5 ms·

My hair is starting to think about peppering itself with white, so I wasn't born yesterday, but I've spent about 1/3 of my adult life in Asia (primarily Japan),

by ci5er 9y ago

My hair is starting to think about peppering itself with white, so I wasn't born yesterday, but I've spent about 1/3 of my adult life in Asia (primarily Japan), about 1/3 in the North of the US split between Yankee-land and the Rocky Mountain region, and about 1/3 in "the South". In the Rocky Mountain region that I was in (and that I was born in), there was no history of slavery or any sort of modern diversity (it was all coal-miners, oil-drillers, and ranchers all the time), so I think we can take that one off the table. As we can Japan - because their issues with racism are different from ours (in the US). That leaves good old Yankee-land and "the South". I am by birth and by culture, not a Southerner, but I will declare that if anyone sees more racism in Shreveport LA (for example) than they do in Chicago or even Terre Haute IN, that is a person that I would assert has never been to the south. I believe generally (based on a whole lotta anecdotal observation - some of which are turning my aging locks white), that Y2K Yankee-land is far more racist than Y2K Dixie. I don't know what it was like in 1960 - the race riots of Detroit in '68 - white flight to the suburbs - any of that. But I do believe that you are giving your own region a pass and the south a diss if you believe that they are more racist than you. EDIT: And it isn't necessarily germane to my parent comment, but I see a lot of use of the phrase "dog-whistle" with no specifics. Can we see more specifics, so that the lesser aware of us can know what you are even talking about, or even get educated on what constitutes a "dog-whistle"?

sangnoir 9y ago
> And it isn't necessarily germane to my parent comment, but I see a lot of use of the phrase "dog-whistle" with no specifics Quick, let's do some free association and tell me the first skin color that comes to mind: thugs, real americans, inner-city youth, hard-working american, welfare queen, illegal immigrant.
- ci5er 9y ago
  You are telling me that "welfare queen" is supposed to make me think of white trailer trash in my neighborhood? Surely not. You are trying to tell me that the phrase is supposed to make me think in racist terms, right? If so, then, alright, the only thing on your list that makes me think of somebody that might be darker beige than me (I assume this is where you are trying to go?) is illegal immigrant, where I do assume "Mexican born national". Is that racist, or just a recognition of how our borders go and the fact that few Canadians come to the US to pick our tomatoes?
  - sangnoir 9y ago
    > You are trying to tell me that the phrase is supposed to make me think in racist terms, right? No, I am saying the phrase is meant to be interpreted in a racial context by the target audience while passing off as non-racial. Non of the phrases I listed are racial by the dictionary definition. The difference between a dog-whistle and a regular whistle is that dog-whistles are inaudible to humans and go unnoticed, hence the "dog-whistle" tag for such coded language.
  - Gracana 9y ago
    > You are trying to tell me that the phrase is supposed to make me think in racist terms, right? No, "dog-whistle" terms seem mundane and can be played off as having the dictionary definition, but to certain people they have a very specific meaning. Your neighbor might say he wants to keep "thugs" out of your neighborhood, which you can naively infer to mean "violent criminals," but to other racists it's a synonym for "niggers." Or maybe you do know what he means, so you call him on it... and he asserts that it just means "violent criminals." That's what makes a dog-whistle.
    - ci5er 9y ago
      Oh. I see what you mean. I see enough references to the phrase (like: "everyone knows this is a dog-whistle for xyz") that I started to wonder if that phrase wasn't in itself, in certain contexts, a form of virtue-signaling itself. Maybe I was wrong. Q: How is it that all the anti-racists know all the code-words that make up a dog whistle for racists? Isn't it supposed to be, by definition, unhearable?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - wtflmaohnisdumb 9y ago
        > Q: How is it that all the anti-racists know all the code-words that make up a dog whistle for racists? Isn't it supposed to be, by definition, unhearable? No. Just not explicit.
      - 9y ago
- corpMaverick 9y ago
  Let's see...thugs=wall street(white). real Americans=cherokee(brown). hard-working american=Hispanic(brown). Welfare queen=goldman sacks(gold). Illegal immigrant=columbus(white).
- betenoire 9y ago
  It's not free association if you are telling me to think of a skin color while listing stereotypes.
zimpenfish 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics "Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup." Lingua Franca had an interesting example recently - http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/09/28/the-subtle-art-of-english-ethnic-slurs/ http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/09/28/the-s... “The man should be in a pub on the banks of the Liffey.”
wpietri 9y ago
> But I do believe that you are giving your own region a pass and the south a diss if you believe that they are more racist than you. This was definitely a lesson I learned. I grew up in the midwest, and because racism of the Jim Crow sort was more blatant in the south, I thought we were relatively innocent. But I no longer think that. As an example, I got a reproduction of the Negro Motorist Green Book. [1] It was a good exercise trying to imagine planning one of the road trips I've been on, but only staying at the small number of places that would accept black people. I also learned from that book that there was one town in Michigan where well-off black people went to vacation: Idlewild. [2] It was created because black people in Chicago and Detroit were excluded from other vacation spots. I grew up not far from this place and nobody ever mentioned the history to me. Not accidental, I'm sure, that white people forgot all about it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idlewild,_Michigan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idlewild,_Michigan
e12e 9y ago
On the subject of recent struggle for equality - I strongly recommend watching "the black power mixtape 1967-1975": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Power_Mixtape_1967%E2%80%931975 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Power_Mixtape_1967... I believe it's available on Netflix.

