In my last post on the racial turn in the Minnesota 3rd District Congressional race, I left open the possibility that the rhetoric being used against Ashwin Madia might not turn into a pattern. Now there is no doubt.
On the left below are publicly available images of Madia. On the right, you see the images as presented in a recent Republican attack ad (“Running to Raise Taxes”; view it here):
From KARE 11, an NBC affiliate in the Twin Cities, Minnesota:
A Republican attack ad invites viewers to “meet the real Ashwin Madia,” but the still photos featured in the spot present a noticeably darker version of the 3rd District DFL congressional candidate.
“At least three of the photos of Madia were obviously darkened, using one method or another,” public affairs and media consultant Dean Alger told KARE 11.
He said the viewing public has grown accustomed to hearing distorted claims, or statements and votes used out of context. However, Alger asserts the altered images of Madia, the son of Indian immigrants, crosses a line. (link)
Just in case readers need a Razib-ian reminder of why this is bad, here is a bit more:
Clay Steinman of Macalester College, who writes and teaches about advertising and consumer response to mass media messaging, told KARE it appeared at least two of the images were darkened for the ad.
“There’s a lot of scientific data that shows that even if we think that we’re not racist,” Steinman said, “People of all races, when confronted with images that are darker and different, have a kind of visceral, negative response.”
As he put it, “It can contribute to people’s fears; it can make people feel like this person is not like me.”
Alger, who systematically analyzed hundreds of campaign ads for a major election study he co-directed at Harvard, said, “Put starkly, it’s essentially an appeal to racism.”
If this pisses you off — and it probably should — do something about it.
UPDATED: here is the video of the story that ran on NBC 11 in the Twin Cities:
Crosses a line? It’s borderline illegal…
M. Nam
I have seen this type of techniques used time and time again. They most definitely want the person to appear more threatening and almost monster like.
To be a contrarian:
Sorry, but, I haven’t been too impressed with the Madia series you’ve been running here at Sepia Mutiny – you may be correct, the write-ups just aren’t that convicing in and of themselves.
MD,
I’m not a lawyer, but as I understand it, altering a person’s images of any kind could be grounds for a lawsuit.
That’s the thing – it’s a technicality. Was it a photo taken at a bad moment or was it altered to look bad? It’s normal to use badly taken photos of opposing candidates to make them look bad. I’ve seen Obama’s photos with shadows in the wrong places, I’ve see McCain’s photos where he looks devilish. But they are the actual photos without alterations!
I have no issue if someone catches Madia in public picking his nose, and uses that photo to downplay him. But morphing is another issue altogether. Madia should pursue this in a court of law.
M. Nam
Hillary used the same desaturation technique against Obama
Here’s a recent op-ed by Nicholas Kristof in the NY Times that is somewhat germane to this thread. He describes a recent study carried out at San Diego State University to examine the propensity to ascribe American identity to whites rather than other ethnicities.
And do try out some of the implicit association tests youself (the links are in the article) to examine your own unconscious biases.
So messed up. Plus, exactly what color is he supposed to be in that retouched photo?!
For those of you who think you are not racist, Test Yourself. This website will go through different tests — race, ethnicity, Obama/McCain — and figure out your implicit bias. It only takes a couple of minutes per each test – you basically go through a range of pictures.
Darkening Madia’s picture is a dirty subtle trick that plays on peoples implicit bias and subliminal racist tendencies…
The Repugs seem to use the same tactic in negative ads on Obama as well. I think they will try to justify it by saying the contrastive, dark effect ads to the gloomy, dark nature of the ad…as the messages of the ads are typically negative and therefore they will try to make the theme darker, like darker, thunderous clouds.
1) i do think this is done to many candidates, irrespective of race
2) i think if the candidate is non-white it obviously will have a bigger impact on majority white audiences. i also think it is fair to ask if political parties should engage in semiotic-normalization because of their target audience? to some extent sure, there is some serious stuff going on here, but in the heat of the campaign it is easy to pin the blame on manipulating agents, but what about the populace which is susceptible to these influences? why exactly is democracy so great when most voters are frankly ret*rded and irrational?
3) implicit tests are great, but as a cognitive psychologist friend explained to me, what it means in real life is complicated. the ceteris paribus assumptions of social science mean that what you see in a psychological experiment might not translate in a straightforward way to the real world where interaction effects are always present
I don’t have the link for this, but just a reminder that the very same tactic was used against Bobby Jindal in 2004 when he was running against Kathleen Blanco in the gubernatorial elections.
It seems to me that there might be a better way for Madia to respond to this despicable tactic than calling for the ad to be taken off the air, which seems to be the regular and predictable course of action in these situations. Why not run an ad that says something along the following lines:
It is true that the color of my skin darkens. Particularly in the sun. This is what happened when I served in Iraq. My skin was the darkest when I put my life in danger to serve the red, white and blue. So, while I think it is inappropriate for the NRCC to tamper with photos, their darkening of my skin color only reminds me of the distinct honor I had to serve my country in a time of war.
