5 ms·

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 p

by 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.
  - grraaaaahhh 9y ago
    I would guess that the answer is that not all anti-racists know all the code-words. Thug, urban, inner-city and so on are all known because they're the most used. To contrast, I used to have a couple of friends who would use the term "friend" as a stand in for n* when talking about people in public. I figured it out from being around them and hearing how they stressed it differently than normal, but any random stranger wouldn't have picked up on it.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    I doubt we all know all of them. But they tend to persist for long periods, and so are easily discoverable by reverse engineering speeches. It helps that some people are quite explicit about it. Either in historical retrospect, as with the Atwater quote here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#Evolution_.281970s_and_1980s.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#Evolution_.2... Or with "saying the quiet parts loud", where people who aren't as good at dog whistling drift into being more explicit. Or people who are explicit get pushed into saying things where the racial connection is more easily denied. The Trump administration's Muslim ban is good example of that. They started out advocating for a ban with strong religious and racial components. When the public and the courts said no, they iterated to something less blatant. They will keep rinsing and repeating until something gets through.
  - buttcoinslol 9y ago
    The same way we decode any phrase that has a coded meaning. I assume you can understand irony, jokes, and satire, dog whistle phrases are no different.
    - 9y ago

by ci5er 9y ago

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.
- grraaaaahhh 9y ago
  I would guess that the answer is that not all anti-racists know all the code-words. Thug, urban, inner-city and so on are all known because they're the most used. To contrast, I used to have a couple of friends who would use the term "friend" as a stand in for n* when talking about people in public. I figured it out from being around them and hearing how they stressed it differently than normal, but any random stranger wouldn't have picked up on it.
- wpietri 9y ago
  I doubt we all know all of them. But they tend to persist for long periods, and so are easily discoverable by reverse engineering speeches. It helps that some people are quite explicit about it. Either in historical retrospect, as with the Atwater quote here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#Evolution_.281970s_and_1980s.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#Evolution_.2... Or with "saying the quiet parts loud", where people who aren't as good at dog whistling drift into being more explicit. Or people who are explicit get pushed into saying things where the racial connection is more easily denied. The Trump administration's Muslim ban is good example of that. They started out advocating for a ban with strong religious and racial components. When the public and the courts said no, they iterated to something less blatant. They will keep rinsing and repeating until something gets through.
- buttcoinslol 9y ago
  The same way we decode any phrase that has a coded meaning. I assume you can understand irony, jokes, and satire, dog whistle phrases are no different.
  - 9y ago