How To Sell Used Cars To African-Americans
02/07/2012
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Taking Judge Richard Posner's skeptical side in the debate with Malcolm Gladwell over the ethical rectitude of car salesmen, a commenter calls attention to these catchy low-rent commercials from the good old days of the Bush Bubble. Starring Washington D.C.-Baltimore area pro athletes like LaVar Arrington and Ray Lewis, they were hugely successful at increasing sales at Easterns Motors, a D.C. used car lot chain run by cousins Robert and Eiman Bassam:  

At Eastern Motors/Your job’s your credit!

At Eastern Motors/Your job’s your credit!
Fords, Hondas, Chevys, Beamers,/And minivans
Over 600 cars, trucks, SUVs/ Are you listenin’ man?
Let Eastern Motors/Put you in a car today!
Let Eastern Motors/Finance it all the way!

And here is a civic-minded commercial from Easterns educating its black customer base on how to negotiate to get the best price possible. Make sure to act aloof about the car you really want in front of the salesman! 


The commenter adds:

BTW, as you can probably tell from the commercial, Eastern Motors is like the Countrywide of car dealers. The founder and CEO, who is a "gold-chainer" type, sounds like Angelo Mozilo:
The would-be buyers he spoke with were looking for quality used cars, and many had been turned down by area dealerships. For Bassam, the trend was too obvious to ignore. “We realized very quickly that the subprime market was underserved and mistreated,” he says."

Fortunately, these days we all understand that immigration is sacred. What could be more morally uplifting than the sight of people from all over the world — from the Levant to Korea — coming to America to outsmart and rip off African-Americans, to reduce black American citizens to debt peonage?

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