Top 10 Most Racist Commercials


One thing I miss about living in America: rye bread.  One thing I don't miss at all: political ad season.  It's the worst time ever to be a T.V. junkie.  At every commercial break you hear about how some candidate exposed unsafe nursing homes or voted against making school lunches more nutritious or in the case of U.S. Senate candidate Harold Ford, hanging out at a Playboy party.  Every negative accusation in every ad is, by law, backed up with some tiny reference line at the bottom and always, the message ends with the mudslinger stating, "I'm Alan Dirtbag, and I approve this message."  Nowadays, politicians rely so heavily on pointing out the flaws of the opposition, they don't even tout their own achievements.  The aforementioned ad smearing Tennessee's Harold Ford is an example of one of these ultra-negative ads.  The commercial focuses on Ford's visit to a Playboy-sponsored post-Super Bowl event in Jacksonville in 2005.  A white woman in the commercial squeaks, "I met Harold at the Playboy party," and later requests that Ford call her.  Immediately, civil rights groups and commentators called the ad racist.  They claimed the ad appeals to the South's traditionally racist sensibilities, aims to associate Ford with biracial marriage and preys on a stereotyped fear of Black male sexuality.  The NAACP called the ad "racially charged political propaganda."  As political television advertisements become more negative, I suppose with candidates of color, the line between what is defamatory and what is racist has become blurred.  The Harold Ford ad surely is not the first commercial to heighten our racial sensitivity.  Here are some more:

 The Top 10 Most Racist Commercials