And here is another thread on the subject, with apost from the sister of the couple that Horton terrorized.
The charges would not be baseless–if the decision-maker is aware of the effects of using the image of the black person, and those effects involve tapping into a racist undercurrent in the society he’s conteomplating, then the decision-maker would be open to legitimate charges of racism, and has done the right, anti-racist thing in refraining from using the image.
This is a poor analysis because it doesn’t consider the merit of the effects. If a legitimate action causes people to react in a certain way which is without justification, then those reactions should not be sufficient to cause a person to not take that action. What you are suggesting is that the heckler’s veto be applied broadly and constant accusations of racism would be sufficient to suppress even non-racist behavior.
If showing a particular person to make your point opens you up to charges of racism, then that person is *clearly *not the best possible person to show. I mean, my heavens, they opened you up to charges of racism! I don’t see how it’s racist to consider that as a relevant factor.
It’s worth remembering that, this being a political ad, the point it was trying to make was not about the effectiveness or otherwise of the furlough programme. The point it was trying to make was that Dukakis wasn’t fit to be President because he wouldn’t or couldn’t protect your family from threats. The people behind the ad felt that a photo of a black man looking “like an animal” was the best way to do illustrate those threats. It’s worth asking if that decision was in any way influenced by a perception that “suburban mothers” were particularly likely to find the picture scary *because *it was of a black man.
Or to put it another way: imagine that, as well as Horton, a white murderer had been released on furlough and had committed similar crimes than Horton did. In one available photo, he looks like an animal. How confident can we be that in that case the photo on the attack ad would have been of the white criminal? What would have played into the decision between the two photos? If it came down to which photo was more likely to scare suburban mothers, would race be a factor? If they believed that race would be a factor, and that their ad would be more effective at influencing suburban mothers with Horton’s photo, what other considerations should they have taken into account, if any?
Not correct. At that time, many inmates sentenced to life without parole were released by gubernatorial commutation after they served for decades and were considered rehabilitated. Also, of course, rehabilitation is important even if you’re never released. You can, of course, commit crimes inside prison.
As to the broader point–whether Horton was simply the worst example of furlough-gone-wrong with which Dukakis could be attacked–I think it’s possible. But I don’t think that’s sufficient to sustain the argument that the ad is not racist. If the intent of an ad is to take advantage of racial prejudice to help your preferred candidate, and you design the ad to that end, and it has that effect, then why is it a defense to argue that in some alternative universe you might have run the same ad with different motivation?
No. It is not. There is nothing disparaging about race in that argument. Avoiding the appearance of racism is not racist. By that logic, the stuff we Christians are told about “avoiding the appearance of evil” would be evil. When you won’t be alone with someone else’s wife in a romantic place–you’d be guilty of adultery. When you won’t hang around thieves, you’re guilty of stealing. See how silly that sounds?
Not that that is the only issue. The issue is also “Will the ad appeal to racists through their racism?” And the answer to that is clearly yes. It therefore sends a racist message. The only way to avoid that would be to repudiate racists.
This reasoning doesn’t hold up as I stated earlier.
If the ad appeals to 5 people for various non-racist reasons, and 1 person for racist messages, should the coincidence that 1 person’s views who happen to be racist overlaps with the other 5 non-racists control the decision? If that’s true, then the only thing an opponent would need do is have a racist agree with you - is that sufficient to change your behavior?
The creator chose a photo that, in his words, made Horton look like “an animal”. Do you think that was done by accident?
I think he wanted a a guy that would invoke fear. Charles Manson wasn’t available. Unless you think there were other examples more heinous that were passed over of people who were non minorities?
No, the merit is established. The action will be interpreted as spreading a racist message only if society has determined there is merit to the accusation. Otherwise it would not predictably be so interpreted. To put it more simply: no large number* of racists would not see an appealingly racist message in non-racist behavior.
Also, the heckler’s veto is a government thing, where the idea of violence by the opposition is used as an excuse to suppress speech. Since the only suppression here is self-suppression, and violence has not been suggested, I don’t really see how it is relevant.
*You do have to allow for some crazy outliers, of course.
The documentary makes a compelling argument that most Americans–including black Americans–were already infected with the notion of black inferiority/black criminality when that ad was produced and aired.
So while it’s comforting to think that only 1 out of 5 Americans were racist in 1988, it is not grounded in any objective reality. It is more likely that 5 out of 5 Americans harbored racist beliefs in 1988. The ad was effective because it was intentionally designed to stoke the emotions resulting from those beliefs. Beliefs that people may not have even know they held.
