Misogynist Racist Attack Ad Launches Against Female Candidate in California
This morning, the Name It. Change It. campaign became aware of a disgusting campaign ad circulating on YouTube targeting Democratic female candidate Janice Hahn—one that EMILY’s List Political Director Jonathan Parker calls “the most offensive, racist, sexist ad I’ve seen in all my years in politics.” In less than a month, Hahn faces tea partier Craig Huey in the special election in California’s 36th district.
Throughout the campaign, Hahn’s opponents have ruthlessly attacked her; yet this video takes the attacks to their most vile, hateful extreme (and we're not about to help it get any more traffic by posting it). Created by far-right group RightTurn USA, the video depicts an underwear-clad, pole-dancing woman. Janice Hahn’s face is poorly superimposed over the dancer’s, who gyrates as black men stuff dollar bills into her clothing, call her misogynist obscenities, and wave guns in the air. The men, the video explains, are “hardcore gang members” whom they claim Hahn coddled in her time as a Los Angeles councilwoman. The video’s description reads, “Janice Hahn Hearts Gangsters.”
At the end of the video, the narrator disguises a threat as a call to action, urging “Let’s keep her out of Congress, homies” as a shotgun blinks on the screen. The video explicitly criminalizes African American men and demeans and objectifies women.
To call the video “crude” would be a compliment to creator Ladd Ehlinger Jr., who prides himself on churning out hateful, offensive content. But his fever to offend comes with a hitch: When he stops calling himself “offensive” and the term is instead used to criticize him, he calls his opponents too sensitive, silencing them. Ehlinger is not alone in this attitude. It seems that more and more often, right-wingers thirst to be called controversial but, like Ehlinger, hide behind cop-out claims that words don’t hurt. “I didn’t kill anyone…The ad’s funny,” Ehlinger wrote today on his website, “It makes me laugh.”
When one in eight young black men in the United States is in prison, when someone in our country is sexually assaulted every two minutes, and when Senator Gabrielle Giffords is still recovering from a violent attack, we find it impossible to laugh at this video. Instead, we are inspired to take action. We condemn this message of hate and call for Huey to formally condemn this video. Further, we urge you to learn what you can do to help Janice Hahn fight this despicable attack.