“Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has accused a conservative super PAC of darkening her skin in a television ad meant to slam Illinois’ Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker,” the U.K.-based tabloid Daily Mail reported on Wednesday, August 24, 2022 (read story and see video of ad here).
The racist attack ad “warns in big, white lettering that ‘Chicago violence is coming to the suburbs’ and shows gun battles on the city’s streets,” the Daily Mail said.
Pritzker’s opponent is Republican Darren Bailey (profile here), a far-right downstate farmer who has less chance of winning in November than a Greenland iceberg’s survival odds in Arizona.
It’s unclear why an ad on behalf of a GOP candidate for governor features Chicago’s mayor. After all, Bailey isn’t running against her. Maybe it ties in with his past remarks that Chicago should be a separate state.
In any case, racist demagoguery is a common feature of Republican campaigning in a lot of places. But photoshopping blackface onto a political opponent who’s already black seems like going an extra mile. Maybe they want to make sure everybody knows they’re racists.
Return to The-Ave.US Home Page
