Overtly racist sentiments tend to be viewed negatively. Even racists tend to shy away from them because they know that they will elicit a negative reaction in many people. who might be reachable with softer language. So for a long time, racists would use what we have come to call ‘dogwhistles’, language that is code for what they feel they cannot say openly.
Jennifer Saul says that people are still using that term to explain racist sentiments when the rhetoric has shifted to the extent that the racism is much more overt, so that it is fairly obvious. She points to the example of how with serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT), racist sentiments became much less subtle.
With Donald Trump on the political scene in the US, the racism became much less subtle, with the candidate and then president calling Mexicans ‘rapists’, advocating a ban on Muslims entering the US, and using phrases like ‘shithole countries’.
Clearly these racist sentiments did not do him much harm and may well have helped him with his supporters. So why did so many of his listeners not see that his words clearly showed that he was being racist?
[P]uzzlingly, many people have turned to dogwhistles for an explanation. A dogwhistle, literally speaking, is a whistle that can be heard by dogs and not humans; it provides a way of secretly sending a message. The term, however, has come to be used in discussions of political communication. Here it means a way of communicating whereby something that violates widely held norms – eg, a racist sentiment – is veiled so that only some people perceive the true meaning.
But SSAT’s racism was hardly veiled. It was pretty much out in the open. So what does she offer as an explanation for why so many people did not recoil? She says that what is happening is that racists are now using not dogwhistles but figleaves to gain acceptance for ugly ideas.
When Trump called Mexicans rapists and advocated a Muslim ban, he was not using subtle, coded terms that only some people would pick up on. He was not just nudging people toward racist views without their awareness. The racial elements of these utterances, which clearly targeted people of colour, were very much out in the open.
The tactic on display was something that is less often discussed: the use of ‘figleaves’. Traditionally, the image of a figleaf was used by artists to cover the body parts (think Adam and Eve) that they were not supposed to show in their paintings. As I use the term, a figleaf is a communicative device that provides just a bit of cover for something that one isn’t supposed to show in public – like racism.
To see how this works, let’s first take a closer look at Trump’s call for a Muslim ban. Here is a statement, cast in the third person, that he read aloud in December 2015:
Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.
The anti-Muslim message is loud and clear, and not hidden at all. But the end of the statement is the bit that I want to focus on: ‘until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on’. For some people, this phrase provided reassurance that Trump isn’t racist – because a real racist would want to ban Muslims period, not just while we figure out what’s going on. This is a figleaf: it provides just enough cover for the racism that isn’t acceptable to show in public.
One reason that figleaves like this work is that many white people accept what the sociolinguist Jane Hill called ‘the folk theory of racism’. This view sets a very high bar for what counts as racist: a racist has to consciously believe in the biological inferiority of people of colour, and intend to be racist. Somebody like this would want to ban Muslims forever, not just temporarily. Similarly, they wouldn’t suggest that ‘some’ Mexican immigrants are good people, as Trump did. Nor would they have a Black friend, or declare themself to be non-racist, this line of thinking goes.
A view such as this one makes it very easy for utterances to serve as figleaves for racism. These figleaves allow a voter to continue supporting a candidate who has made a comment that might have worried them. They don’t need to become fully convinced that the candidate is non-racist; it’s enough in many cases to be uncertain about whether the utterance indicates racism. When I examined discussions among Trump supporters online, I found people who worried about Trump’s views on Mexicans being reassured by those who pointed out that he also said some of them are good. ‘I didn’t hear him say anything racist against any race,’ one person posted. ‘What I did hear him say is, “Illegal Mexicans bring drugs, crime, and are rapists, but I’m sure some are good people.” Seriously, whats racist about that?’ Another Tweeted: ‘Trump is not racist … Trump is not against all mexicans just the illegals.’
She goes on to describe other forms of figleaves and how they are used in other contexts as well, such as in promoting vaccine skepticism conspiracies. She says that being aware that one is being manipulated by the use of figleaves to accept racist ideas and conspiracy theories would go some way towards limiting the damage they can do.
In recent years, in too many places, political norms have shifted so that what was once inconceivable becomes ordinary. These shifts often begin from changes in political discourse, engineered to move previously outrageous racist and conspiracist views into the mainstream. Understanding the mechanisms that facilitate these changes is a vital step toward learning how to combat them.
Unfortunately, I am not as sanguine as she is that being aware a speaker is using figleaves will cause the listeners to reject the ideas that are being partially hidden. While it may help dispassionate observers to correctly identify the rhetorical strategy being used, it will likely not register with those who are susceptible to racist and conspiratorial thinking. They want to believe those things.
Absolutely agree. In the 2010s the British National Party was ascendant under the leadership of Nick Griffin, a man who makes Suella Braverman look like Rosa Parks. Specifically, the BNP was consistently winning elections, albeit only local and European elections, the ones people didn’t really care about. Euro elections were the ideal medium for a protest vote, and when the people protested in those days, they voted Nazi, safe in the knowledge that the Nazis in question wouldn’t have any actual power. It was a good system. With just two MEPs at their height, they couldn’t do much damage.
