Jesse Helms: An Inspiration to Black Politicians Everywhere

David Weigel | September 3, 2006

North Carolina congressional candidate Vernon Robinson - last seen rewriting the "Beverly Hillbillies" theme for an ad bashing illegal immigrants - is running a new 60-second spot with an unmissable inspiration. Robinson calls himself the "black Jesse Helms," and he's ripped off the scenes and tone of Helms' seminal negative ad "Hands." In that 1990 ad, run against black Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, a white man opened a rejection letter and tore it up; his job had been stolen by a "minority." Robinson's loving tribute gives us a black woman (nice!) getting the fateful letter, informing her that the Man has hired "an illegal alien, so they could pay him under the table." A downtrodden white dude walks up to a storefront to find only bilingual employees are wanted; he consoles his pixie-ish daughter, who wonders silently why Vernon Robinson is so angry at Mexican workers if they're all bilingual.

Make sure and check out the section on illegal workers "spitting in our faces and burning our flag" around 0:36. If you can locate any Hispanic immigrant in the flag-burning montage, you win a prize to be determined.

Comments

Handsome Dan|9.3.06 @ 7:07PM|#

My fave is from about :46: "...the American flag, the flag that Brad Miller voted to let illegal aliens burn and trample!"

Was there special legislation that addressed this? Was it illegal for foreigners to "burn and trample" the flag before an act of Congress allowed them to do so?

|9.3.06 @ 7:24PM|#

"THAYTUKERJEERBS!"

Well, I guess the struggle for African-American equality is over when they can, with a straight face, be just as vile and bigoted as any Klansman.

I hope this mother fucker get's his ass handed to him in November.

aspendougy|9.3.06 @ 8:25PM|#

The downtrodden white dude could just learn Spanish, and then go in an apply for the job. The sign didn't say you had to be a Hispanic.

|9.3.06 @ 8:48PM|#

As a technical/accounting matter, paying someone "under the table" is risky for any business and darned near impossible for a business that is not cash based.

Non-cash-based businesses are just washing their hand of this by contributing the full payroll taxes for their employees, legal or not. A business often chooses to hire immigrants over natives because the immigrants are hungrier for work and more productive. The 'under the table" incentive is rare.

|9.3.06 @ 8:56PM|#

The downtrodden white dude could just learn Spanish, and then go in an apply for the job. The sign didn't say you had to be a Hispanic.

Yeah, if the white dude learned to be bilingual, he would speak only slightly less languages than most Europeans!

|9.3.06 @ 9:02PM|#

I'm guessing Vernon doesn't see the War on Drugs as genocide on African-Americans.

Many years ago I sold bibles in NC, so I have an inkling of the "thinking" there.

thoreau|9.3.06 @ 9:09PM|#

If Vernon Robinson learned Spanish he could say dumb things in two languages.

|9.3.06 @ 9:15PM|#

So wait, are we for or against affirmative action/racial quotas?

|9.3.06 @ 9:46PM|#

The downtrodden white dude could just learn Spanish

Or Sanskrit. Or Yiddish.

|9.3.06 @ 9:48PM|#

Or only Yiddish and Sanskrit.

|9.3.06 @ 9:54PM|#

If Vernon Robinson learned Spanish he could say dumb things in two languages.


The drive-though window audio system is so bad at Taco Bell I have to wonder if it matters what languages you can speak.

|9.3.06 @ 10:53PM|#

So wait, are we for or against affirmative action/racial quotas?

I think we're against them, but we still think black white supremacists are funny.

|9.3.06 @ 11:39PM|#

"If you can locate any Hispanic immigrant in the flag-burning montage, you win a prize to be determined."

Aren't all swarthy people interchangeable?

|9.4.06 @ 1:30AM|#

Ruthless, spread the word!

Where I live in NC we are getting overrun by ignorant shits like yourself. So keep talking and maybe we can be spared more assholes.

|9.4.06 @ 1:50AM|#

Not to threadjack, but we should have a moment of silence for Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20349888-2,00.html

|9.4.06 @ 1:50AM|#

So wait, are we for or against affirmative action/racial quotas?

Against of course. They're a type of racist anti-individualism with the force of the state behind them. Helms' making a campaign issue out of them was an ethical and pro-liberty action.

I liked the part of Robinson's ad where he said that he would "stop the handouts".

For people who bitch about illegal immigrants not paying taxes, two points: The rest of us may well be more prosperous cuz illegal immigrants don't pay. If illegal immigrants didn?t get any government handouts that we have to pay for, we would most definitely be more prosperous with them not paying taxes. And also, too bad we all can't get declared illegal so we don't have to pay either.

|9.4.06 @ 3:05AM|#

Not to threadjack, but we should have a moment of silence for Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin:

For a showman and a risk taker i can honestly say i wish he was a bit more of a showman and a little less of a risk taker...but then he may never have been known.

Anyway I never really watched his show but i still wish he wasn't dead

|9.4.06 @ 9:24AM|#

And also, too bad we all can't get declared illegal so we don't have to pay either.

