Voter Suppression: Clear Channel’s Racist Billboards Attempts to Scare Black Voters

OK, so let me get this right: Bain Capital owns Clear Channel, and Clear Channel — you know, the company that pretty much owns all the radio station — is responsible for putting up racist billboards in urban communities in an attempt to scare people of color away from the polls in November?

Oh yeah, and just in case you may have forgotten, Bain Capital was started and once ran by none other than Mitt Romney. Yup, and Romney has been polling at zero-percent and thirty-percent with African-American and Latino voters respectively. Romney has been having a hard time courting the votes of people of color relative to President Obama, and now this is what we lovers of “free stuff,” are seeing in the hood? I’m sorry, though I can appreciate the need and desire to educate people of color in urban communities (read: ghetto). This slick right-wing propaganda smells a bit too much like voter suppression, voter intimidation, and downright racism to me. I’m not into Negro Conspiracy Theories, but this one’s too obvious. But I suppose to the untrained eye, this is hardly anything should concern racism chasers.

A private family foundation is trying to scare Black voters away from the polls in Cleveland’s Ward 5 community. Several graphic billboards placed around the ward threaten voters that “Voter Fraud is a a [sic] felony. Up to 3 1/2 years and a $10,000 fine.” The ads were placed on billboards owned by Clear Channel Outdoors, an international media company.

Ward 5 Councilwoman Phylis Cleveland said that this “is voter intimidation…and threat to you if you vote.” She’s vowed to talk to Clear Channel and find out the backers behind the anonymous family foundation. Voter intimidation is always wrong and it is outrageous in 2012 that an anonymous group is trying to scare Black voters away from the polls in a competitive election.

check out the video:

Cleveland’s Ward 5 Councilwoman Phylis Cleveland

Yep, nothing like seeing liquor stores, gun shops, and voter suppression billboards in the hood. Yeah, because everybody knows that black and brown people are just itching to walk into poll stations every four years and present fake identification because they have warrants. And of course, when you have warrants you tend to stay away from not only the police, but also crossing guards and poll workers. Because, who wants to go to jail on a Tuesday, right? It’s a good thing that colorofchange.org is on Clear Channel’s ass with a petition to have these signs taken down (click here to sign the petition).

If you remember, Color Of Change was responsible for getting Glenn Beck dropped by Fox and off the radio after a petition targeting his sponsors was circulated. He now does his show from somebody’s basement, and it is aired online; nope, Beck ain’t gettin’ loot like he once did.

So yeah, Clear Channel might just wanna go ahead and give that “private family foundation” their money back and pull those billboards. Well RiPPa, these signs aren’t racist, what’s the big deal? No, the billboards don’t actually stay, “Nigger don’t you even think about voting,” or anything like that. However, isn’t it mighty funny that these billboards are popping up in communities of color and nowhere else this close to the election? I’m sorry, but attempting to suppress the votes of any person of color who per the U.S. Constitution has the right to vote, is racist. What’s next, paying a poll tax to be able to cast a vote because of being afflicted with the disease that is melanin?

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