#Dog-whistle racism

[copperbadge]

When you realize an online seller who regularly turns up in one of your saved searches has priced everything in their shop some combination of 14 and 88...

If I were into WWII memorabilia, or gun parts or certain areas of neopaganism, I'd expect the presence of blatant lifestyle racists, even if I still wouldn't do business with them. But this is like, fabric and craft supplies. I guess they backdoored in through the tradwives or something.

I'm not going to name them or link because I'm not giving them even the potential for hits, and there's nothing I can do in terms of getting them deplatformed because they're not saying anything outright. Still. Skin crawling, so I'll say this here instead:

There are a lot of numbers and symbols, major and minor, that serve as dog whistles between poser Nazis, ways these losers identify one another. But if you never learn any others, be aware that the numbers 14 (referring to the "fourteen words" of the white power slogan) and 88 (popularized by the author of the 14 words, sometimes standing for Hail Hitler) are two of the biggest. Context of course matters but if you see 14 and 88 in close proximity, or in places you wouldn't expect them (such as the price of a few yards of fabric online) it generally warrants cautious investigation. If everything in their shop has a price ending in 88, you're probably about to do business with a dickhead.

Fucking yikes.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Trump continues having rallies in historic all-White "Sundown Towns," where Blacks had to leave by sunset.

Ayman Mohyeldin discusses the implications of Trump's having held rallies in Aug. and Sept. in four "Sundown Towns," where in the past Blacks had to leave/be off the streets by sundown. The rallies were held in Howell, MI, La Crosse, WI, and Johnstown, PA., and Mosinee, WI. Below is the video that Ayman posted on X.

AYMAN: "When your slogan is the nostalgic phrase Make America Great Again, a campaign tour of 'sundown towns' helps us all understand the America that Donald Trump is yearning for."

Trump keeps sending out his racist "dog whistles," while at the same time claiming that it is really "Whites" who are being discriminated against, and campaigning that he will ban the discussion in schools of "divisive" topics, like critical race theory, and instead promote a "patriotic" educational curriculum, like the whitewashed one developed by the 1776 Project in his last administration.

BlackPast: Sundown Towns:

Sundown Towns are all-white communities, neighborhoods, or counties that exclude Blacks and other minorities through the use of discriminatory laws, harassment, and threats or use of violence. The name derives from the posted and verbal warnings issued to Blacks that although they might be allowed to work or travel in a community during the daytime, they must leave by sundown. Although the term most often refers to the forced exclusion of Blacks, the history of sundown towns also includes prohibitions against Jews, Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese, and other minority groups. Although it is difficult to make an accurate count, historians estimate there were up to 10,000 sundown towns in the United States between 1890 and 1960, mostly in the Mid-West and West.

The Green-Book

The rise of sundown towns made it difficult and dangerous for Blacks to travel long distances by car. In 1930, for instance, 44 of the 89 counties along the famed Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles featured no motels or restaurants and prohibited Blacks from entering after dark. In response, Victor H. Green, a postal worker from Harlem, compiled the Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide to accommodations that served Black travelers. The guide was published from 1936 to 1966, and at its height of popularity was used by two million people.

[edited]

[sweaterkittensahoy]

For my fellow non-Jewish people, a list of terms to watch out for

Here's a whole PDF of antisemitic vocabulary and examples and history that was put together by the American Jewish Committee. Read it. Understand it. Learn from it.

[fernthewhimsical]

Yeah, you know what, let's do this. Welcome to witchblr! Here is a list of terms we want you to look into, which will help the witchblr experience for everyone. Some are appropriative, some have roots in racism and/or antisemitism, some are straight up slurs. In no particular order:

Magick (with a k) and therefore Aleister Crowley

Smudging

Kaballah/qaballah

Lilith

Starseeds/Indigo children/crystal children

G*psy

Folkish/Volkish

Odinism

Shaman/Shamanism

Chakras

Voodoo

W*ndig*

I'm sure I'm missing lot, so feel free to add. And I am white so if I overstepped or spoke out of turn, please let me know

[odinsblog]

(source)

The American criminal “justice” system is deeply racist. From the police, to the jury system, to the prison system.

Mass incarceration laws and the death penalty all target Black and Brown people disproportionately. Politicians who brand themselves as “law-and-order” candidates, or as no nonsense, “tough-on-crime” politicians are fully aware of these structurally racist underpinnings of the U.S. criminal system, and they gladly use law & order as a kind of racist dog whistle: when the question is, “Who are we going to lock up?”the unspoken but understood answer is, “BLACK people!” Especially in, but not limited to, the “former” slave states (aka current Republican states.).

This kind of dog whistle politics (aka “Southern Strategy”) to appeal to conservative white southern voters is not new.

The same is true with how we treat people with drug addictions. America has two completely different views on who is deserving of compassion and who needed to be locked away in prison forever.

