[Mpls] Chino billboards come down. Thanks, List members.

[Lynnell Mickelsen]

From Jeremy Iggers column in today's Strib Taste section, page T6

Bye-bye Billboards:

"Chino Latino's billboards boasting that "Our happy hour is cheaper than a Bangkok brothel" are gone, thanks to a protest campaign of calls and e-mails complaining that the message was racist and trivialized the exploitation of women. "We made a mistake, "owner Phil Roberts said. "We are not insensitive; we have taken the billboards down, and we apologize."

Lynnell Mickeslen adds:

Thanks to all List members who called, wrote or e-mailed on this one. Two nights ago, at the dinner table, I was telling my kids about how e-mail activism works. I told them I got my first alert on these billboards from a e-mail list called Brown Tones. (Which was started by Issues List member Brandon Campos.) I then called Chino Latino, asked if the billboards were really up (they were) and explained to the executive chef that I had lived in Southeast Asia, been in Bangkok and there were a whole lot of kids, barely 12 years old and even younger, working in those brothels. I had seen it with my own eyes. So SE Asia brothels really weren't these hilarious, yuck-it-up kind of situations that make for fun advertising. The chef was polite, but unimpressed.

So, I told the kids at the dinner table, I added this little experience to the first alert and sent the whole thing to the Minneapolis Issues List. And quickly started hearing from folks.

My three boys started laughing. Our 17-year-old German exchange student looked confused. "Let me explain it," said my 15-year-old son. "She sent this e-mail to something like a thousand people. And not just any thousand people. She sent it to the thousand people who might actually do something about it. If you're a business owner or a politician, these are the LAST one thousand people you want receiving that e-mail. Because they'll come after you. "

Out of the mouth of a teenage boy. And not a bad compliment for List members.

Lynnell Mickelsen
Ward 13, Linden Hills









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