Not sure how you’d measure that, but (as noted above) Gore used this against him in the primary. Does that count?
I don’t know, but I thought your argument was that Democrats would have considered it racist whether or not they had made the editorial choices they made, like using the solitary confinement photo.
In an America that didn’t have a centuries-long history of libeling black people as animalistic, savage, uncivilized, uncontrollable, lustful, dangerous, stupid, etc., then the Horton ad wouldn’t have been seen as racist or as meant to appeal to racist fears. But this history exists, and those fears existed, and I think it’s reasonable to believe that Bush’s campaign operatives were professional, experienced, and intelligent, and not above exploiting racist fears to win an election.
Depends on who the five white people and the one black person is.
I don’t think either group overrules the other based merely on their skin color. I think it would be noteworthy but not sufficient to draw a conclusion.
The idea that showing a photo and choosing one that made the person look as menacing as possible is consistent with how criminal activity is reported. Avoiding showing his photo in this way would be odd. I think the lack of counterfactual weakens your position. Unless it can be shown that there were equally heinous or worse candidates, it’s a leap to say that use of Horton’s image was motivated by racism.
The Mass Dept of Corrections does keep stats, but I am having trouble isolating the data that I’d like to see. This is the closest I could find:
Apparently they release an annual report. I couldn’t locate the one from 1988, though here is the one from 1987.But even from the report I can’t tease out the type of information reported in the NY Times article. If we accept the NY Times figures, then the population of people serving life without parole as Horton was that received furloughs was only 11, and of those 5 were later convicted like Horton. If one of those 5 other people who were convicted were guilty of a crime equally or more terrible than Horton, and they were white, then I’d say that’s a slam dunk. Otherwise, Horton could have been the best example to make the point and using his picture would be expected, black or white.
I didn’t say it was motivated by racism. I think it was probably motivated by wanting to appeal to racist fears for political advantage. I think it’s very possible that the creator of the ad, who chose the photo and said it made Horton look like “an animal” had racist beliefs (or else a profound ignorance at the history of referring to black people as animals), but I don’t particularly care about feelings and beliefs – I care about actions. In this case, unless anyone is arguing that these political operatives were entirely incompetent and just happened to have stumbled onto a brilliant political ad, I think it’s reasonable to believe that they were aware that millions of white Americans who used to vote Democratic were afraid of black people, and especially black men, and made some effort to tailor this ad to appeal to those fears.
I’m not certain, but I think that’s a reasonable conclusion. If political operatives didn’t try to appeal to racist fears at that time, then they were either entirely incompetent or demonstrated a moral character that is almost unbelievable for their profession.
You seem to think that saying a person looks like “an animal” is prima facie evidence of trying to appeal to racists…or something. People in states of deshoveldness can look animal like. This applies to black people and white people, and really all people. If a person comments saying Charles Manson looked or looks like an animal, does that carry the same racial undertones you identify when describing Horton?
Couldn’t the conversation be:
- Let’s find the worst example among the 5.
- It’s Horton.
- Okay, where is the picture that makes him look the worst?
If the worst example in #2 happened to be a white person, don’t you think that they would still look for the picture that made them look as menacing as possible, regardless of race?
I’m saying two things – that saying a black man looks like “an animal” is evidence of either personal racist beliefs, a complete ignorance of the awful history of demeaning black people by calling them animals, or understanding that history but not caring. Also, that choosing such a picture to headline an ad in America in 1988, in which huge portions of the electorate both previously voted Democratic and have racist fears of black men, likely had something to do with this fact. If not, then the campaign operatives are either incompetent or demonstrate moral standards far, far above those normal for their profession. Since they chose this photo I think that rules out the moral standards possibility.
There’s a history in America of comparing black people to animals that’s far more significant (and more disgusting) than comparing white people to animals.
Taking all of this into account, and assuming that the campaign operatives want to maximize Bush’s chance of getting elected, then I think the most reasonable answer is that they were aware of the racist fears of millions of Americans, and chose the photo at least partially to exploit this, and/or with the full understanding that exploiting those racist fears would be a side benefit.
The only alternative I can see as at all possible (but not plausible, IMO) is that these campaign operatives were utterly incompetent and didn’t know about these widespread racist fears.
Do you believe that the campaign operatives were unaware that there were millions of white Americans who used to vote Democratic and had these racist fears? Or do you believe that there were no such significant racist fears? Or some other explanation? Your explanation leaves out history, and that can’t be left out. And I seriously doubt the operatives were unaware of that history.
