Already this week, Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue had to pull an ad for anti-Semitism after The Forward showed that it included a picture of Perdue’s Democratic—and Jewish—opponent, Jon Ossoff, altered to make his nose appear larger. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, though, isn’t taking down an ad that darkens the skin of his opponent, Jaime Harrison, who is Black.
“It’s sad that detractors are making up fake accusations about this graphic,” according to a Graham campaign spokesman, who admitted that the ad used an “artistic effect.” You know, the artistic effect of making a Black man look darker and therefore ostensibly scarier.
Graham’s campaign also insisted the “artistic effect” was innocent because the same effect was, they said, used on Graham recently in a video. Okay, if that happened, was that video from the Harrison campaign? One somehow feels the Graham campaign would mention it if that were the case. Additionally, there’s something different about showing someone’s face thrown into shadow as a frame or two of a video and darkening a still photo. And, oh, right, racism exists and it’s different to darken a Black man’s skin. Continue reading.