Wednesday, November 01, 2006
"In a Southern state like Tennessee,
some stereotypes still exist.
There's very clearly some racial
subtext in an ad like that."
Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington bureau of the NAACP
some stereotypes still exist.
There's very clearly some racial
subtext in an ad like that."
Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington bureau of the NAACP
Instructions:
- View these YouTube Videos (vifor the Corker and Ford campaigns. Make a note of how you feel about each before continuing on. Are there stereotypes that stand out to you? What is your initial reaction to the ads?
- Then listen to this audio article.
- Then read the following blog posts by political bloggers.
- Finally, write a blog entry of at least 350 words on the stereotyping that can be found in the ads, how they work, WHY they are being used. Note, there are more than just racial stereotypes here.
An Urban Myth, Rural Style
from: The Pesky Fly BlogHonestly, I hadn't wanted to get into this one (other than by comments appended here and there on other blogs), but this campaign against "racist" ads on the part of the Corker campaign was ridiculous from the start and is getting more so.
Want something to criticize? Then go after these dumb-ass attacks upon Harold for being a "liberal." Yep, the same approach that knocked 10 to 15 points off Corker's polling when it dominated his ads in September. It's baaaaack! (And in the wake of Ford's abject condemnation of the New Jersey court ruling yet!) You know why those ads didn't work for Corker, btw? Because every damn body knew Ford weren't no liberal! Tennesseans may be crazy; they ain't stupid.
In any case, I am moved to object to the cacophony of condescension that has descended on us Tennesseans from the likes of Chris Matthews and that Barnicle character (a plagiarist of the Jayson Blair school) who tell us that we are provably bigots now if we don't respond to the RNC's "Playboy" ad by rushing to the polls to cast a protest vote (i.e., a vote for Ford). And a lesser tsnunami had gotten started on this or that blog in relation to "jungle drums" (aka "tom-toms") under the mention of Ford in one of Corker's radio comparison ads.
Sigh! As the reinvigorated Mike Hollihan has pointed out on his blog, the same, the very same "tom toms" play under an image of Corker in a commercial presenting the candidate's health-care proposals. (Or, frankly, lack of health-care proposals. But that's another issue.)
As for the allegedly "racist" Playboy ad: Lookit, if that bimbo had been black, THAT would have been racist! It would have been saying, Stick to your own kind, black boy! Everybody knows that Harold Ford Jr. is an equal-opportunity dater. Give him his due! He dates as many white women as black women, if not more. And here's something else!: Nobody cares who he dates! This is the guy with the "white" grandmother, remember?
As for that residual lynching fever that purportedly (the purporters being all those self-satisfied media scolds) lingers in the boondocks of our primitive hinterland, needing only the sight of a slinky white woman winking at a light-skinned black man to be awakened -- give me a break!
No less an authority than our mayor, Willie Herenton, mused last week that candidate Ford has received a total pass on the race issue. Concerning Childe Harold's reception in rural Tennessee, Herenton opined, no doubt correctly: "Ford's light enough that he can go in there and be accepted by those folks. I'm realistic enough to know that I wouldn't have a chance. I'm just too dark."
The fact is, the "racism" in the Playboy ad was altogether in the eye of the beholder. Instead of trashing those hard-working Tennessee country folk whose retrograde ways are largely manifested by a shortage of Starbucks franchises in their neighborhoods, heal thyselves, physicians! Look in your own subconscious minds. That's where the connection between that sassy party gal and some lurid "racial" scenario came from. Otherwise, you would have seen what you were meant to see -- a suggestion that Harold Ford, bachelor and man-about-town par excellence, had too much of a yen for the fancy life. That's all.
Straighten up, dudes. I know that most of you are still trying to puzzle out whether to hold your noses and vote for Ford or to take a walk on the race. A few of you (I'm not supposed to reveal this) are actually going to vote for Corker. Oh, and yes, there's Chris Lugo.
Do what you will, but do it for honest reasons. Don't yield to some goofy judgmental hysteria that has taken the reddest of red red herrings and tried to make a red-state Leviathan out of it.posted by kibitzer.
Black Ford vs. White Corker in Tennessee: Who’s really playing the race card?
The Tennessee Senate race between Democratic candidate Harold Ford Jr and Republican Bob Corker is one of the most contentious in this year’s truly competitive Congressional elections. After all, for the first time in over a decade, Democrats are within striking distance of wresting control of Congress from Republicans. And Republicans know what payback mischief this portends, not only for those on Capitol Hill but also for the occupants of the White House (think corruption, and even impeachment, hearings).
