Willie Horton incident
The Willie Horton incident refers to a controversial political advertisement used during the 1988 U.S. presidential election, which aimed to portray Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis as weak on crime. The ad prominently featured Willie Horton, an African American man who was a convicted rapist and murderer, and highlighted a case in which he had been granted weekend passes from prison. This advertisement, produced by a political action committee supporting George H. W. Bush, claimed that Dukakis's policies allowed violent criminals like Horton to re-offend, thus framing Dukakis as irresponsible regarding public safety.
Critics widely condemned the ad for its racial undertones, arguing that it perpetuated harmful stereotypes by depicting Horton as a threatening figure. Although the ad did not explicitly mention race, it employed imagery that suggested a racialized threat, contributing to the narrative of fear surrounding crime in the late 1980s. The incident sparked significant discourse about the role of race in political campaigning and has since been viewed as an early example of the "politics of hate" in American electoral politics. Despite the backlash and accusations of racism, Bush maintained that the advertisement was not intended to be racially charged.
Willie Horton incident
Willie Horton, an African American man and convicted rapist and murderer, was the subject of an advertisement produced during the 1988 US presidential election campaign in support of George H. W. Bush’s bid for the presidency. The advertisement is now widely regarded as a significant example of the “politics of hate” that became prevalent in political campaigning in the late 1980s and 1990s.
The thirty-second ad, which ran for twenty-eight days on cable television, was primarily used to argue that Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts and Bush’s Democratic opponent in the race for president, was soft on crime. It did so by stating that Bush “support[ed] the death penalty for first-degree murder” and that Dukakis not only opposed the death penalty but also allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. As evidence, the ad showed a police photograph of a glaring Horton and announced that “Horton murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him nineteen times.” The announcer continued by explaining that “despite the life sentence, Horton received ten weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapping a young couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend.” While the announcer spoke, the words “kidnapping,” “stabbing,” and “raping” flashed on the screen. Over a final photo of Dukakis, the voiceover said, “Weekend prison passes. Dukakis on crime.”
The advertisement, although not officially produced by the Bush campaign for reelection, was made by the National Security Political Action Committee (NSPAC), a political action committee that strongly supported Bush’s bid for the presidency. The advertisement was widely criticized in the mass media as racist. According to one media critic, for example, the Horton advertisement was evidence of the use of the black man as a “racialized-sexualized threat to white women and white social order generally” (John Fiske’s Media Matters, 1994). Although the script of the advertisement never mentioned race, the visual image clearly identified Horton as a menacing black man and implied, to many, that his victims were white. Despite the charges of racism in the media, Bush denied that the advertisement was racist.
Bibliography
Anderson, David C. Crime and the Politics of Hysteria: How the Willie Horton Story Changed American Justice. New York: Random House, 1995. Print.
Bouie, Jamelle. "The GOP Can't Quit 'Willie Horton.'" Slate. Slate Group, 20 Oct. 2014. Web. 11 May. 2015.
Brinker, Luke. "This May Be the Worst Race-Baiting Campaign Ad Since Willie Horton." Salon. Salon Media Group, 17 Oct. 2014. Web. 11 May. 2015.
"Top 10 Campaign Ads: Willie Horton." Time. Time, 2015. Web. 11 May. 2015.
Whitaker, Morgan. "The Legacy of the Willie Horton Ad Lives On, 25 Years Later." MSNBC. NBC Universal, 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 11 May. 2015.