Interesting I am reading this post because just last night we saw one of these commercials and my mom said “he looks scary” and I replied “well, yea…it the opponent’s ad.
Hindi movies in particular and the other India movies as well, never seem to have “sepia” skinned actors; sepia(ns) get plastered with a 1/2″ thick primer or never shown at all. Now that’s going back in reverse, I guess 🙂
I don’t have the link for this, but just a reminder that the very same tactic was used against Bobby Jindal in 2004 when he was running against Kathleen Blanco in the gubernatorial elections.
Daycruz, I seem to remember that as well (it was long before I joined up with Sepia Mutiny). Which is why I didn’t try and make this about the Republicans — the Democrats aren’t innocent of this tactic by any means.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be condemned in this particular instance.
To respond to MD (comment #3), I don’t know what you mean by “You’ve done this before, Amardeep.” What have I done before exactly? At any rate, I updated the post to add a link to the full ad on YouTube, and also added two other darkened images to reinforce the point. Though I don’t see how it changes anything. The images speak for themselves (also note how the military context is cropped out of Image #1 above, and how Images #2 and #3 are tilted… though admittedly that’s just standard negative campaign image editing.)
I think Razib’s comment #10 also underlines why it matters when non-white candidates’ images specifically are darkened. Incidentally, I think in the first image above it’s more than just de-saturation — they’ve done the de-saturation to create that drained, pale effect, but then they’ve gone back and specifically darkened it too.
One billion indians do the same exact thing in India, but it’s usually along the lines of making themselves whiter to win elections/marriages.
*
16 · Etherspirit said
That in itself sounds like a racist comment!
So, I went looking for Madia anti-Paulsen (I guess the R incubent he’s challenging) ads and found this after googling ‘Madia anti-Paulsen ads’ (I know, I know). It’s not science, it’s blogging.
I found a Channel Five (whatever that is) truth check thingy giving a Madia ad a grade of ‘D’.
Linky here. The television news spot didn’t play the whole ad but there’s a quick screen shot where Paulsen has one of those clunky, poorly lit pics that you see in campaign ads. I couldn’t tell how that darkening compared to the darkening here. LOL. Even the National Guard soldier in the ad has a slightly dark photo.
All I’m saying is, it’s a pretty serious accusation to throw around. A St. Olaf grad and a Minnesotan a raging racist? Eh, dunno. Maybe there are rivers of underground racism in Minnesota that I am unfamiliar with and this ad is a dogwhistle. Always thought it was a fairly progressive state, actually. Seems the ads make the opponent look bad in lots of ways. I remain, as ever, contrarian and skeptical. Maybe you are right, maybe you are not. All I know is this: politics gets stupider ever year I bother to pay attention to it.
He looks iconic in that last edited photo. The man is handsome no matter how you edit him, it’s no wonder his opponent is trying so hard.
I should clarify – the Madia ad had a slightly darkly lit Paulsen picture in it, but, again, it’s a quick shot and I don’t know how it compares to the ads again. In general, I prefer links to the entire ad, with the challengers ad for comparison, so that readers can make up their own minds.
Whoever photoshopped the photos should be laughed to death for the lack of photoshop skills. Bonus get his work on this site http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/
o)
MD:
Even if images were routinely darkened of all opposing candidates to make them look sinister, that doesn’t mean that the ad is not racist (or playing into other stereotypes). i.e. if all apples are green, then that means that each and every apple is green, including this one.
What this does show, though, is that even if your argument is accurate, there are different effects, regardless of intention, of the same practice (if it is the same) when applied to people of color. And that there are punishments for engaging in those practices without race consciousness. So attacking the ad, of itself, is a way of attacking a lack of race consciousness and racism in general.
I do appreciate, though, that you’re not blindly following the argument in the post. It’s nice to have thoughtful argumentation, even where I’m predisposed to disagree with it.
Moor Nam: Every political ad I’ve ever seen looks altered in this photoshop age. Those are gonna be a lot of lawsuits if that’s the case. Our national Senate is already, like, 40% lawyers and they do enough damage as it is.
Anyway, I’m not in Minnesota, so I don’t know. This race is their business and it looks like it’s turned into a really nasty race. That’s what happens when the national parties pay attention to local races. Yuck. Why would any decent person ever run for office? It always turns into nastiness. No wonder the ‘Hope and Change’ seems so appealing. (And, to be honest, the bloggers who breathlessly follow these races don’t exactly add to the civility – and, no, I’m not talking about this post or Amardeep).
21 · 3rdEye* said
That was my first though too 🙂
Dr. Anonymouse – Point well taken.
*I think I was born with a contrarian gene. I always have to argue the opposite. Maybe Razib knows the gene….
The Economist says my thoughts on this well, in their endorsement of Obama:
“A man who started with no money and few supporters has out-thought, out-organised and out-fought the two mightiest machines in American politics—the Clintons and the conservative right. Political fire, far from rattling Mr Obama, seems to bring out the best in him: the furore about his (admittedly ghastly) preacher prompted one of the most thoughtful speeches of the campaign.”
If Madia can’t stand the fire, he will soon be out of the kitchen.
