Race & The Political Race
Observant Americans have noticed it. Newspapers around the country are mentioning it. "It" being the subtle way in which race has become the latest weapon of choice in an increasingly destructive arsenal designed to support dirty political race tactics.
I don't know about you, but I'm sick of these political ads, the thousands of dollars they represent, wasted on slander, on below-the-belt attacks, on bashing. "This is how you should think," they tell us. "Vote for the lesser evil," is ultimately the message that comes across to me. I refuse to watch them. Particularly, when race becomes yet another offensive tool.
For example, White Massachusetts Republican Kerry Healey, running against black Democrat Patrick Deval for governor, has approved a commercial that capitalizes on Deval's earlier defense of a rapist that he believed was innocent until DNA tests proved him wrong. The commercial shows a nervous white woman being stalked. The commercial's message? "Deval Patrick, he should be ashamed — not governor." White woman being stalked, black man running for governor. These are the images emblazoned on the American voter's mind. Are we really to believe race is not a factor?
An LATimes article emphasizes the importance of context in determining the weight these images and messages carry: "Context provides the moral thicket. Consider that when South Carolina finally repealed its Constitution's ban on interracial marriage in 1998 — 31 years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down such laws — almost half of white voters voted to keep it in place. These ads and commercials themselves may not be overtly racist, they just hope you are."
Monday October 30, 2006 |
I don't know about you, but I'm sick of these political ads, the thousands of dollars they represent, wasted on slander, on below-the-belt attacks, on bashing. "This is how you should think," they tell us. "Vote for the lesser evil," is ultimately the message that comes across to me. I refuse to watch them. Particularly, when race becomes yet another offensive tool.
For example, White Massachusetts Republican Kerry Healey, running against black Democrat Patrick Deval for governor, has approved a commercial that capitalizes on Deval's earlier defense of a rapist that he believed was innocent until DNA tests proved him wrong. The commercial shows a nervous white woman being stalked. The commercial's message? "Deval Patrick, he should be ashamed — not governor." White woman being stalked, black man running for governor. These are the images emblazoned on the American voter's mind. Are we really to believe race is not a factor?
An LATimes article emphasizes the importance of context in determining the weight these images and messages carry: "Context provides the moral thicket. Consider that when South Carolina finally repealed its Constitution's ban on interracial marriage in 1998 — 31 years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down such laws — almost half of white voters voted to keep it in place. These ads and commercials themselves may not be overtly racist, they just hope you are."
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