![]() ![]() Therefore, leftists should not duck the issue of racism for fear of alienating whites.Īlthough the Republicans pioneered the practice, the Democrats have their own version of dog whistling, in which they indicate to whites that they are not going to lift a finger to address racial inequality. Although the Willie Horton ad demonstrated dog whistling’s efficacy, Haney López points out that the tactic is only effective as long as no one points out the subtle racial language. After Jackson’s protests, Bush’s lead began to shrink, but not enough to cost him the election. However, before the election, Jesse Jackson began speaking about the implicit racial appeal of the ad. The smear worked, and Bush pulled ahead in the polls. Horton then assaulted a white couple in their home. The ad told the story of Willie Horton, a Black prison inmate in Dukakis’s home state of Massachusetts who escaped on a weekend furlough, a program Dukakis approved as governor. Bush produced a television ad accusing his opponent Michael Dukakis of being soft on crime. In the 1988 presidential election, George H. In examining an incident that has become synonymous with racial demagoguery, Haney López sees some hope for fighting dog whistling. ![]() When Reagan first used his steak story, he described a “strapping young buck,” a Black man, but this character later became a “young fellow.” In dog whistle appeals, race must remain unspoken and only suggested. He played to resentment in a fable about a “young fellow” buying T-bone steaks at the supermarket with food stamps, while Reagan’s audience, implicitly white and hard working, could only afford hamburger. In the 1980 presidential race, Ronald Reagan warned of the “Chicago welfare queen,” a master moocher earning a six-figure income through welfare fraud. Thus, Nixon helped birth in the minds of white Americans an enduring association of Blacks with crime. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this, while not appearing to.”ĭuring his presidency, Nixon railed against “law breakers,” including civil rights protesters and muggers, ghetto rioters, and murderers in the same category of criminals that had to be punished. Haldeman put it in his diary, “President emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the Blacks. Dog whistle appeals never mention race but use language that suggests a racist message. When dog whistling, politicians will appeal to white resentment of nonwhites in order to gain votes. Haney López calls dog whistling an example of “strategic racism,” using race to achieve some other end. He further argues that coded racial appeals, or dog whistling, are essential to understanding economic inequality. In Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class, Ian Haney López gives an account of how racism has persisted in US politics, even as open appeals to white supremacy have become taboo. Our first Black president has deported more undocumented immigrants than his white predecessor. On the other hand, there are more Black men in prison than were enslaved in 1850. As Los Angeles Clippers basketball team owner Donald Sterling recently learned, a racist comment can end a career, even for a wealthy, powerful man. Antiracists in the United States face a contradiction: racism is universally abhorred and rejected, yet racial oppression persists-in some ways, as viciously as under Jim Crow. ![]()
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