“It’s all designed to be masked. It’s designed to be euphemisms for what is your end goal. It’s all subtext instead of being on the nose by saying, ‘I hate niggers.’” -Author Lawrence Ross
By Jason Lewis
The dog whistles that are coming from President Donald Trump, modern day Republicans, far-right conservatives, and Make America Great Again (MAGA) followers are not new to United States politics. Many Black people on social media have pointed out that when MAGA people say “anti-woke,” “anti-critical race theory (CRT),” and “anti-Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" (DEI), they’re referring to Black people. These dog whistles are straight out of the playbook of Republican strategist Lee Atwater from the 1980s.
Atwater had a reputation of running racist campaigns and stoking racial flames to push voters toward White Republican candidates. He participated in the campaign of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who was a known segregationist. Atwater also worked on Ronald Reagan’s successful Presidential campaign in 1980, and he was an aide in Reagan’s administration. Atwater also managed President George H.W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign.
In a 1981 interview, Atwater spoke openly about using coded language to hide the racist tactics that he and other conservatives were using.
“Y’all don't quote me on this,” Atwater said. “You start out in 1954 (pre-Civil Rights era) by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 (post-Civil Rights era), you can't say ‘nigger’—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] Blacks get hurt worse than Whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’ So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back-burner.”
Racist Alabama governor George Wallace said, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever,” which is incredibly racist. After the Civil Rights era, that morphed into “forced busing” and “states’ rights.” Saying “forced busing” does not sound bad at all. Why would anybody be against parents who did not want children to be forced into certain schools? But White people who were against forced busing did not want Black children going to the same schools as their White children. White people tried to hide their racism by using the coded language “forced busing.”
“States’ rights” sounds like a logical idea, but when White conservatives say “states’ rights,” it’s usually so that they can continue doing something racist, like continuing slavery and segregation, preventing Black people from living in certain areas, withholding education from Black people, withholding funding for housing and businesses from Black people, preventing Black people from voting, and several other forms of racial discrimination.
Wanting taxes cut does not sound racist. But in many instances cutting taxes means cutting programs that help Black people and other marginalized groups. When looking at the programs that will be cut and the people who will be hurt the most is where the racism is.
“It’s all designed to be masked,” said author Lawrence Ross. “It’s designed to be euphemisms for what is your end goal. It’s all subtext instead of being on the nose by saying ‘I hate niggers.’”
Ross is the author of The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities, and Blackballed: The Black & White Politics of Race on America’s Campuses. Ross has a college lecture tour where he travels the nation discussing racism on college campuses. He is also the co-owner of the Metaphor Club in Leimert Park.
When conservatives speak out about DEI, CRT, and being woke, Ross sees the link between that and Atwater’s quote from 1981.
“When we talk about today, we’re talking about the same exact thing,” Ross said. “What typically happens with the racists and how they want to make sure that there’s no progress, what they’ll do is take terms and then redefine them in a way that they want to redefine them. Critical race theory is a legal theory for people who are in law to be able to find out how race affects people through the judiciary; through laws. How laws are actually set up. You can look at how the legal system works with mass incarceration, and how the legal system works with housing. And who benefits from discrimination and things like that. They (far right conservatives) took that as being some sort of all over type of culture war. They’re creating this notion that CRT is being imposed on little kids or in the schools. When they got tired of that, they then decided that DEI is the real racist problem.”
The intent and application of DEI is not racist, but conservatives have framed it as that to justify getting rid of it and returning to the racist pre-Civil Rights era practices.
“In it’s nature DEI is basically designed to say that we recognized in this society that racism, sexism, sexual orientation issues have all been designed to keep people out, and we’re trying to eliminate those barriers to expand the pool of people that we normally look for to be able to find the most qualified from that pool,” Ross said. “And also open up doors in places that we normally would not open due to racism. If you narrowly silo to just look for White males, that’s all you’re going to find. But if you open it up through diversity, then you have multiple silos. With equity, we recognize that some people don’t come from the advantages but they have the talent. And inclusion says that anyone, in all of their identities, can be a part of this in order to find the right person. Well they (far right) want to redefine all of that in order to turn it against itself; to say that this is racist in of itself. One is the prescriptive (DEI), and one is the actual problem (racism). But that’s not the point of them. What they’re trying to do is make sure that there is no progress on race or racism.”
White Americans have been voting against their best interests and supporting conservative leaders and politicians who harm them dating back to Bacon’s Rebellion in the 1670s. President Lyndon B. Johnson once said that, “If you can convince the lowest White man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” A part of Atwater’s quote says, “all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] Blacks get hurt worse than Whites.” Atwater is saying that White people will be hurt by these policies.
Ross pointed out that there have been times in this nation’s history where Black and White unity has come together for common causes, “But then there are times where there is a rejiggering of getting back to the White identity, and reminding poor White people that they are more connected to Whiteness than they are to anything else. It’s the same thing when we talk about the 53 percent of White women who vote conservative and Republican, even over their gender rights. They will vote for Whiteness over that because they recognize that being White is the most valuable aspect in this society.”
While Atwater said that coded language was being used to disguise racism, Trump and far-right conservatives are taking it a step further by removing the coded language.
“The rhetoric that’s coming out is not even a dog whistle anymore,” Ross said. “The only thing that they don’t do is just come out and say ‘nigger.’ They don’t use the racial slurs for Black people and for Mexicans and all of the other stuff. But the subtext is that is what they really mean. White people and Americans are not dumb. They recognize that. But White people really want the benefit of the doubt, and that’s what Lee Atwater was getting at. You don’t get the benefit of the doubt when you have a Bull Connor saying ’nigger,’ because people will make a moral decision and say that ‘I don’t want to be like that; I don't’ want to be him.’ But they don’t mind if they can put it in policy (that hurts Black people).”
One ploy by Trump and far-right conservatives is to try to flip the racism back on people and programs which are fighting against racism. Recently MSNBC canceled Black journalist Joy Reid’s primetime show. Reid spoke out about the racism that has come from the Trump organization and the Republican party. After the cancelation of her show, Trump and many MAGA followers on social media called Reid the racist.
“The racists take any type of progression and turn it back on itself and in order to make it seem like, ‘No, I’m not the racist; the structure, the system, the individuals — you are the racist for attacking that,’” Ross said. “Which is the same ridiculous thing as people saying that talking about racism is the same as being racist.”
Trump and far-right conservatives have also turned the term “woke” into an anti-liberal term, and liberals also missed used the term.
“Woke is a Black term,” Ross said. “It’s an internal Black cultural term. Basically White progressives and White conservatives took it with giving no agency to Black people about how we actually manifested it. ‘Woke’ on the White progressive side was all of the things that you needed to know about identity and everything dealing with progressive issues. And conservatives just said, ‘Nah, woke is some bullshit.’ Neither one are right because woke just meant being aware of the fact that you live in a racist society and therefore you need to be aware of your surroundings.”
Trump era politics have shown that this country, specifically White conservatives, have not progressed all that much since the pre-Civil Rights era.
