Racism has been an infestation on society throughout the history of nearly every country. And, due to recent political events, many profess that the declared racism of America’s president elect will be the downfall of this country. However, many fail to realize that politicians well before the birth of the Millennials have implemented a coded style of racism called “dog whistle politics”. Dog whistle politics, in layman terms, is a political movement, speech, or campaign that has one meaning to the general public and another meaning to a subsequent group. In Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class, Ian Haney-Lopez attempts to illustrate a rather biased opinion of the Republican party’s
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The issue is not with the book itself, but rather the writer and the mockery that he produced in print. From the get-go, Dog Whistle Politics had the potential to be a very insightful book; and, it was. That is until Haney-Lopez, an obvious self-proclaimed social justice warrior, changed this book from an insightful account of racial politics to an obvious attack to white and Republican voters. He made it very clear throughout the entirety of this book that he believed that white people are the enemy to social justice. For example, there is an entire section of his book is called “A Word on ‘Whites’” located on page 10. And, although he claims that he uses the term “white” as a “necessary shorthand for a colossally powerful social entanglement”, one would believe that it would not prove difficult for a studious author such as Haney-Lopez to find another word or term (Haney-Lopez 11). No, it would seem that this book would prove to be a hypocritical dog whistle in and of itself; an irony that Jonathan Swift would have no trouble being able to satirize. This book almost had me half-convinced that it was meant to be satire rather than an informational piece primarily based on its hypocrisy. Furthermore, if one were to be convinced by Haney-Lopez’s demonization of the white race, he offers no palpable solution to appeasing racial tensions within
The issue is not with the book itself, but rather the writer and the mockery that he produced in print. From the get-go, Dog Whistle Politics had the potential to be a very insightful book; and, it was. That is until Haney-Lopez, an obvious self-proclaimed social justice warrior, changed this book from an insightful account of racial politics to an obvious attack to white and Republican voters. He made it very clear throughout the entirety of this book that he believed that white people are the enemy to social justice. For example, there is an entire section of his book is called “A Word on ‘Whites’” located on page 10. And, although he claims that he uses the term “white” as a “necessary shorthand for a colossally powerful social entanglement”, one would believe that it would not prove difficult for a studious author such as Haney-Lopez to find another word or term (Haney-Lopez 11). No, it would seem that this book would prove to be a hypocritical dog whistle in and of itself; an irony that Jonathan Swift would have no trouble being able to satirize. This book almost had me half-convinced that it was meant to be satire rather than an informational piece primarily based on its hypocrisy. Furthermore, if one were to be convinced by Haney-Lopez’s demonization of the white race, he offers no palpable solution to appeasing racial tensions within