Put the race card back in the deck

As an African American I am embarrassed and over the allegation by the NAACP that this RNC Bob Corker ad is racist. We (the black community) are to quick to play this card. Putting a racist label on things that aren't takes validity away from the cases that really are. Let's face it there are still race problems in this country but let's use a little more discretion. Let's put this card back in the deck and play it when it is really necessary.

(AP)
A white woman with blonde hair and bare shoulders looks into the camera and whispers, "Harold, call me," and then winks.

This Republican National Committee television ad doesn't mention that "Harold" _ Democratic Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. _ is black, but the NAACP and others have complained the commercial makes an implicit appeal to deep-seated racial fears about black men and white women.

Race was always an element of the Tennessee contest as Ford seeks to become the first black man elected to the Senate from the South since Reconstruction. The issue
slammed into the public consciousness this week with the latest ad.

"I've not met any observer who didn't immediately say, 'Oh my gosh!' It was a race card," said Vanderbilt University professor John Geer, an expert on political attack ads.

Hilary Shelton, director of Washington bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the ad plays off fears some people still have about interracial couples.

"In a Southern state like Tennessee, some stereotypes still exist," he said. "There's very clearly some racial subtext in an ad like that."

The Republican National Committee, which paid for the ad, denied that ithad any racial subtext. Party chairman Ken Mehlman said it was produced by an independent organization, in accordance with campaign finance law, "without the knowledge, the participation, the advice, the approval or the involvement of either the national party or the campaign."
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Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright 2006 by the Associated Press. All Rights Reserved