The Willie Hortonization of Barack Obama
While the most infamous Willie Horton ads were created by an independent organization, it was Bush's media consultant Roger Ailes who "gleefully" said in August of 1988, "The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it."
From Huffington Post:
A long line of inmates solemnly enters and exits a prison yard through a revolving door. As the lone black inmate reenters society, he peers into the camera with a menacing glance. He is the only inmate to do so.
The ad described above was created by George H.W. Bush’s campaign as part of a broad strategy to terrify America by, as psychologist and political consultant Drew Westen explains, playing on “fears of the dangerous, lawless, violent, dark black male.”
While the most infamous Willie Horton ads were created by an independent organization, it was Bush’s media consultant Roger Ailes who “gleefully” told Time Magazine in August of 1988, “The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it.”
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