And if you’re reading this from a European country, please don’t make the mistake of thinking that your country is somehow different or better. HA! America is a racist country and(!) Europe is every bit as racist against Black and Brown people as anywhere else.

Universally, there is a correlation between who gets the best jobs & housing and skin color; or who gets jailed more and their skin color. These cannot be explained away without acknowledging racism.

Colorism and anti-Blackness are worldwide.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin said she believes Donald Trump intentionally used the word “riggers” as a racial dog whistle following his Georgia indictment.

Hours after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis released the racketeering indictment charging Trump and 18 allies in a conspiracy to change Georgia’s 2020 election results, Trump raged against the case on his Truth Social platform.

The former president claimed to have evidence that would lead to a “complete EXONERATION” of him and his allies, adding: “They never went after those that Rigged the Election. They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!”

Many of his supporters quickly began using the term on far-right social media sites, some in a derogatory manner alluding to the racist slur.

Keith Boykin, a former White House aide to Bill Clinton, accused Trump of thinly veiled racism, writing on social media: “He wrote ‘RIGGERS’ but what know what he really meant.”

Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper, Griffin agreed with that assessment.

“With Trump, you don’t need to look for a dog whistle — it’s a bullhorn when it comes to race,” she said. “And I do think that’s deliberate.”

Griffin pointed to the “slanderous attacks” Trump has leveled against Willis, who is Black, adding that “he’s not really hiding that he’s going to lean into that element.”

She also pointed to the demographics in the Atlanta courtroom where a grand jury returned the indictment earlier this week.

“It was a lot of Black men and women who were serving in that courtroom,” Griffin said. “The fact that he’s introducing race into this prosecution surprises me. It’s disgusting. It’s textbook Donald Trump.”

Racist abuse targeting Willis has escalated across right-wing platforms since the charges were revealed on Monday night. According to The Guardian, several Gab posts included images of nooses and gallows, and called for Willis and grand jurors in the case to be hanged.

There have also been death threats and calls for violence against other people involved in Trump’s four indictments.

Trump’s well-established history of racist behavior stretches back decades.

[m-v3nus]

So glad I'm not a tikt*k artist bc it genuinely looks miserable

[eaglesnick]

“Whoever debases others is debasing himself.” - JAMES BALDWIN

Over half a century ago Enoch Powell made his infamous "Rivers of Blood" speech wherein he alluded to a prophecy from Virgil’s Aeneid:

“As I look ahead", said Powell,” I am filled with foreboding: like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood'." (Enoch Powell: 20/04/1968)

As with any prophecy, if you wait long enough, it’s almost bound to come true in one form or another. But rather than a “river of blood” caused by irresolvable racial tension, Britain has, in the main, weathered the social changes that mass migration brings with it.

In true dog whistling tradition Powell avoided being overtly racist himself but “quoted” a constituents instead, one who allegedly said:

"In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man"

As we all know this simply did not happen. By 1988 it wasn’t the "black man" who was the enemy of ordinary working people, it was Margaret Thatcher and her Tory government.

 It was Thatcher who raised interest rates and imposed huge spending cuts on the public services ordinary working people depended on. It was the Tory Government that drove unemployment up to 3 million, and it was Powell’s Conservative’s who waged war on trade unions and workers rights. It was Thatcher who was responsible for the deep recession in the early 1980’s and it was Thatcher who, by selling off council houses, kick-started the market trend towards unaffordable rents and house prices we see today.

The last 14 years of Tory government has seen a continuation of Thatcherite policies: public services starved of funding, massive rises in interest rates leading to unaffordable mortgages and rents, rising unemployment, and the resulting cost of living crisis.

Like Powell before him, Nigel Farage likes to blame immigrants for the countries ills and like Powell he is no stranger to the political art of dog whistling.  Talking on TV about the Southport murders he asked the “innocent” question:

“Why is it these days whenever something happens, we are told almost immediately it's a non-terror attack?" (Farage: 01/08/24)

Linking the horrendous murder of children in Southport to other, totally unrelated murders elsewhere in the country, he then answered his own question.

“Whenever these things happen there is a reluctance to tell us the full truth.”

There is the dog whistle. The authorities are withholding the truth about murders committed by non-whites. They are, for some reason known only to them, protecting ethnic minority killers and in all likelihood these murders are terror related. If only the police and the authorities would tell us “the truth” then the subsequent extreme right-wing led riots could have been prevented.

“Sometimes just tell the public the truth and you might actually stop riots happening” (Farage:01/08/24)

Light all bigots – left or right – it is only their version of the "truth" that they are interested in. Using the death of three innocent children to advance your own political ambitions is beyond contempt. Brandon Cox, husband of Labour MP Joe Cox who was murdered in a right-wing terror attack, had the measure of Farage when he described him as:

“nothing better than Tommy Robinson in a suit”

Mass immigration does present many problems but they are not problems that will be solved by whipping up hatred and bloodshed on Britain’s Streets. So far, Powell’s predictions have failed to materialise and his prophesy of violence and bloodshed have come to nothing.

