Is this a racist ad?
I showed one of my social psychology classes the Willie Horton ad from the 1988 Presidential campaign (available on YouTube), and asked them if they viewed the ad as racist. The class is diverse in ethnicity but not age–the students were generally too young to remember anything about the 1988 campaign. After viewing, the consensus was no, it was not a racist ad.
I did tell them that at the time the ad was widely viewed as racist, and that in addition to the target of the ad, Dukakis, expressing outrage, the Bush campaign also distanced itself from the ad.
In class on Monday I plan to show them the latest ad controvery, an ad for Hillary Clinton that is called “Children” on the Clinton website but has been referred to more popularly as the “3 a.m.” ad (the Clinton web site description of the ad reads “When the call comes at 3 a.m. in the White House, who do you want answering the phone?”).
After discussion of this ad, I will then show a segment from the MSNBC program Hardball discussing whether the 3 a.m. ad is racist. The reaction from the commentators (including a faculty member) suggest that both race and gender were playing a role in the interpretation of this ad.