Fliers featuring scenes from the recent unrest in Ferguson, Mo., where an unarmed 18-year-old African American was shot and killed by a police officer, have appeared in Charlotte, N.C., the most recent in a string of efforts by political operatives to “get out the vote” by stoking racial fear.
The front of the Charlotte mailer, which features a picture of a black man on his knees, hands in the air and flanked on both sides by onrushing white police officers, reads: “This won’t ever end. Until we vote.”
On the opposite side of the flier, the message continues: “On the streets of Ferguson, in a Wal-Mart in Ohio, and in too many other places across the country there is a painful lesson to be learned.”
The reference to Walmart is about a black man who was shot and killed by police after a 911 caller claimed someone was stalking around a big-box store with a gun. It turns out the man, John Crawford, was just holding a pellet gun that was for sale inside the store.
The flier ends on this note: “[W]hen we don’t vote, local police departments aren’t accountable to the community.”
A Charlotte news group, WBTV, interviewed local residents to gauge their reaction to the incendiary fliers.
“Definitely provokes a lot of emotion — that’s for sure,” Charlotte resident Alise Salvetti said, adding that she’s comfortable with the mailers. “Yeah, I think so for the most part. I mean sometimes you kind of have to create emotion to get people to go out and act.”
Another resident, Kelle Pressley, said: “[I]t’s a scare tactic. If nothing else, it’s a scare tactic to get out the vote. It’s a powerful piece.”
Yet another resident, Rick Chefitz, said: “It sends, I say, I think a very disturbing message.”
The distribution of the Charlotte mailer comes shortly after another mysterious flier cropped up in North Carolina, depicting an actual lynching and warning that a failure to vote would result in President Obama’s impeachment. The Democratic Party of Georgia circulated another Ferguson-themed mailer, warning residents in the Peach State that a failure to vote Democrat could result in the deaths of African American youths.
“If you want to prevent another Ferguson in their future,” the Georgia mailer reads, “vote. It’s up to you to make it happen.” “If we want a better, safer future for our children,” the mailer added, “it’s up to us to vote for change.”
However, unlike the Georgia mailers, it’s unclear which group specifically is responsible for the fliers distributed in Charlotte.
WBTV “tried to track down the organization that sent out the flier, which said ‘paid for by the Voting Rights Project’ and lists a Garner, N.C., address,” the news group reported. “There is no listing for the Voting Rights Project in Garner, N.C.”
“Online, the Voting Rights Project [is] affiliated with an organization called American Values First,” the report added. “But a spokesperson told WBTV the group did not distribute the [fliers] in North Carolina.”
Democratic senate candidates in North Carolina and Georgia are running in extraordinarily close races.
Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., leads her Republican opponent, businessman and state House Speaker Thom Tillis, in the polls, 44.4 to 43.2, according to the RealClearPolitics weighted average.
Meanwhile, Democratic nominee Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue are in a dead heat, both candidates clocking in at 45.5 percent, according to RealClearPolitics. That race will go to a January runoff if neither major-party candidate gets 50 percent next Tuesday.
