> 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.
People are entirely capable of articulating what phrasing is racist dog whistle; when I read, say Ta-Nahesi Coates he is able to elaborate his point even to an audience with a very different context. It happens all the time. I'm asking for someone to actually explicitly explain to me the classist dog whistle in the article so that I can learn something.
> 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.
> Black Lives Matter is also a pretty benign sounding expression that received a lot of vitriol.
Because on both sides of the barricade, there are partisans that interpret everything as dog whistling. Whether it is "Black Lives Matter" or "It's OK to be white", same thing.
> (the dog whistle used to be 'we don't want a skyline of cereal boxes')
Out of curiosity, what was the actual reason behind the dog whistle? "Segregate black people by... having smaller floorplates"? That doesn't make much sense to me.
it seems pretty obvious to me what he was doing was contrasting what someone imagines race relations being like and what his actual experience is as a black man in the south
It's quite annoying that it needs to be explained like this, since it should be pretty painfully apparent, but yes.
Sorry but I'm (personally) not particularly inclined to favorably entertain what someone "imagines" about dog-whistle terminology. Their proximity to the ebbs and flows of southern racial 'charm' doesn't hold a candle to what I actually lived through and experienced first hand for 30 years-as a direct recipient of aggressive, racially loaded behavior and speech.
> a black woman in charge of Inclusion and Diversity at a most socially progressive company would blow into that dog whistle.
So she is Uncle Tom's wife and is secretly dog whistling to the white supremacists.
That's part of the reason people are not speaking what they think -- because they end up getting responses like that, which are completely indistinguishable from a comedy skit or an article from The Onion.
It's like talking to someone and hearing them try to convince you about contrails or lizard people. You can't argue at that point, because you realize it's way beyond that, so you just kind of keep quiet an nod. Especially if that person is your boss or coworker.
The poll doesn’t prove anything, especially that black people as a race are a hate group. The idea an entire race should be considered a “hate group” is absurd on its face. So one should approach results indicating as such with a big question mark, because they are surprising. That the phrase in question is a white supremacist dog whistle fully explains the results actually.
But to take this poll credulously and throw your hands up in the air as Scott does says a lot. He doesn’t stop there though, he runs with it. With a full throat he declares an end to the idea of our integrated multicultural society. He implores white people to purposefully segregate and insulate themselves from black prior as an act of safety.
I think it’s been pointed out a couple times in this thread how polls can be deceptive. That Scott doesn’t even really grapple with this possibility and instead dives straight to “white flight” mode… well, for his sake I just hope he can get over this phase.
> colleagues used epithets to denigrate him and other Black workers, told him to “go back to Africa” and left racist graffiti in the restrooms and a racist drawing in his workspace.
This sounds like plain racism, nothing to do with wokeness.
Looks like hearsay to me, but if he made that remark, it was a stupid thing to say. While there is no wider context, the remark itself still doesn't indicate that he hates black people.
It sounds like he's also referencing the old and tired racist tactic of arguing that they don't hate black people, just the ones who are "acting like niggers", and turning that argument back on the people who use it.
(Also, the use of slurs isn't verboten period. It's still - so far as I can tell - within the bounds of publicly-acceptable discourse for people with the correct political views to refer to black people with the wrong, conservative views as "niggers" and every other slur. Possibly even whilst threatening violence against them.)
How many people knew that was a saying associated with white nationalist types and reacted to that? Would the result be the same if it were differently worded?
For example: If someone asked me something like “are you proud of Western civilization” my literal rational answer would be yes but then I’d stop and wonder if I was being asked to agree with a fascist dog whistle phrase. Modern discourse is a minefield of dog whistles that sound reasonable when interpreted literally but signal alignment with something.
The large not sure response makes it seem like people were confused or suspicious like that.
In any case what Scott said went beyond just calling BS on a poll and was rather unhinged and strange. He’s been off his rocker for a while so I’m surprised it took him this long to start getting dropped.
They're just dog whistling about racism, because if you read their comment at arm's length, you would realize that it itself is a negative "modal" argument of the exact form that it seeks to decry.
> 1) Silly black-person. In the US, "black" means "loser", so if you are successful, you are ipso facto not black. Uh, unless you're an athlete, or other entertainer.
I an not from the US, but I guess the impression that in the US race is a proxy for talking about class. The latter word is such a taboo as much as anything coming from Marxism or economic left. You even go to say "losers" instead of working class, which is so insulting.
This keeps the left running in circles in identity issues. And keeps the poor fighting against each other (see poor whites supporting Trump).
This is funny to me. "You saying that I enslaved you, barred you from education, and divided and slaughtered your family is actually a subtle dog whistle against white people"
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