New GOP ad compares Soc. Security to slave reparations

Brian O. Sheppard x349393 bsheppard at bari.iww.org
Sat Sep 14 08:26:40 PDT 2002


Make that "reverse reparations":

A national Republican Party Political Action Committee has yanked a radio ad that likened Social Security benefits to "reverse" slavery reparations, AP reports.

The convoluted ad by GOPAC, a long-time GOP campaign vehicle currently run by Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, suggested to voters in Kansas and Missouri that because blacks have a statistically shorter life span than whites, blacks are subsidizing whites in the Social Security system in a manner similar to slavery reparations,but in reverse.

The ad was run in the Kansas City area on a station whose listeners are predominantly black, AP said.

"You've heard about reparations, you know, where whites compensate blacks for enslaving us," the ad says. "Well guess what we've got now. Reverse reparations."

The ad then makes the argument that blacks don't get as much out of Social Security as whites.

"So the next time some Democrat says he won't touch Social Security, ask why he thinks blacks owe reparations to whites," the ad says.

GOPAC spokesman Mike Tuffin told AP his committee is working with a local media company, Access Communications, which mistakenly gave the ad to KPRS-FM as one of several targeting black voters.

"We disavow it and have seen to it that it was immediately pulled," Tuffin said. "We did not know it was going to be run and never intended it to be run."

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said in the AP report, "To believe that broadcasting these falsehoods in such a racially colored way aimed at African American voters, obviously thinking they'd buy it hook, line and sinker, is insulting."

Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called the ad "reprehensible race baiting."

"Is this the Republicans' idea of African American outreach?" he said in a statement. "It's fine that the GOPAC has pulled this ad; the question is why was it even considered, let alone produced, in the first place?"

Former Kansas City Mayor Emanuel Cleaver said Keating should apologize for his organization.

"No one should realize more than Governor Keating the need for people to rally together in this nation after a tragedy," he said. "The people giving them direction on this are so out of touch with black people that the ads are subliminally saying to black folks, 'Don't join the Republican Party.'"

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"And Mr. Block thinks he may / Be President some day." - Joe Hill, "Mr. Block"



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