My first thought, having foolishly assumed the headline was accurate (hey, my coffee hadn't even cooled enough yet for me to take the first sip), was that this claim must be a false flag operation.
Why on earth would the Virginia GOP depict ropes around black men? The imagery that headline evokes is horrific.
Having not yet shaken my brain fog, I didn't realize that the point was to depict a pretty standard campaign flyer as something far more sinister.
The mailers created by the Republican Party of Virginia depict Black male candidates tied in ropes, evoking brutality against Black men, the candidates say.
One of the targeted candidates wasted no time in sending out a tweet expressing his outrage and including a carefully cropped photo.
By then my coffee had cooled, and I had an opportunity to dedicate about fifteen seconds to research, part of which involved using one of my most important investigatory tools:
The ability to see.
By applying this visible-light-ray vision, I discovered two things:
First, this is a case of the old trope switcheroo.
Virginia Beach Del. Alex Askew, who was also targeted, wrote in a post to Twitter that "depicting any black person as burning or hanging propagates some of the most dangerous, racist tropes in history."
Sorry, wrong trope.
The GOP didn't use one of the most dangerous, racist tropes in history, it used one of the most tired, lazy tropes in history: Depicting candidates as marionettes.
Second, this wasn't targeted at "black men," it was targeted against Democratic candidates (The real crime, in their eyes).
This is where the real media dishonesty comes in. The headlines blared out the accusation.
They included the response from the Virginia GOP, of course. One, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, even included the full-context of the flyers; however, when you're denying the headline in a story, you're already losing.
It would have been more honest to have the headlines read something like, "Democratic candidates charge GOP with racism after depicting opponents as marionettes."
That is accurate, and places the story in context before a false narrative takes a hold.
But the people writing those headlines want that narrative to take hold.
The headline, after all, is technically accurate. That's their cover. In reality, they either believe the accusations, as many do living in the liberal bubble world, or just figure it helps the Democrats and so want voters to believe the accusations.
Know who else believes the accusations? At least one of the utterly spineless and craven GOP candidates.
Many in the 85th district received an offensive mailer today. Neither myself nor anyone on my campaign staff approved this mailer. I do not condone it's imagery. My campaign is about job creation, lower taxes, and safer neighborhoods. It's not about offensive mail pieces.
For the record, I think these kinds of mailers are juvenile. I wince every time I see one, no matter the party. There are serious issues at play in these elections and flyers like these turn them into carnivals.
Regardless, these kinds of accusations – in which it is asserted that depicting candidates as marionettes, two of which happen to be black males, is some kind of dog whistle — are false and destructive.
And yet, one of the Democratic candidates, Joshua Cole, claimed exactly that... because of course he did.
"I'm not going to say my opponent is racist...
Yes, you are.
...but this mailer was sent out as a dog whistle to those who align that way. It's basically saying, ‘Hey, it's time to come out,'" Cole said.
Yes you did.
There are real racist tropes that any thinking individual knows to avoid, but this takes it to such a hypersensitive level that it is 1) condescending to black people, 2) sinister in its attempt to simultaneously smear opponents as racists, and 3) suppresses political speech by creating imaginary dog whistles and fabricated trip wires where open political discourse should prevail.
This stuff keeps being created to fabricate outrage based on a lie.
In the meantime, we'll just keep shining a light on it.