If the ad had been created in a society without slavery, Jim Crow, “The Birth of a Nation”, KKK, etc., then maybe someone could assume the ad was purely innocent. But the ad was not created in a vacuum. Its creators knowingly capitalized on all the deep-seated baggage that preceded it.
I honestly have no idea how you got that out of what I said.
If an ad appeals to a racist for racist messages, then the ad had a racist message in it. Otherwise it could not so appeal. The fact that it had a racist message in it would not in any way invalidate the other people who didn’t get a racist message out of it.
Now, you established in your hypothetical that there was a racist message. In reality, of course, we don’t know that. The racist may have seen a racist message that didn’t exist. And that’s where the use of numbers is relevant. One person may see a racist message that isn’t there. But, 100,000 people will not.
The fact that the ad creator can predict that said 100,000 people would see a racist message is even more proof that it is racist. How could you predict that unless there was something objectively racist in what you were doing?
I’m pretty comfortable saying that in a country of 300M people, 100K people would see a racist message in pretty much anything. That makes everything racist in your analysis which is nonsense.
First, the 1 out of 5 thing was a hypothetical, not meant to reflect any actual proportion. Second, do you think of the people who thought the ad was persuasive or effective, that more of them were motivated by racist beliefs or in disagreement with Dukakis’s record on crime? I remember the story when it aired though I was a child. I thought, why the hell are murderers and criminals allowed on furlough?
If you show an ad to a group of six people, and the five white guys in the group say it’s not racist, and the one black guy in the group says that it’s completely racist, do the five white guys over rule the one black guy?
Why would the GOP give veto power over its advertisements to the Democrats? Of course they’re going to scream “racism”, but they will do that anyway.
I find it hard to believe that, if they hadn’t shown Horton’s face, the Democratic party would say “you know, the GOP makes a good point”.
A racist is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal. Bush was winning (and did win) the election, Dukakis was a liberal - do the math.
Regards,
Shodan
The creator of the ad chose a photo of Horton that, in his words, made Horton look like “an animal”. Was that done on purpose? Were these campaign operatives aware that millions of white Americans had racist fears of black men (e.g. were they competent and intelligent political professionals)? I have no reason to believe the campaign was run by racists, but it seems reasonable that they knowingly tailored this ad to exploit this fear of black men for political gain. In America of 1988, it’d almost be political malpractice if they didn’t try to do that (which doesn’t justify it – I think deliberately and cynically appealing to racism for political gain, a la George Wallace, is a far worse sin than political malpractice).
I’m sure it was. Horton committed a hideous crime, and everyone is rightly scared of him.
It isn’t possible to run a successful political campaign if you are going to confine yourself only to points the other side thinks are reasonable.
Democrats yell racism at every opportunity. It’s what they do.
Horton was a nasty and violent creep. He committed first degree murder. He was sentenced to life without parole, which is what liberals always say is a better alternative to execution. He then committed a horrifying crime, under circumstances that should never have been allowed. Dukakis was governor at the time, and he vetoed a bill that excluded first degree murderers from the furlough program. As a result, Horton was let out, and kidnapped, raped, and tortured a young couple over a period of hours.
“No fair pointing that out, because the hideous criminal in question is a black hideous criminal”! Fuck that noise.
Regards,
Shodan
You don’t have to speculate. They launched several ads about the furlough program before the Horton ad. None of them were 1/10th as controversial as the Horton ad.
And the Democrats agreed it was a valid point?
Regards,
Shodan
Who’s saying “no fair”? It was eminently fair, and good politics. Tons of Americans feared black men – it was a very smart political strategy to try and exploit that fear. The picked the photo that made him look like “an animal” (per the creator of the ad), they called him “Willie” when he never went by that name, and they won the election in a landslide. It showed the political wisdom in the Southern Strategy, and the political mistake (though morally courageous) support for Civil Rights that the national Democratic party took – that even after the Civil Rights movement, millions of white Americans still didn’t see black Americans as equal fellow citizens, but rather viewed them with distrust and fear… and there were enough of them to dominate national politics for decades afterwards if their buttons were pushed in the right way.
Of course, such politics meant that minorities would see the Republican party as the party for racists, and changing demographics eventually would mean that the strategy would backfire. But in the 80s it worked damn well.