I’m sure the NAACP would have no problem with a conservative ad depicting a gold-toothed Obama knocking out a white woman.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) says a new campaign ad depicting him punching white women in the face fuels racist stereotypes and would spark “national outrage” if he weren’t a black conservative. But an NAACP spokesman begs to differ.
The ad, released Thursday by American Sunrise PAC, features a cartoon version of West punching an elderly woman in a boxing ring as a narrator says West “socked it to seniors” by pushing to gut Medicare. It also shows West punching a younger woman as the narrator criticizes West’s support for cuts to women’s health care funding. Both women are white.
West said Friday that people across the country would be furious if the ad depicted a white man punching a woman of color, but because he is African American and a Republican, nobody is offended by it. […]
“Where’s the outrage from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and the NAACP about this?” West asked. “They’re not going to say anything because they’re nothing but an effective wing of the Democratic Party.”
Even former presidential candidate Herman Cain waded into the matter, tweeting Friday that he found the ad “distasteful and dishonest.”
But NAACP spokesman Hillary Shelton said he watched the ad several times, specifically looking for the concerns raised by West, and saw nothing.
“Racist is not a term I would utilize to sum up this commercial,” Shelton told The Huffington Post. “It looks like a traditional, political, partisan commercial.”
“The language utilized doesn’t present Allen West as a stereotype of an African American,” Shelton said. “The ad has him looking very well groomed, a serious look on his face and he’s wearing a suit. The only thing superimposed is a boxing glove as a symbolic analysis of his policies being inconsistent with the values of retirees, women and African-American families.”