"Where'd you get that sandwich?"

It's a Taco Bell commercial, which I've seen a few times, most recently at 4.20 pm on Monday, May 3, 2010, on the Spike Channel.

A white man is walking along with some kind of sandwich. [It is necessary to identify race in these commercials, because you would never see minorities cast in these types of commericals. Just as you never see them cast in those home alarm commercials, where some guy sees a woman alone in her home and breaks in, only to be frightened off by the home alarm. Yeah, right. Try to have a black man break into a white woman's house...and you know there'd be an uproar. Well, at least they don't have white men breaking into black women's houses.]

Anyway, a white man is walking along with some kind of sandwich. Another white guy yells out in a vicious tone, "Hey, where'd you get that sandwich?" There's dramatic music. Is there going to be a fight, a showdown, between these two people. Did the one guy steal the other guy's sandwich, and for that he deserves to die?

The guy with the sandwich turns around and walks up to the bully, unafraid. "It's not a sandwich, it's a tortada."

Then the bully says, more conciliatory, "Where'd you get that... tortada?"

And I watch this and I wonder to myself, exactly what kind of message is this supposed to give to the audience? That it's okay for a total stranger to accost another total stranger walking along the street, in such rude tones? That tough is cool? What?