Simple question from Bob Herbert of the New York Times:
Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.
Simple answer: Guess who’s coming to dinner? It’s a black man that’s dating your white daughter. But, I don’t need to tell Bob Herbert. He knows. Here he compares the Paris & Britney ad to the Harold Ford Playboy bunny ad and explains the motivation for creating them.
The ad, which the committee described as a parody, showed a scantily clad woman whispering, “Harold, call me.”
Both ads were foul, poisonous and emanated from the upper reaches of the Republican Party. (What a surprise.) Both were designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.
You’d think a guy raised by his white mother would get some kind of special dispensation to date white women. You’d be wrong. And, in any case, Barack Obama married a nice, smart, beautiful black woman…so what’s the problem?
The problem is that the Republicans are playing on something visceral and subconscious. Just as the the makers of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner intentionally chose a liberal white family to demonstrate that racism lingers longest and deepest on the subject of sexuality. I’ll work with them, live with them, drink with them, play with them, but I don’t want my daughter dating, let alone marrying, them. That’s the attitude of countless ‘tolerant’ white people and not a few ‘tolerant’ black people, too.
It is what it is. But just because we can’t change people’s hearts and make them race-blind doesn’t mean we have any right to exploit those feelings for political gain. And that is what the Republicans do, and have done, ever since they adopted the Southern Strategy and betrayed their legacy as the party of Lincoln.
Mention any of this and…RACE CARD!! comes flying back in your face.
