“Dog Whistle Politics” is defined as 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. Like a high-pitched dog-whistle, the message is only audible for the group it is intended to reach.
Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class was written by Ian Haney Lopez and looks into the racially charged coded language used within the world of politics. The book systematically explains how racism has evolved since the civil rights era and how politicians used that to their advantage. Lopez describes the ways politicians used race to manipulate voters, win elections and push policy once in office. He outlines how coded communication began and continues to be adapted today. In Dog Whistle Politics Lopez argues that messages put forward by politicians …show more content…
Lopez says that most whites conveniently and disingenuously insist they do not see race; they see worthy and unworthy, success and failure. It is this effort to be “colorblind” where Lopez sees the problem and cause of whistle blowing. He warns that racial division harms all members of society. He insists that everyone needs to talk about race, regardless of how uncomfortable those conversations may make us. Schools must teach our history to students, even the bad parts so that they don’t grow up being blind to the racial struggles within this country. Lopez ‘s final note to the reader is a quote from Derrick Bell which reads, “In these perilous times we must do no less than they (African Americans enslaved ancestors) did: fashion a philosophy that both matches the unique dangers we face, and enables us to recognize in those dangers opportunities for committed living and humane service” (p.
Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class was written by Ian Haney Lopez and looks into the racially charged coded language used within the world of politics. The book systematically explains how racism has evolved since the civil rights era and how politicians used that to their advantage. Lopez describes the ways politicians used race to manipulate voters, win elections and push policy once in office. He outlines how coded communication began and continues to be adapted today. In Dog Whistle Politics Lopez argues that messages put forward by politicians …show more content…
Lopez says that most whites conveniently and disingenuously insist they do not see race; they see worthy and unworthy, success and failure. It is this effort to be “colorblind” where Lopez sees the problem and cause of whistle blowing. He warns that racial division harms all members of society. He insists that everyone needs to talk about race, regardless of how uncomfortable those conversations may make us. Schools must teach our history to students, even the bad parts so that they don’t grow up being blind to the racial struggles within this country. Lopez ‘s final note to the reader is a quote from Derrick Bell which reads, “In these perilous times we must do no less than they (African Americans enslaved ancestors) did: fashion a philosophy that both matches the unique dangers we face, and enables us to recognize in those dangers opportunities for committed living and humane service” (p.