In a radio ad supporting Rep. French Hill (R-AR), the narrator says that black Arkansans should vote Republican because if Democrats could accuse white Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault with “no evidence,” white Democrats in charge would start “lynching black folk again.”
The commercial, paid for by a group called Black Americans for the President’s Agenda, seems to be narrated by two black women who punctuate their talking points with “girllll” as they trade statements.
Hill disavowed the commercial in a tweet.
Some may have heard an appalling ad on the radio. I condemn this outrageous ad in the strongest terms. I do not support that message, and there is no place in Arkansas for this nonsense.
— French Hill (@ElectFrench) October 18, 2018
Black Americans for the President’s Agenda did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment.
“Our congressman French Hill, and the Republicans, know that it’s dangerous to change the presumption of innocence to a presumption of guilt, especially for Black men,” one of the women says in the ad.
“I’m voting to keep Congressman French Hill and the Republicans, because we need to protect our men and boys,” one of the women says at the end of the ad. “We can’t afford to let white Democrats take us back to the bad old days of race verdicts, life sentences and lynchings when a white girl screams ‘rape’.”
FEC filings show that the group made expenditures for radio production, though it’s unclear if that spending went into the production of this specific commercial.
According to the Arkansas Times, a North Carolinian man named Vernon Robinson is behind the ad. Robinson is a conservative activist and takes far-right stances on social issues like gay rights and immigration.
Robinson has run for congress multiple times, and is known as a “perennial candidate.” During his 2006 run, he aired a campaign ad likening immigrants coming to America to aliens coming to Earth in a Twilight Zone episode.
Listen here:
This is a real radio ad currently running in Arkansas in support of Republican Congressman French Hill on radio stations targeted to the African American community. I don’t even have words to describe it. pic.twitter.com/vpzt1nGPlc
— (((Ben Tribbett))) (@notlarrysabato) October 18, 2018
I’m surprised a station would run that. I expect I would be less surprised if I knew who owns the station.
Black Americans for the President’s Agenda
Ssssuuuurrrreeee.
I think they misspelled “Russian Ratf*ckers for Republicans” as “Black Americans for the President’s Agenda”.
Gurrrrlll, y’all’re three walking rabbits short of a Looney Tunes.
I believe the ad is describing some pre-Southern Strategy Dems, all of whom now self-identify as die-hard Rethugliklans.