No, this represents a dangerous Asian-bashing mindset that has no place in our elected officials or their staffs. Just exactly who or what is "invading"? Are we being targeted by foreign exporters? In fact the Chinese have taken draconian measures against those responsible for oversight. "Asian Invaders" is just an updated version of the "Yellow Peril". This type of archaic "tone-deafness" is just one of the many reasons that Joe Knollenberg should be voted out of office.

I have uploaded a copy of Knollenberg's original post.

Here is a comment made to my blog at freep.com, followed by my response:

[deleted] wrote:

I highly doubt that Joe Knollenberg wrote the headline or even saw it. I'm sure that a staff member presented him a rough outline of what they were going to do and he approved. It is getting ridiculous that a simple mistake now a days is being blown way out of proportion because it rubs one or two people the wrong way.

How many really outstanding people refuse to get into politics because they don't want to be subjected to this politically correct nonsense?

You want Joe out fine, don't vote for him, but if this is one of your reasons then I think you should reevaluate your priorities.