MSNBC host Harris-Perry: Romney's ad stokes racial resentment

MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry said Tuesday that Mitt Romney's latest advertisement subtlety used race to attack President Barack Obama.

"I do think on the question of tactics, you can use African American bodies, particularly the bodies of poor black women, as a bogey man, as a wedge -- the goal here is to distract white women who if they pay attention to what is going on with reproductive rights will overwhelmingly choose President Obama and congressional Democrats, to encourage them not to think about that issue but instead stoke racial resentment to get them to vote their race rather than their gender," she said.

Romney's ad accuses Obama of undermining welfare reform by allowing people to receive a welfare check without working. Harris-Perry compared the ad to President Ronald Reagan's condemnation of so-called welfare queens.

“On July 12th, President Obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements. Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check, and welfare to work goes back to being plain old welfare,” the ad says.

Harris-Perry said President Bill Clinton also used single African American mothers, which is described as the "welfare queen bogey men," to push for welfare reform. She said Clinton made the Democratic Party much less courageous when it came to race.

Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below:

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