The facts
The Department of Homeland Security posted Transformers-themed material this week as part of a campaign against illegal commercial drivers. One graphic, the New York Times reported, showed a bearded man in a bandanna facing Optimus Prime with a DHS seal, plus the line “Get off our roads, you don’t know how to drive Mr. Singh.” DHS took the post down Thursday morning.
Critics said it stigmatized Sikhs. Singh is a common Sikh (and Hindu) last name. Hasbro put out a statement that Optimus Prime “represents humility, leadership, compassion and justice,” that the posts used his likeness “without permission,” and that they “do not represent the Transformers brand or Hasbro.”
Our take
The federal government used a children’s robot to call a brown trucker a bad driver and then got cease-and-desisted by a toy company. That sentence is the country.
You can think CDL fraud is real and still notice that “Mr. Singh” is a racial punchline with a government logo. You can think the post was based and still notice Hasbro does not want its plastic messiah doing ICE cosplay. Autobots were aliens, by the way. The timeline already made that joke. It was funnier than the poster.
This is what happens when a communications shop is run by people who think a meme is a statute. Post the robot. Eat the ratio. Delete in the morning.
