Dog Whistle Politics by Ian Haney Lopez

Author:Ian Haney Lopez [Lopez, Ian Haney]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2013-12-11T16:00:00+00:00

“I GUESS I’M A RACIST”

When Obama briefly referenced race as one of the ways that the GOP might try to scare voters, in addition to the typical “race card” retort, the McCain camp also struck back with the charge that Obama had sought to “paint John McCain … as racist.”20 This assailment deserves a bit more attention.

The claim to have been slandered as a racist frequently crops up on the right in response to liberal efforts to focus on troubling racial dynamics, and there may be a fair level of cynical strategizing at work in such conservative carping. By translating the claim that race continues to play a distorting role in American life into a narrow indictment of mean-spirited bigotry, conservatives are more able to easily dismiss the allegation as absurd. The invented charge of being a closet Klan member is readily repudiated. In addition, because the charge of being a racist is freighted with social opprobrium, alleging they have been so charged allows conservatives to cast themselves as unfairly maligned victims. The claim to have been called a racist sucks all the air out of the room, ending any substantive conversation; the only thing left is for the race critic to apologize and to deny that she intended to call anyone a racist. In short, for conservatives, alleging that they’ve been called a racist is good strategy.

But what about the emotional affect that often accompanies this particular defensive kick? Typically, those claiming to have been denoted racists exude outrage or distress. The imagined accusation, their emotions communicate, has wounded them personally, deeply bruising their sense of themselves. McCain’s spokesperson reacted angrily, not only rejecting the non-charge but vigorously defending McCain as someone who “fought his entire life for equal rights for everyone,” as if McCain’s whole career had been smeared. Or consider the pained dismay communicated by actors in an ad opposing health care reform. The ad featured perhaps a dozen adults, mostly white and seemingly middle class, including one young woman with a toddler, looking directly into the camera to confess “I guess I’m a racist.”21 The ad interspersed these aggrieved confessions with text and a voice-over repeating the allegation made by some outspoken liberals, including Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter, that race likely informed some of the opposition to Obama’s health care overhaul. These actors were signaling their antagonism to health care reform—and also to the charge that in politics race matters—by facetiously taking upon themselves the “racist” label. Yet when they intoned “I guess I’m a racist,” their demeanor communicated not satire but heart sickness.

It’s impossible to know whether, coming from a politician’s camp or an anti-health care ad, these intonations of wounded feelings were genuine or feigned. Even if the latter, though, they nevertheless track a real sense of distress among many conservatives, including many Tea Party members, who feel that they have been unfairly vilified as racists. Sometimes allegations of having been called a racist constitute a strategic retort, but often they reflect a deeply felt wound.

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