Dog Whistle Politics Analysis

Superior Essays
Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class, by Ian Haney Lopez, Oxford University Press: USA, 2014. 304 pages. Reviewed by Dionte Z. Edwards.
Race has been a factor that has dictated a variety of societal views towards individuals that embrace different cultures, ways of life, and skin tones. This issue which has evolved over time is one which, led Ian Haney Lopez to expose the American government and its tactics to cover up racism. I selected Dog Whistle Politics to review in order to understand the importance of race within the political spectrum.
According to Huffington Post, Ian Haney López is the John H. Boalt Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Senior
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Lopez pronounces the impact racism makes socially, financially, mentally, and the physical aspects on American lives; therefore, describing changes the government began to implement to strengthen the middle class. The author stays true to support his opposition towards dog whistle politics, through the description of the deprivation of African American’s culturally and other minorities due to racism and bias in America politically.
In order to combat racism and bias, dog whistle politics used colorblindness to attack liberal form of governing citizens. Lopez presented Reagan as the forefront for tricking the American people into voting for a politician who advocated for racial equality; however, having an agenda lined up with personal motives and allowed the upper class to get richer with little no incentives to offer to the other classes led to his downfall. Reagan used dog whistle politics to describe, that he was running for America and to make efficient use of the government’s power to get rid of what he viewed as pointless liberal programs like welfare and giving rise to the rights of states, as the deficit continued to climb. When Reagan officially did gain presidency, he began to perform acts out of patronage and advocating for concentrated wealth for his target audience; conservative republicans. I believe that Lopez talks so heavily over Ronald Reagan and his deception towards America to show how well the methods worked to obtain powers granted in the executive

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