But you didn’t answer my question. If Horton was the worst example that could be found among the 5, do you think the non racially motivated, non racist person who is aware of history, would choose to not use a picture of Horton at his worst?
If they didn’t want to contribute to societal fears of black men, then yes. But I doubt political operatives from any party have such moral standards (and if they did, they probably would have been fired).
It just seems like Occam’s razor that political operatives would try to do the most politically advantageous thing – and in this case, appealing to racist whites was very politically advantageous. Appealing to non-racist fear of crime was also advantageous, but I don’t think it’s credible that the political operatives didn’t know that they were doing both.
The Southern Strategy and the Horton ad were symptoms, not causes (except maybe a little bit), of racism in society. After Civil Rights (which really was a politically courageous stance by the national Democratic leadership, including LBJ), there was a vacuum for millions of racist white voters. It was inevitable that a party would try to appeal to those racist voters. I’m not surprised that the Republicans made a conscious decision to try and appeal to those racist voters, but I don’t excuse them for it, even if it was inevitable that some politicians were going to try it.
Then even with completely benign motivations (other than wanting to win), do you think the racist beliefs of a subset of Americans should override what would otherwise be a legitimate criticism?
Is the calculus: OK to use scary photo if the criminal is white, but not okay to use scary photo if the criminal is black?
Using that photo contributes to societal racist fears of black men, even if to a very small extent. I believe strengthening racist fears in society at large, even by a tiny amount, is a morally wrong thing to do. There are not and were not equivalent societal racist fears of white men. Add up all those little things that were done from the 18th and 19th century onward and you get a society (like American society through most of the 20th century) with some level of irrational and racist fears of black people.
Is this like a categorical imperative? Are you saying that complaints of racism whether legitimate or not would be sufficient to change your behavior?
I’d always consider such complaints, but it’s not absolute – for example, if a black man has been identified as having kidnapped a child, and the only photo the media has for him is a “scary” photo, then I wouldn’t quibble with publicizing that photo to help the public find the kidnapper, even if this (in a very small way) contributes to racist fears in society. IMO, the need to find this man and save his victim outweighs these concerns.
In the case of the Horton ad, I don’t believe trying to win the election is sufficient of an excuse to do this.
Well, fair enough. It’s just one black guy, he could be crazy, or an idiot. What if it’s ten black guys? A hundred? A thousand? What if it’s, say, around 38 million of them? What’s the tipping point for a group of people saying, “Hey, that’s incredibly insulting and potentially damaging to us,” where you decide, “Okay, that’s something that’s not worth doing?”
You responded to an earlier post of mine by saying the issue was “bad optics.” And that’s true in isolation. But this ad doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s part of a long history of scare mongering about black men raping white women that goes back centuries. This was the central plot of Birth of a Nation. This was such an ingrained fear at one point that Emmet Till got lynched just for smiling at a white woman. In this case, of course, William Horton was a real person. So that makes it not racist, right? It’s just a thing that happened that they’re telling you about.
Thing is, that’s pretty consistent with the Republican party. Name an issue that has a disparate impact on blacks or people of color in general, and the Republicans are almost always on the side of doing more damage to minorities. Never for that reason, of course!* There’s always a perfectly good, non-racist reason for the Republican’s position. As there is for the next one. And the one after that. And the one after that. At a certain point, the excuses stop working. Or, more accurately, they stop mattering. Let’s agree, for the sake of argument, that the Republicans aren’t racist at all. Not a single one of them, leadership or rank and file, has a single racist bone in them. But if they consistently support policies and take actions that directly insult or damage minority communities, what good are those intentions, really? Maybe in their deepest heart of hearts, there is no bigotry. But when their actions are functionally indistinguishable from how they would act if they actually were bigots, who gives a fuck about their secret heart of hearts?
So, you can quibble over whether the intended subtext of this particular commercial is, “Dukakis has bad policies on crime,” or whether it was, “Niggers are coming to rape your women.” Considering the sordid and embarrassing history of Republican race relations over the last century, there’s no longer a point in even discussing which interpretation is more valid. 98% of African Americans vote Democratic. 98%! That’s Central American Election numbers. Think how utterly, thoroughly Republican policies have alienated that section of the American public, such that virtually every single one of them is opposed to them. You want to argue that the Republican party isn’t racist, but what’s the point? If their (entirely non-racist!) policies are still so opposed by such a overwhelming number of African Americans, what does the explanation matter?