You don't need to be "illegal" to not pay taxes, you just need to do the same thing the illegal aliens do to avoid paying taxes: use fake paperwork and declare a lot of dependents. If you're going to stick around for a while, use different fake paperwork, with a different name and SS#, each year or as needed. Easy.

|9.4.06 @ 9:45AM|#

Macaca?!

|9.4.06 @ 10:39AM|#

[quote]The downtrodden white dude could just learn Spanish, and then go in an apply for the job. The sign didn't say you had to be a Hispanic.[/quote]

Exactly, Aspen.

Around here, jobs that require "bilingual" employees are often taken by phosphorescent-skinned former missionaries who spent 18 months or 2 years in a Spanish speaking country.

brian423|9.4.06 @ 11:42AM|#

Aren't the folks in North Carolina offended by the hillbilly stereotypes invoked in that jingle?

|9.4.06 @ 11:54AM|#

He's a black Republican, he doesn't care what happens to black people, because he's too busy having his nose up his abuser's ass

A black Republican is a mentally ill Republican, or he just enjoys being beaten. Why not pick up the Confederate flag and wave it proudly like that guy on Penn & Teller? At least then we can slap you in irons and put you to work, just like you want!

There is no difference between the Republican party and the Confederacy, except they won the war.

|9.4.06 @ 1:01PM|#

A black Republican is a mentally ill Republican, or he just enjoys being beaten.

He should follow the lead of black policitians who actually get elected: blame white people for everything.

|9.4.06 @ 1:02PM|#

Wickywoo,

Your idiot comments erroneously assume that the GOP is anti-Black. Just cuz you seem incapable of coherent political thought doesn?t give you good cause to begrudge Black folks thinking for themselves.

...because he's too busy having his nose up his abuser's ass.

And just who is this abuser? It's big government that abuses huge portions of every ethnic group.

Also, note that the Reagan years of relatively restrained government witnessed a record ascendancy of African Americans into both middle class and upper-middle class income levels.

|9.4.06 @ 1:12PM|#

I'm amazed somebody bothered to respond to Wiky.

|9.4.06 @ 1:41PM|#

And just who is this abuser? It's big government that abuses huge portions of every ethnic group.

Come on, Rick. Everyone knows I run the Republican party.

|9.4.06 @ 2:34PM|#

I think wickywoo is someone playing a joke. He's just too over the top to be serious.

I mean, when the republican party first came into power, on a platform of internal improvements and protectionist tarrifs, it trigerred the secession of the confederate states. The republicans wanted those taxes so badly that they were willing to lay waste to large swathes of countryside and kill vast numbers of people. The confederates and republicans were completely opposed in outlook on taxes and government interference in the economy.

The republicans and the confederates are about as opposite as one can get.

You can say a lot of mean things about the Confederates, and a lot of meant things about the republicans, but equating the two is about as silly as equating fascism with militant islamic fundmentalist movements.

|9.4.06 @ 2:40PM|#

I thought Wicky was being ironic. But if not, well, was it worth responding to either way?

|9.4.06 @ 2:56PM|#

You can say a lot of mean things about the Confederates, and a lot of meant things about the republicans, but equating the two is about as silly as equating fascism with militant islamic fundmentalist movements.

Yes, because the Republican party hasn't changed one little bit since the days of the Civil War. That's why they're still reviled in the South, and why most black people are loyal Republicans to this very day.

|9.4.06 @ 3:22PM|#

The republicans and the confederates are about as opposite as one can get.

Well, all the way up until the Southern Strategy.

|9.4.06 @ 4:05PM|#

tarran:

I think wickywoo is someone playing a joke.

That possibility dawned on me as well but there are some pretty dumb liberals out there.

|9.4.06 @ 4:42PM|#

Why does Vernon Robinson assume that only Hispanics will be bilingual? Has it become conventional wisdom that immigrants are not only harder working than most Americans but also better educated?

I doubt very much that any employer would send out letters to rejected applicants announcing their intention to violate Federal law.

What's interesting to me about these ads is that both the Helms ad and the Robinson manifesto feed the cult of victimization that Republicans claim to be opposed to. Both assert that the voter's problem isn't that he's unskilled or unmotivated, but that the Other is keeping him down: in Helms' ad the Other is the Negro and his Conspiracy; in Robinson's, the Brown Man and his Invasion.

|9.4.06 @ 7:13PM|#

I don't think the add is suggesting that only Hispanics are bi-lingual, but that due to the influx of all these immigrants, we now have to bother to learn Spanish to be in the workforce, because there are so many of them. And up until recently we've been existing in bliss with the purity of our English language. ;)

|9.4.06 @ 9:02PM|#

aa: But...how does that mean that the man is a "victim" for not being bilingual? Presumably, someone else got the job. Someone better educated. Better qualified. Perhaps the job wouldn't have existed at all if not for the influx of Spanish-speaking customers. No, he's playing on bogus victimization and blatant racism. This is a traditional Republican theme but using it to attract black voters is a new wrinkle.

The hell of it is, it might actually work...which would be good for the Democrats, if you think about it. I should think they would be eager to trade the black vote for the Hispanic vote.

|9.4.06 @ 11:43PM|#

I'm from the area in NC where Vernon got his start in local politics. And yes, we're offended by that kind of crap. That's why he lost the last time he ran for office. He's always been extreme and WAY over the top.