TRANSFORMERS 2 RACISM CONTROVERSY

I never really thought the first Transformers was racist, until a kid in my public speaking classes dedicated his whole speech to it. Then I was enlightened. The character of Jazz was a racist caricature and killing him only perpetuated the Hollywood tradition of killing the blacks first. {Previous Transformers Post}

But anytime I spoke on the matter, I was criticized for being sensitive and looking too far into it. They're robots and robots can't be black no matter how much jive they talk. 

Well do I feel vindicated now. Here is an Associated Press article discussing how two new characters in Transformers 2 do just about the same thing. They're names are Skid and Mudflap. They constantly brawl and bicker, rap,use street slang, wear gold teeth, and admit to not being able to read. The characters aren't integral to the story and are only there for comic relief, which is further insulting. 

When asked Michael Bay claimed they never had any real direction in the characters and only went that route because the voice actors were headed there. But Reno Wilson who voiced Mudflap said he was told the alien robots learned about human culture through the internet.

"It's an alien who uploaded information from the Internet and put together the conglomeration and formed this cadence, way of speaking and body language that was accumulated over X amount of years of information and that's what came out."

Thus the reasoning is the alien twins learned from the internet that this is how black people talk and are thus imitating that. How does that not sound offensive?

I appreciate a good summer blockbuster just as much as everyone (maybe not to the fanatical degree as everyone) but when I see my race, or any race, being characterized in a way akin to the Minstrel days, and then covered up under the lame excuse that they're robots, I get upset. This is still perpetuating the problem of negative racial stereotypes in Hollywood films and it's even worse because the average viewer won't be critical enough to see it. 

I'm interested in what other people think? Is this racism? I adamantly believe it is but has everyone else been convinced? Am I really alone in this?

TWO YOUTUBE PERSPECTIVES:

SPILL.COM ARTICLE ON THE ISSUE