I recently watched this documentary and right off the bat I must say it was very well done, informative, and compelling. While I didn’t agree with 100% of the message it was pushing, I thought overall it was a solid advocacy piece.
Throughout the film there were lots of current and historical examples used to illustrate the message. The one that I was most puzzled by was the use of Willie Horton in the 1988 election. The film claimed that the Willie Horton ad was racist, a call out to fear of black men as criminals, etc. On a surface level I don’t see the problem with the ad. The furlough program in Massachusetts allowed Horton to leave prison where he committed additional violent crimes. Those were factual claims - so help me out, what about that ad was objectionable?
We know from the documentary that Lee Atwater, who IIRC worked on the ad, wasn’t above race-baiting. There’s an audio-clip where he says something like (paraphrasing) “You can’t say nigger anymore but if you say ‘States rights’ or ‘Law and order’ people get what you mean”. So, while the ad itself may not be racist when viewed in isolation, it’s pretty easy to imagine Bush and Atwater high-fiving when they found out about the Horton case, if for no better reason than they knew any ‘Law and order’ speeches they made off the back of the ad would likely resonate more deeply with suburban whites than they may have done otherwise.
What is objectionable is that it was effective. What do you call someone winning an argument with a liberal? A racist.
Horton should have been an issue. He was a symptom of a system that saw crime skyrocket for almost thirty years and still didn’t take it seriously.
I probably would’ve voted for Bush regardless, but in any case the Willie Horton campaign at least had the virtue of being based on something substantive. I miss those days in American politics.
This seems like the problem with the source, rather than the content itself. That’s why this part of the film stood out - it seems like a legitimate criticism of a policy that allows convicted violent felons furlough. Dukakis presided over a state that allowed that and informing voters of this fact seems like fair game.
Al Gore used the furlough program against Dukakis - and then Atwater took it further putting a human face on it. Disgusting but effective.
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On Colorado’s ballot this year is an amendment (T) to remove the involuntary servitude exemption from our version of amendment 13. I hope more states (and Congress) do this also.
I very much enjoyed this documentary except I don’t think some people were identified very well. In particular, the large bodied person sitting on a couch (I couldn’t discern the gender, but possibly female) I didn’t see identified at all.
I am definitely going to recommend that my Facebook friends watch this if they are at all interested in the ‘War On Drugs’, prison overcrowding and other things. And I was able to catch the video when Hillary used the term ‘Super Predators’, although it didn’t seem that she was calling them that directly, but reporting that others were calling them that.
I hope Netflix keeps up the good work and does many more documentaries like this.
Attacking the furlough program wasn’t racist. Using a scary black face in the ad to attack the furlough program was racist (or was deliberately meant to cater to racism).
It’s not that hard to figure out – a big chunk of the American electorate was racist at the time, and was scared of black people – especially black men. Does anyone really think that politicians’ campaign operatives wouldn’t try to utilize that fear for electoral gain?
Willie Horton was the example used for whatever reason, vut his offenses were particularly bad. He was also black. Should his example not be used because he was black, should his face not be used because he was black? He was on furlough and raped and killed people.
If Bush pardoned Timothy McVeigh I’m pretty sure his picture would be used in reporting the story, would that be okay because he is white? I’m not understanding why showing Horton was racist.
Horton didn’t kill anyone while on furlough (well, that we know of), and the original ad didn’t claim he had. He was, of course, a convicted murderer when he was granted furlough in the first place.
My mistake. I implied he killed people while on furlough in error. He did actually kill a person and that was what he was originally convicted of though I mistakenly believed he killed a person while on furlough. While on furlough, he did this (from the wiki):
A white face wouldn’t have been as effective. They used a black face (and a scary one in particular) to prey on the significant racial fears that existed.
These fears existed and were significant. If you agree with that, then isn’t it obvious that some political operatives like Lee Atwater would try and take advantage of this for political gain?
Still, if Horton had been white, he would have been useful. Likely not as useful, but the story was embarrassing enough to Dukakis.
I’d like to think we could have had a real moment when Dukakis was asked at one of the debates if he’d support the death penalty if his wife Kitty had been raped and murdered and he gave an honest, if seemingly weak answer. My dream response would have been:
Dukakis: [long thoughtful pause] I would want to kill the son of a bitch. [wait for reaction to die down] Yes, that’s what I would want, and if you’re asking if I understand the concept of personal revenge, Bernard, I do. But hard as it might be, I’d want more that the courts handle it in accordance with the laws and constitution, because that where we are and where we should be as a nation. Yes, we have a crime problem, and yes, I can’t fully understand the pain of a victim’s family because I’ve not been there myself, thank God, but the violent answers are easy, and it turns out they’re no answer at all to the problem. Revenge is only a short-term fix, and the America I love looks further down the road.
Off-topic, I realize, but I’ve been musing on that moment off-and-on for almost thirty years.
It seems like part of the reason Horton was chosen was because his offenses while on furlough were so heinous. I think you would only have a point if there were other white people who committed worse acts while on furlough but we’re passed over as examples because they were white and would be less scary. Barring that I see nothing racist about choosing the worst example to demonstrate the terribleness of the furlough program.
What about Horton made him particularly scary? If Dukakis had presided over the furlough of Manson he’d look scary as well. His blackness isn’t scary - his propensity to harm others is.
Of course there were and are people who are racists and afraid of black people. I don’t think that means showing an actual criminal is racist.
Well, let’s not be naive. His blackness is scary to a great many Americans.
Not in itself, but the U.S. has (and always has had) a significant racism problem. For what’s it’s worth, I don’t think NSPAC ran the ad because NSPAC was full of racists - they ran the ad because they wanted George H. W. Bush to win the 1988 election.
The most telling thing about the use of Horton was that at the time most people didn’t consider the advertising racist at all. Until Jesse Jackson accused Bush of using Horton with racial intent no-one had suggested a racial element to the campaign. Bush refuted Jackson’s claims and it wasn’t until long after that the perceived wisdom was that it was racist.
His blackness was indeed scary to many Americans. But just mentioning Willie Horton wouldn’t have been an attempt to appeal to racism – showing a scary and intimidating prison photo was. They didn’t need to show a photo (and in particular, they didn’t need to show that photo) to make the point about the policy.
Do you think it’s coincidence that they chose that photo as the centerpiece of the ad? Or do you think it’s possible that political professionals might have wanted to get electoral benefit from the very, very significant fear of black men that was prevalent, and chose that photo on purpose?
Or do you think that fear of black men was not significant in America?
By that I mean: of all the people to benefit from the furlough program, was there another candidate whose pre-furlough crime was so unambiguously horrid that there would be near-unanimous agreement that this was a serious criminal, and whose on-furlough crime was so horrid as to create a strong emotional reaction when hearing it?
What, in other words, does the non-racist do differently?
Was it just the choice of showing the photo?
Showing a mug shot and a picture of the subject in custody are time-honored ways to convey crime and danger with visuals. I can’t imagine a political ad making the same point with a white offender to choose NOT to show similar photos. So, again: does the non-racist do something differently here?
According to Larry McCarthy, the creator of the ad, Horton “looked like an animal”, and “This is every suburban mother’s greatest fear.”
The photo was chosen on purpose. I suppose there’s a chance that these political operatives were unbelievably incompetent and had no idea that a significant portion of America was afraid of black men, and this would exploit that fear, but I think that’s highly unlikely.