Abstract
In the post–civil rights era, racism remains a permanent feature within social institutions in the United States—including mass media and educational, political, and criminal justice systems. Many communication scholars of race analyze discourses of racism to reveal the roots of racist thinking and practices ingrained in U.S. history and culture. In examining racist thinking and practices, communication scholars not only have brought attention to overt acts of racism, but they also have highlighted covert acts of racism that are pervasive in contemporary society. Ian Haney López’s book is important for scholars examining how mundane and everyday language masks operations of power and promotes social inequalities. López, the John H. Boalt Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, provides a comprehensive and compelling account of how U.S. politicians used coded racial appeals to persuade white low- and middle-income voters to support policies that threaten their own economic interests in favor of upper-class elites. The strength of this book lies in López’s detailed exploration of racialized communication tactics that politicians used to curb social services, trample unions, defund public schools, give corporations regulatory control over financial markets, and oppose health care reform since the 1960s, starting in the era of George Wallace, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, and continuing in age of the Tea Party and the first black president, Barack Obama.
López holds nothing back in pointing out the manner in which racial codes have been skillfully deployed in U.S. politics. In this thoroughly researched, but highly partisan account, López writes about how conservative politicians in the Republican Party embraced racial pandering and race-baiting arguments to gain support from white voters, and ultimately win elections. So how has the GOP managed to use coded racial appeals in political campaigns despite taking stances on policies that largely disregard the impact of race, gender, sexuality, and class on historically oppressed groups? The answer, according to López, is seen in their use of racial entreaties couched in what he calls “Dog Whistle Politics.”
López uses this phrase to explain how race remains central to U.S. electoral politics. He argues that racial entreaties work like a dog whistle—a metaphor signifying how modern racism is frequently inaudible and denied, but triggers strong responses from those who are attuned it. Like a canine reacting to the piercing blast of a whistle, voters react to the subtext of political messages (e.g., welfare cheats, gangbangers, terrorists, or food stamp president), which hints to sharp, penetrating racial stereotypes of people of color. This kind of dog whistling is not motivated by pure malice. Rather it emerges from a superfluous strategy to win votes by inciting ongoing racial animosities in white voters. Dog whistling, in many ways, works in concert with colorblind ideologies—beliefs that racial equality will occur if we simply stop talking about race—as dog whistling politicians feel comfortable claiming plausible deniability while indirectly speaking about race.
So the question remains, “How do dog whistle terms resonate in the public discourse?” In blowing the figurative dog whistle, politicians manipulate racial prejudices to trigger long-held ideas and beliefs in voters. Knowing that expressing a blatantly racist statement or epithet would adversely affect their career, politicians communicate in dog whistle terms that ostensibly appear to be race neutral. López refers to dog whistling as part and parcel “strategic racism” by which politicians use words and phrases in coded racial appeals to achieve a desired political goal. López, for example, provides a sweeping analyses of coded racial appeals used to provoke racial fears in white voters such as “sharia law” (racial demagoguery that references religious differences), “quotas” (white victimization because of affirmative action), “welfare queens” (a label placed on poor mothers of color accused of misappropriating government funding), and “entitlement mentality” (blaming the expansion of government social aid programs). He further discusses the history of dog whistling in GOP political campaigns and policies, repudiating Great Society programs, the New Deal, and racial desegregation.
Not only does López analyze how the GOP frames arguments using racial euphemisms, but he also takes on a few liberal Democrats who blew a dog whistle to appear to be race neutral rather than polarizing to white voters. For example, López accused President Bill Clinton of blowing a dog whistle to white voters when he criticized black female hip-hop artist Sister Souljah at an event organized by Reverend Jesse Jackson for making perceived racially divisive comments on the Los Angeles riots. López even argued that Obama blew a dog whistle when he urged a black audience to take personal responsibility, in essence to appeal to white voters who are more inclined to believe that blacks are, stereotypically, irresponsible.
The blatantly racist tactics of the 1960s mostly do not work today, so analyses of racism must take into consideration commitments to post-racial and colorblind discourses in coded racial entreaties and appeals. Although there are many other examples and stories in this book on the evolving racial politics in dog whistling, I am left pondering what López would say about how being critically attuned to dog whistle terms combats the structural nature of racism.