25 · MD said
As you can see from my appreciation of your comment, I’ve got it too 🙂 The only tragedy is that contrarians of the world will never unite, because we won’t be able to agree to and even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to agree on what it is we’re uniting on.
🙂
I hope the day never comes when we have a desi candidate who lightens him/herself. I’ll hide under a mountain of fair & lovely containers if that ever happens. Imagine haveing to explain that to people at work.
I see parts of his face much lighter and parts darker. This is called contrast. So the image was converted to grayscale and the contrast increased. That is not darkening the image.
Yup – the races are getting ugly. In a local race, a question was raised about Ashish Mahendru’s religion. How is this relevant? And how do we as a community address such BS?
Palin’s tanning bed. Has anyone explained it to you?
31 · bess said
she yearns to be eskimo
Manju to Palin: Got any Indian in you?
Palin: No
Manju: Want some?
(It works everytime. Right, Manju?)
An email I just blasted out:
I hope someone with mad graphic/photographic skills would do Madia the favor of making promotional materials that make him look truly iconic in the ideological/revolutionary-sense. Why not take these poorly edited images of Madia and make them into a poster similar to the onefor Obama? Let the menacing glare stand for his attitude on injustice. Madia camp are you listening?
“In a local race, a question was raised about Ashish Mahendru’s religion. How is this relevant?”
On cnn just now they were discussing elizabeth dole’s “godless” attack ad on her opponent. donna brazille rightly criticized it, but then, after wolf blizter asked her (a silly question really) whether the opponent was wrong to go to some event at the home of an atheist (unless the woman is a horrid person, why would it be wrong for her to go there?), she (brazille) indulged in more nonsense by saying that although there are a lot of “believers” in the u.s., there are many who don’t believe in a god and she doesn’t know why because there is “evidence” to the contrary but people are elected to serve all the people (the only good part of her answer) etc. – but then she ended with something like “that’s how you convert them.” ????? even those who should know better and who profess to serve all the people have these ingrained religious blindspots. it would seem having no god is even worse than having a non-christian god. silly stuff.
I would hesitate before jumping to “racist”. To me it doesn’t seem any more extreme then the footage and pictures used in the negative ads for my local elections. Somehow, despite the original source being from CNN or CSPAN or some other crystal clear channel, it always looks like they took it with a cellphone camera coated with pocket lint and compressed 500%. Even Obama’s post third debate ad does this with McCain footage.
So yes, it was done to make him look darker and more sinister, but I’d argue they would have done that with any candidate they faced. Unless Minnesota has a well known bias against gray people, I have a hard time making the leap to racism. It’s more like politics as usual, unfortunately.
36 · Whose God is it anyways? said
This has been repeatedly established by Pew surveys. Both personally and politically, protestant middle-americans would accept a muslim before they accepted an atheist.
33 · bess said
Unfortunately for Manju, word has it she don’t want no one minuit man.
Amardeep, thanks for blogging this. Ridiculous. And yes, it’s racist.
Did : Guess I am not a member of the KKK after all “Your data suggests a moderate automatic preference for Black people over White people”. Still do’nt like Obama Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for John McCain compared to Barack Obama.
And Still don’t see what the big fuss over the photo is. Just looks badly Pixelated to me
2 · Doug said
Time magazine darkened O.J. Simpson’s picture on their cover back in 1994. Granted Simpson isn’t a politician, but the darkening of a man of color’s picture was definitely used to make him appear more menacing (like Simpson), or in this case, less trustworthy of a candidate.
assuming dark=sinister, is this a natural impulse? Or “coloured” with learned racism? also makes me wonder if aunties looking for fair brides, the light-skinned Bollywood… now that’s not race. The point is- is this a universal phenomenon?
While I don’t doubt that conservatives like darkening images of their opponents to create fear, I recently took a video color-correction class and am now suddenly seeing that EVERYTHING on TV is frickin’ dark and desaturated. It’s part of the modern filmic ad style to only emphasize a small part of the color palette, and I hadn’t been quite so conscious of it before taking the class. It’s amazing how increasing the blacks and desaturating an image slightly will make plain old DV footage magically look ‘professional.’ So my question would be, are those photos on the left taken from photographs, or are they video stills? I would hazard a guess that most “advertisement” videos have been color-graded to suit a certain style, whereas still photos and raw news footage haven’t.
“This has been repeatedly established by Pew surveys. Both personally and politically, protestant middle-americans would accept a muslim before they accepted an atheist.”
interesting.
The Republican party needs a split, this racist, social conservative crap must go…
I’ve read many short stories in Tamil where the characterization of a young female goes some thing like this..
Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo
22 · Dr Amonymous said
Point well taken.
But some above are pouncing on this ad to call for donations to Madia. Why only single out Paulsen on this issue a couple of days before the election? Seems like selective outrage.
Amazing to hear a statement like this in this of all years, when political engagement, enthusiasm and participation are surging in a way not seen in decades. No matter what happens Tuesday, this is a transformative year in American politics. Come out from the cellars of cynicism — it’s actually quite lovely outside.
using photoshop is illegal?