Republicans yanked a radio ad Thursday that was aimed at Black voters in Kansas and Missouri comparing Social Security benefits to slavery reparations — except paid to Whites by Blacks.
It was the latest skirmish in a multistate war over Social Security ads pegged to November’s congressional elections. The commercial was paid for by a Republican interest group and aired in the Kansas City area on an urban contemporary station whose listeners are predominantly Black. GOPAC, which is headed by Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, said the ad was a mistake and withdrew it Thursday after calls from reporters and protests from an anti-privatization group.
“You’ve heard about reparations, you know, where Whites compensate Blacks for enslaving us,” the ad says. “Well guess what we’ve got now. Reverse reparations.” The commercial says Blacks earn thousands of dollars less in retirement benefits than Whites because they have shorter life spans. “So the next time some Democrat says he won’t touch Social Security, ask why he thinks Blacks owe reparations to Whites,’ the ad says. GOPAC spokesman Mike Tuffin said his committee is working with a local media company, Access Communications, which mistakenly gave the ad to KPRS-FM as one of several targeting Black voters.
“We disavow it and have seen to it that it was immediately pulled,” Tuffin said. “We did not know it was going to be run and never intended it to be run.”

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said, “To believe that broadcasting these falsehoods in such a racially colored way aimed at African-American voters, obviously thinking they’d buy it hook, line and sinker, is insulting.”   Former Kansas City Mayor Emanuel Cleaver said Keating should apologize for his organization.  “No one should realize more than Governor Keating the need for people to rally together in this nation after a tragedy,” he said. “The people giving them direction on this are so out of touch with Black people that the ads are subliminally saying to Black folks, ‘Don’t join the Republican Party.’”  It's not the only dispute over Social Security ads. In other cases: