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Right, it makes us doubt our usage of this powerful heuristic to instantly identify people as friends or enemies. That heuristic is what powers racism and stere
by manyoso 9y ago
Right, it makes us doubt our usage of this powerful heuristic to instantly identify people as friends or enemies. That heuristic is what powers racism and stereotyping. That's the irony!
People combatting racism (completely understandably) want to use the same technique of quickly identifying friends and enemies to identify racists. And dog whistling interferes with that. It makes us uncertain and doubts our usage of it.
In my view, it is this uncertainty that we as a species need to get better at. You want to combat racism? Find ways to make them doubt the heuristic too.
- matthewbauer 9y agoI think you're right when it comes to dog whistling outside of politicians. But right wing politicians have a very real history of using dog whistles to in the U.S. Think "state's rights" as opposed to "segregation". Those uses should still be called out.