Therefore, no one remotely familiar with American politics is surprised that muckraking in campaign rhetoric and TV ads has fallen to an all-time low this year. For example, the Republican candidate running against Senator Hillary Clinton in New York called her a “lesbian wildebeest” transformed by millions of dollars in plastic surgery; and liberal supporters of the white Democratic candidate running against black Republican Lt Governor Michael Steele for the Senate in Maryland published caricatures of Steele as little black Sambo and mocked him mercilessly as an Uncle Tom.
So, given this standard of campaigning, which is being played out all over the country, I was struck by the way mainstream media have reported on the inevitable racial flare-up between Ford and Corker (seen here last weekend when Ford ambushed Corker at his press conference).
Because, notwithstanding the veritable street fight their race has become, what Democrats are calling a racist slur by Corker against Ford pales in comparison to the racial antics Democrats have not only condoned but actually perpetrated in races like Steele’s and others. For example, I invite you to click here to see how these same racially-sensitive Democrats tarred and feathered Senator Joe Lieberman, a fellow Democrat no less, purportedly because he, unlike Hillary and John Kerry, was too principled in his support for the Iraq war.
But I could not have anticipated that within hours of publishing Tuesday’s article on the prospect of black Barack Obama running for president of the United States (in which I made the following reference to Ford) that he would be at the center of a national racial controversy:
Therefore, no one remotely familiar with American politics is surprised that muckraking in campaign rhetoric and TV ads has fallen to an all-time low this year. For example, the Republican candidate running against Senator Hillary Clinton in New York called her a “lesbian wildebeest” transformed by millions of dollars in plastic surgery; and liberal supporters of the white Democratic candidate running against black Republican Lt Governor Michael Steele for the Senate in Maryland published caricatures of Steele as little black Sambo and mocked him mercilessly as an Uncle Tom.
So, given this standard of campaigning, which is being played out all over the country, I was struck by the way mainstream media have reported on the inevitable racial flare-up between Ford and Corker (seen here last weekend when Ford ambushed Corker at his press conference).Because, notwithstanding the veritable street fight their race has become, what Democrats are calling a racist slur by Corker against Ford pales in comparison to the racial antics Democrats have not only condoned but actually perpetrated in races like Steele’s and others. For example, I invite you to click here to see how these same racially-sensitive Democrats tarred and feathered Senator Joe Lieberman, a fellow Democrat no less, purportedly because he, unlike Hillary and John Kerry, was too principled in his support for the Iraq war.
But I could not have anticipated that within hours of publishing Tuesday’s article on the prospect of black Barack Obama running for president of the United States (in which I made the following reference to Ford) that he would be at the center of a national racial controversy:
…I suspect his almost-white complexion is what makes Harold Ford of Tennessee so attractive to whites in that state. But it will be instructive for Obama to see how many whites actually vote for Ford two weeks from today in his race to join Obama in the U.S. Senate.
In this case, Corker’s Republican supporters ran a TV ad featuring a young white actress playing the stereotype of a dumb blonde who coos about meeting Ford, a 36-year-old bachelor who is black, “at the Playboy party.” At the end of the ad, she winks and says to the camera, “Harold — call me.”And, despite the fact that Corker publicly denounced the ad as “over the top, tacky and not reflective of the kind of campaign we are running”, and even demanded those running it to pull it off the air, Democrats have accused him of playing the race card. (Never mind that, by his own admission, Ford is a playboy who likes to party with white playboy bunnies. )
But then, on Tuesday, NBC, the NAACP and a host of national news and (liberal) political organizations jumped into this local, and relatively clean, campaign fight with the moral indignation of abolitionists taking up the cause of Dred Scott. And suddenly, this tongue-in-cheek reference to Ford’s bachelor peccadilloes became the racial crime of the century, with the NAACP protesting that it:
…plays to preexisting prejudices about African American men and white women.But here’s what I think about this ad and the national outcry over it:
Ford’s opponent is right: it’s tacky and tawdry and should be pulled off the air. But, I take profound and historically correct exception to white liberals and the NAACP calling it racist.
Moreover, I am troubled by Tim Russert of NBC suggesting that the mere notion of interracial sex is racist. Because critics like him betray their own prejudices by making a big deal out of the fact that Ford partied with white playboy bunnies, and may have even had one or two....
Ironically, one could be forgiven the impression that those expressing moral indignation over this ad are pining for old anti-miscegenation laws.
NOTE: For the record, I’m hoping Harold Ford wins in Tennessee and Michael Steele (right) wins in Maryland. Because I think each man in his own right is a far better candidate not only for leadership in his home state but also nationally….