by ci5er 9y ago

sangnoir 9y ago

> And it isn't necessarily germane to my parent comment, but I see a lot of use of the phrase "dog-whistle" with no specifics Quick, let's do some free association and tell me the first skin color that comes to mind: thugs, real americans, inner-city youth, hard-working american, welfare queen, illegal immigrant.

ci5er 9y ago
You are telling me that "welfare queen" is supposed to make me think of white trailer trash in my neighborhood? Surely not. You are trying to tell me that the phrase is supposed to make me think in racist terms, right? If so, then, alright, the only thing on your list that makes me think of somebody that might be darker beige than me (I assume this is where you are trying to go?) is illegal immigrant, where I do assume "Mexican born national". Is that racist, or just a recognition of how our borders go and the fact that few Canadians come to the US to pick our tomatoes?
- sangnoir 9y ago
  > You are trying to tell me that the phrase is supposed to make me think in racist terms, right? No, I am saying the phrase is meant to be interpreted in a racial context by the target audience while passing off as non-racial. Non of the phrases I listed are racial by the dictionary definition. The difference between a dog-whistle and a regular whistle is that dog-whistles are inaudible to humans and go unnoticed, hence the "dog-whistle" tag for such coded language.
- Gracana 9y ago
  > You are trying to tell me that the phrase is supposed to make me think in racist terms, right? No, "dog-whistle" terms seem mundane and can be played off as having the dictionary definition, but to certain people they have a very specific meaning. Your neighbor might say he wants to keep "thugs" out of your neighborhood, which you can naively infer to mean "violent criminals," but to other racists it's a synonym for "niggers." Or maybe you do know what he means, so you call him on it... and he asserts that it just means "violent criminals." That's what makes a dog-whistle.
  - ci5er 9y ago
    Oh. I see what you mean. I see enough references to the phrase (like: "everyone knows this is a dog-whistle for xyz") that I started to wonder if that phrase wasn't in itself, in certain contexts, a form of virtue-signaling itself. Maybe I was wrong. Q: How is it that all the anti-racists know all the code-words that make up a dog whistle for racists? Isn't it supposed to be, by definition, unhearable?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - wtflmaohnisdumb 9y ago
      > Q: How is it that all the anti-racists know all the code-words that make up a dog whistle for racists? Isn't it supposed to be, by definition, unhearable? No. Just not explicit.
    - 9y ago
corpMaverick 9y ago
Let's see...thugs=wall street(white). real Americans=cherokee(brown). hard-working american=Hispanic(brown). Welfare queen=goldman sacks(gold). Illegal immigrant=columbus(white).
betenoire 9y ago
It's not free association if you are telling me to think of a skin color while listing stereotypes.

zimpenfish 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics "Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup." Lingua Franca had an interesting example recently - http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/09/28/the-subtle-art-of-english-ethnic-slurs/ http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/09/28/the-s... “The man should be in a pub on the banks of the Liffey.”

wpietri 9y ago

> But I do believe that you are giving your own region a pass and the south a diss if you believe that they are more racist than you. This was definitely a lesson I learned. I grew up in the midwest, and because racism of the Jim Crow sort was more blatant in the south, I thought we were relatively innocent. But I no longer think that. As an example, I got a reproduction of the Negro Motorist Green Book. [1] It was a good exercise trying to imagine planning one of the road trips I've been on, but only staying at the small number of places that would accept black people. I also learned from that book that there was one town in Michigan where well-off black people went to vacation: Idlewild. [2] It was created because black people in Chicago and Detroit were excluded from other vacation spots. I grew up not far from this place and nobody ever mentioned the history to me. Not accidental, I'm sure, that white people forgot all about it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idlewild,_Michigan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idlewild,_Michigan

e12e 9y ago

On the subject of recent struggle for equality - I strongly recommend watching "the black power mixtape 1967-1975": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Power_Mixtape_1967%E2%80%931975 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Power_Mixtape_1967... I believe it's available on Netflix.