NAACP: Ad Showing Allen West Punching White Woman 'Not Racist

In what may either be the greatest exhibit possible for how minutely and legalistically the NAACP parses ads, or the greatest exhibit possible for the disingenuousness of the racial Left, the NAACP has come out announcing that the recent ad depicting Florida Congressman Allen West attacking white women with boxing gloves isn't racist. No, really, not at all. Read the NAACP's reasoning, via the Huffington Post, below:

But NAACP spokesman Hillary Shelton said he watched the ad several times, specifically looking for the concerns raised by West, and saw nothing.

"Racist is not a term I would utilize to sum up this commercial," Shelton told The Huffington Post. "It looks like a traditional, political, partisan commercial."

"The language utilized doesn't present Allen West as a stereotype of an African American," Shelton said. "The ad has him looking very well groomed, a serious look on his face and he's wearing a suit. The only thing superimposed is a boxing glove as a symbolic analysis of his policies being inconsistent with the values of retirees, women and African-American families."

The NAACP spokesman said the demographics of the people in the ad accurately represent the make-up of West's district, which makes the ad "fair game" in the midst of 2012 politicking. He also dismissed the idea that the ad is offensive to women.

The younger woman being punched in the face "is not wearing a bikini. The expression on her face is not one of fear. It's a serious expression, but it's not of someone being threatened," Shelton said. "I don't see the symbolism in any way ingrained in stereotypes, whether it's race or gender or ethnicity."

Now, on the one hand, those who are tired of accusations of racism being slung everywhere around the political spectrum may find this to be a refreshing bit of logic on the part of the NAACP. And perhaps it is, but when you consider what else the NAACP has called racist, this has more than a bit of a whiff of disingenuousness. Consider this reaction to Mitt Romney's speech at the NAACP by Charlotte Stoker-Manning, Chair of Women in NAACP:

"I believe his vested interests are in white Americans," said Charlette Stoker Manning, chair of Women in NAACP. "You cannot possibly talk about jobs for black people at the level he's coming from. He's talking about entrepreneurship, savings accounts — black people can barely find a way to get back and forth from work."

So referencing entrepreneurship and checking accounts is racist, but showing a black man punching out elderly white women and young white women is fine because there's no sign of "stereotypical" depictions of the women or the black man in question. This distinction may strike some as elusive, while cynics may suggest that the NAACP's inconsistently applied sensitivity is evidence of bias. At best, the distinction involved is probably too subtle.