The logical conclusion of this was that, given that they are an impartial broadcaster and that Nick Griffin was a duly elected representative of the people and the leader of a party with several MEPs, the BBC had to concede that it was about time they allowed him a bit of airtime and invite him on the mainstream political debate show “Question Time”. There was a LOT of complaint about this from the usual suspect SJW metropolitan elite, turning themselves inside out trying to formulate an argument that meant THEY got to go on the telly but a person people were voting for did not. All that failed, so the BBC constructed a stitch-up show where, unlike every other episode of Question Time, there was only really one question, and it was “how mean can we be to the BNP?”. The panel’s conservative representative was, wildly ironically, a woman of colour who’d never been elected to anything, and the token civilian (i.e. non-politician) was a American who in a subsequent interview stated that they’d considered physically assaulting Griffin before the broadcast. Shots of the audience showed that it was wildly unrepresentative of the majority of the UK, apparently being drawn from immigrant-rich areas within a few miles of the television studio in London where it was filmed. Griffin, of course, being the moron he is was unable to make any political hay from any of these things, and in fact as I predicted at the time inviting him on the show (appalling stitch-up though it was) was absolutely the best thing the BBC could have done because it exposed him for the vacuous Nazi that he was and that, literally that day, was the peak of the BNPs popularity in the UK, and it was all downhill from there for them. Unfortunately that did lead on to the rise of UKIP, Nigel Farage, Alexander Johnson and the Brexit vote, but that’s not what we’re here for.
The point is, at the time, there was much hand-wringing from the aforementioned SJW metropolitan elites about why people (specifically people in places with high immigrant populations and racial tensions, e.g. Rochdale and Dagenham) kept on voting BNP. “We don’t understand… they’re racists” would be the bleat. And I had to explain to well-meaning but clueless friends that for a lot of people that’s not a dealbreaker. Forget the patronising assumption that the working classes are too stupid to realise the people they’re voting for a racists. Forget the idea that if you point it out they’ll somehow slap their foreheads and go “doh!” and change their vote. They know. Tell them that a candidate is racist, and the disappointing truth is that the answer will often be “yeah…. so?”.
This is where we disagree. It’s not that people are “susceptible to racist {…} thinking”, it’s that they’ve simply not made the move from “not racist” to “anti-racist”.
Dogwhistle or figleaf -- call it what you like. Annoyingly, most people (or at least, most white people, and whatever anyone says for now at least that is still most people) just don’t give a shit. Oh, yeah, they’d rather someone wasn’t racist… but if they’re going to make the NHS run on time, reduce class sizes in schools, fix the potholes in the road, make it so that I can find a dentist within 50 miles and not put the pension age up to 85, then for a lot of people -- especially OLD people, i.e. the ones that can be arsed to actually vote -- the fact they’ve been recorded using the N-word is simply a bit of a shame.
I’m not in that category -- if there’s a hint someone’s got a racist attitude, they’re not getting my vote, even if they promise me the moon on a stick. On that level, I’d describe myself as “anti-racist”. I’m not so naive as to think that most people think that way, though. Most people are, I think, just “not racist”… which means they don’t care. The challenge is to make them care. And the first step is understanding the difference. I’m still not confident a lot on the left do, even 15 or more years on from the BNP’s peak and 8 years on from the (I’m pretty sure) racism-fuelled Brexit vote.*
You can, usually, rely on racists to be stupid enough to, sooner or later, accidentally pull a referee’s whistle from their pocket and put a lungful through it. It’s amazing how many people who normally express a perfectly reasonable principled objection to the many faults of Islam will, in an unguarded moment, expose themselves as just anti-Pakistani/Bangladeshi immigrant racists underneath it all (see: the English Defence League). It’s amazing how many people who normally express a perfectly reasonable principled objection to the dreadful actions of the Israeli government and the IDF will, in an unguarded moment, expose themselves as just anti-Jewish-people-generally (or “anti-semite”, as has been the commonly accepted term for this specific kind of racism since at least the 19th century, just to head off any arguments…) underneath it all (see: WMDKitty, frequent FtB commenter and anti-semite).
*I do agree with the observation by non-more-right-on standup Stewart Lee, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMvwNkPgwgg
…if there’s a hint someone’s got a racist attitude, they’re not getting my vote, even if they promise me the moon on a stick.
So vote for #QElon instead — he’s a racist who promises MARS on a stick!
“They want to believe those things” (racist and conspiratorial thinking). I think the Feel Good theory of behavior works better here . For example, white privilege feels good to a lot of people — no need to think about it. Acknowledging white privilege feels bad, like you’re saying I didn’t earn my place in the hierarchy. Taking away white privilege feels very, very bad.
Let’s get real—the majority of Trump supporters just flat out _are_ racists. Some of them have been shouting about it their whole lives, some of them have just been ‘uncomfortable’ around people of other races, and some have been ‘concerned’ about race-related issues, but ultimately they’re all racists.
Trump has made the vocal ones very happy, as they see support for their views becoming more mainstream, but the others are happier, too, because now they can express their discomfort or concerns without being called out. Seeing how many other people are actually at least a bit racist makes it easier for them to slide towards the scary/crazy side.
Anyone who thinks that people are being fooled by these rhetorical devices is kidding themselves.
cmconnelly@4- Very well said. It has become socially acceptable in more and more circles to express bigotry. Their feelings are being placated while they accuse us of being snowflakes.
@2:
I don’t see a benefit in having yet another name for racism and the manner in which racists make excuses for it.
Rather than dog whistles, and contrary to the thesis of this post, I characterize the new overtly racist talk as train whistle -- you don’t even have to listen carefully to hear it.
TGAP Dad, seems to me you’re not being contrary to the thesis to which you refer*, but just ignoring it.
It’s also not about hearing it, it’s about plausible possible prevarication.
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