This blatant ignorance is deeply offensive, and is a weak attempt to manipulate people’s prejudices to her own advantage. Ellmers’ ad implies that once the mosque is built, Muslim terrorists will be loitering on street corners, handing out bombs disguised as candy and gleefully brainstorming new ways to strike fear into the American people.
Ellmers openly identifies all Muslims as terrorists — an unfounded correlation. Her platform is insulting to not only the Muslim community, but also to those who realize that a small group of extremists do not — and should not — define an entire religion.
This argument is reinforced by bigotry, stereotyping and a healthy dose of fear to keep her audience in rapt attention — unfortunately for Ellmers, she appears pro-racial profiling by associating terrorism with the entire Muslim community. The people of North Carolina should see Ellmers’ ad not as a heroic stance against terrorism, but as the product of a basic misunderstanding of the Muslim community and an example of shallow attention-seeking politics.
—Madeline Mann
Contributing Writer
It Takes Courage to Broadcast Such a Polarizing Ad
North Carolina’s Republican Congressional candidate Renee Ellmers recently released a campaign video denouncing plans for an Islamic mosque near Ground Zero. The heavy-handed criticism over the content in her video has resulted in Ellmers being publicly forced to swallow her words by a number of major news networks.
Still, you have to give her some credit. Her commercial, lacking logic and reason, showcases the spirit of a person fighting a fire with a flamethrower and a tank of gasoline.
How many politicians would choose to tackle a sensitive issue far outside of their legal jurisdiction? Renee Ellmers would. Choosing the words “the terrorists haven’t won” as her first televised sentence takes more brawn than brain, but it’s not a career move for the faint of heart. In balancing the delicate line between attention-grabbing media whore and ignorant flagrant racist, Palin-backed Renee Ellmers is snatching name recognition through the media frenzy surrounding her controversial video.
Perhaps this was her plan all along. “Crazy victory mosque lady” may not be the nickname that will catapult her to a senator seat, but it will — and has — generated enough publicity to make her politically relevant. For now.
—Margaret Yau
Associate Opinion Editor
Ellmers’ Ad is A Pathetic Attempt at Publicity
Regardless of what you think of Republican Renee Ellmers’ recent “victory mosque” ad, it’s difficult not to ask why a congressional candidate from the Second House District of North Carolina is broadcasting her opinion on a New York issue. There’s a simple answer: Ellmers, too, wants her 15 minutes of nationwide fame.
Last week, Ellmers launched her “No Mosque at Ground Zero” initiative, which features the provocative ad. It also encourages her supporters to sign a petition against the proposed Islamic community center.
Although it’s tough to think that people of North Carolina are truly terrified of Muslims who seize abandoned coat factories — whether in New York or in their own hometowns — it’s possible that Ellmers’s outlandish comments are garnering the attention her campaign needs. Positive or negative, any press is good press. However, even if she decided to plant her campaign flag on moral issues, there are dozens of other issues that hit closer to home — abortion, gay marriage, gun control –—while the attack on the “victory mosque” in New York (some 500-odd miles away) reads like the public relations gimmick that it is. For Ellmers, receiving the attention of America is apparently worth the sacrifice.
—Arik Burakovsky
Staff Writer