Yeah, there’s a non-racist explanation for the Willie Horton ad. Who gives a fuck?
Except gays. The Republican party will still come right out and say that gays are terrible people. They used to say that letting people of different races marry would destroy the fabric of this country. They’ve learned they can’t say that anymore, and have moved on to saying letting two people of the same gender marry would destroy the fabric* of this country.
**Am I the only one who thinks being that concerned about fabric comes across as a little gay?
I excerpted what I thought was the distilled message. I can’t really argue with the thrust of your post. In reality this is the calculus that politicians should be engaged in. The impact of this however, is that a person would be able to apply this rationale to essentially any action of any Republican and that type of broad brush criticism isn’t valuable.
I’m sure there are large swathes of people who really don’t care to determine if the person whom they are criticizing actually possesses the odious beliefs they accuse them of because hey, what difference does it make? It’s easy enough to say that Republicans are racist or Republicans are evil and be done with it. I don’t find that type of criticism useful, but it is common.
It might help if people remembered there were two different Willie Horton ads.
One was put out by the Bush campaign, and one that was put out by a PAC run by a right-wing firebrand named Floyd Brown that was backing Bush over Dukakis but that wasn’t affiliated with the Bush campaign.
I think some people may be confusing the two.
Here’s the Bush ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmwhdDv8VrM
Here’s the ad put out by Brown’s PAC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y
Personally, I think the second one is a pretty clear attempt to appeal to racial fears while the first one isn’t and certainly makes legitimate attacks.
For those not familiar with case. Horton was allowed out on a “weekend furlough” even though he was serving a life sentence without parole for First Degree murder just after Governor Dukakis had vetoed a bill that would have excluded people convicted of First Degree Murder from the furlough program.
To me that’s a pretty legitimate thing to attack Dukakis on.
It’s interesting to note that republicans found it acceptable to knock Dukakis for furloughing Horton but were curiously silent towards Mike Huckabee during the primaries in 2008 regarding Maurice Clemmons (Huckabee paroled Clemmons against the advice of the parole board. Clemmons then went up to Washington state & murdered 4 Lakewood police officers).
Seems to be a double standard on who to knock for bad decisions on releasing prisoners…
Respectfully that’s an absurd claim.
First of all it very strongly damaged his career.
Second, I’m not sure how any reasonable person remotely familiar with either case could compare the two.
Willie Horton was in jail on life without parole for murdering a 17 year old during a robbery.
In 1989, when Maurice Clemons when he was 17 years old was sentenced to 108 years in prison for a string of robberies and wouldn’t be eligible for parole until 2015. His most serious charge was breaking into someone’s house and stealing several thousand dollars worth of stuff and punching a woman and stealing her purse.
He wasn’t a boy scout, but he was 17 and had never even been charged with armed robbery.
Anyway, in 1999, Mike Huckabee, being for all his many faults, a decent human being realized that 10 years was a long time to have served in jail and should be considered long enough to have made up for his crimes, and of course being a guy who believed in rehabilitation and second chances particular for crimes committed as a juvenile, commuted the 108 sentence to 47 years and and made him eligible for parole that day.
Maybe some are going to disagree, but getting parole after ten year for robberies committed while 17, none of which were even armed robberies, strikes me as quite reasonable. Bricker could probably add more to this than I could.
I don’t know where you heard that he "paroled Clemmons against the advice of the parole board because according to wikipedia “The Arkansas Parole Board unanimously approved Clemmons’ release on July 13, 2000, and he was set free on August 1, 2000”.
Ok, this is technically true but more than a little misleading. It was nine years later that he murdered 4 police officers, years after he had left Arkansas.
No, it’s not a double standard. This isn’t apples to apples or even apples to oranges. Michael Dukakis vetoed a bill that would have forbidden people convicted for First Degree murder from getting weekend furloughs, whereas Mike Huckabee believed that 108 years was an absurdly long sentence for non-violent crimes he was convicted of while a juvenile and thought commuting it to 47 years and allowing him to be eligible for parole after 10 years in prison was reasonable.
Now, you may think Huckabee made a “bad decision” but since Huckabee wasn’t a fortune teller and couldn’t have known that nearly ten years late Clemmons would ambush and murder 4 police officers I don’t.
I also think most reasonable people would agree that 108 years for robberies committed at 17 is pretty ridiculous and would question your classification as reducing the sentence to 47 years to be a “bad decision” extremely questionable at best.
Now you apparently thin