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Let?s Give Helms A Hand

Jesse Helms, known both affectionately and with hostility as ?Senator No,? is dead today at 86. There will be many obituaries, but this is not one of them. I?ve come to praise Helms, not bury him.

I certainly did not agree with everything he said or did, but, burnishing and brandishing my qualification for elite membership in the esteemed DISCRIMINATIONS Minority of One Club, I would like to on record, again (see here and here), to offer my commendation of Helms for the one thing he did that earned him bitter, visceral enmity (which will not die with him) from all liberals and Democrats, and not a few others: his infamous ?white hands? ad from his 1990 race against Harvey Gantt.

Although that ad, even more than the Willie Horton ad, has come to symbolize, for most observers, the bitter, unbridled racism liberals attribute to most Republicans, I beg to differ.
As I wrote here:

Take a close look and listen at what is widely regarded as an almost exquisite example of the worst excrescence of white, conservative, Republican, Southern racism in the modern era: Jesse Helms? white hands ad from his 1990 campaign against Harvey Gantt. That ad featured a close-up of a pair of white hands crumpling what was described as a rejection letter as the voice over said You needed that job, and you were the best qualified, but they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota.... According to Helms consultant Alex Castellanos, surveys had identified Gantts support of affirmative action as highly unpopular.

The message in that spot?s very clear and that is nobody should get a job, or be denied a job because of the color of their skin. The vast majority of Americans believe that. And if it?s wrong for us to discriminate that way it?s wrong for our government to discriminate that way....

And here:

It has become an article of faith that the infamous ?White Hands? ad that ?derided racial quotas by depicting a pair of white hands crumpling a job rejection letter? was a mean, nasty, racist tactic. But was it? I may be a minority of one, but I don?t think so. First, if you?re curious, go take a look at the ad itself, here. It accuses Harvey Gantt of supporting ?Ted Kennedy?s racial quota law.? Supporters can argue that affirmative action does not necessarily amount to quotas, but they can?t reasonably argue that it never does. If it is a ?racist tactic? to oppose affirmative action, is it similarly a racist tactic to support it?

Go take a look at the ad for yourself (linked to two different sites above). I confess that I?ve never understood (?You don?t understand many things,? many of you are no doubt thinking) the vitriolic condemnation of this ad. Do its critics really believe that no whites or Asians or others ever lost a job to a black or Hispanic because of affirmative action? Do they really believe that all opposition to affirmative action is based on racism?

Well, yes. I guess they do.

Full post as published by Discriminations on July 04, 2008 (boomark / email).