Monday, September 9, 2019

Racist dog-whistles

Yes Virginia, there are "white" dog-whistles. And "black" ones and "red" ones.

I can't wait to get the white, racist dog-whistle I ordered for $4.95. I cannot wait until I can walk into a room full of progressives and blow the whistle.

I want to see if we can all hear it.

The entire dog-whistle meme makes a mockery of the trail-by-peers standard.

One version of the dog-whistle meme is that only victims can hear the damaging sounds. Words and gestures that are transparent to us are fraught with plutonium level toxicity to marginalized victims.

The other version of the dog-whistle meme is that the dog-whistle is a secret code that only the aggressors can interpret. That is, the victim cannot explain why the language is damaging because the meanings are opaque to them. But they can point to the outcome as "proof" that the language was damaging.

You may have noticed that the same meme is being used in exactly different ways.

Alinski's Rules for Radicals says that any tactic your people enjoy is a good tactic. I think I am going to enjoy dog-whistling progressives.

1 comment:

Readers who are willing to comment make this a better blog. Civil dialog is a valuable thing.