Powell did get something right though.

In 1994 Farage wrote asking Powell to endorse him in his election campaign to become an MP. Powell refused. In the event, Farage came forth, with just 952 votes, only just ahead of the candidate for the Monster Raving Looney Party

If only today’s British electorate could see Farage for what he really is: a right wing, self-serving opportunist with not one shred of common decency.

[thtfailedartist]

Be aware (please watch)

(I will be reiterating what the original creator said but I advise you to watch it yourself as they explain it way better than I do)

There are some "new" dog whistles going around in the pussy side of the internet:

It can be abbreviated as "TGD" or "TJD" or "TND" and it's often accompanied by the lightning bolt emoji "⚡⚡". It's a dog whistle that stands for :

Total [insert minority] Death.

The G stands for the slur for "Romani", the J for Jew, the N for the N-word etc.

Imagine being such a pussy that you throw the stone and then hide your hand.

[striderstable]

(via A Few Words About White Supremacists, Nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and Other Fascists)

It’s a sad thing to live in a day and age when this has to be said, but I am vehemently opposed to white nationalism or white pride or whatever you want to call your fascist racism or dress it up as. I’m saying this here and now, loud and clear, because there is a blog making the rounds that purports to be about heathenry but is actually a thinly-disguised white supremacist blog and I’ve noticed that some of you have been liking their posts.

[contemplatingoutlander]

This Salon article by Ian Hanley-Lopez is well worth taking the time to read. Although it was written in Dec. 2013--BEFORE the age of Trump, it was prescient of the continued trajectory of the Republican Party towards a white nationalist agenda. The article describes:

How the indirect racist messaging of "dog whistle politics" began with George Wallace, using the language of being opposed to "arrogant federal authority," and being for "states’ rights," "law and order, running your own schools, [and] protecting property rights." Even though Wallace was a Southern Democrat (and later an Independent) the "dog whistle" strategies he employed were later appropriated by the GOP in the "Southern Strategy."

How the GOP's "Southern Strategy" slowly developed in the 1960s, when Goldwater began to push “states’ rights,” as well as “freedom of association." This strategy over time helped the Republican Party begin to appeal to those white voters who still held overt or covert racial prejudices.

How Kennedy and Johnson, by promoting civil rights legislation, turned the Democrats into the party identified with championing the civil rights of marginalized racial and ethnic groups.

How Richard Nixon fully embraced the "Southern Strategy," through his messaging of being for "law and order," and against the "forced busing" of children (to integrate public schools). As he gradually adopted this strategy, Nixon also turned against one of his own administration's earlier policies (developed by George Romney), which Nixon later derided as the "forced integration of the suburbs."

How, according to Hanley-Lopez, these changes in the racial strategies and policies of the diverging Republican and Democratic parties in the 1960s/early 1970s contributed to "the rise of racially identified parties," with a majority of white voters shifting to the GOP (which became "in fact, though not in name, the White Man's Party"), and the Democratic Party being associated with racial and ethnic minorities (as well as a smaller proportion of white voters, i.e., well-educated whites, especially white women). [color emphasis of terms, quotes added]

Echoes of Nixon's 1968 campaign ad in one of Trump's 2020 campaign ads

Hanley-Lopez mentions a 1968 Nixon campaign ad that focused on "exploiting the growing panic that equated social protest with social chaos." Above is the video of that 1968 ad: "The First Civil Right." Below is a transcript of the video:

TRANSCRIPT* (Music with snare drum and dissonant piano chords) MALE NARRATOR**: It is time for an honest look at the problem of order in the United States. Dissent is a necessary ingredient of change, but in a system of government that provides for peaceful change, there is no cause that justifies resort to violence. Let us recognize that the first civil right of every American is to be free from domestic violence. So I pledge to you, we shall have order in the United States. [TEXT: THIS TIME VOTE LIKE YOUR WHOLE WORLD DEPENDED ON IT. . .NIXON] [Color/ emphasis added.]

This 1968 Nixon campaign ad is eerily like at least one Trump 2020 campaign ad, "Abolished," which used some out of context video footage in order to exploit the fears of many white conservative voters regarding the Black Lives Matter protests and the poorly worded "Defund the Police" slogan.

Below is a transcript of the Trump campaign's 2020 "Abolished" video.

TRANSCRIPT*** [ Phone ringing/ Answering machine beeping/ background music. ] AUTOMATED FEMALE VOICE: You have reached the 911 police emergency line. Due to defunding of the police department, we're sorry but no one is here to take your call. If you're calling to report a rape, please press 1. To report a murder, press 2. To report a home invasion, press 3. For all other crimes, leave your name and number and someone will get back to you. Our estimated wait time is currently five days. Goodbye. [ TEXT: Joe Biden's supporters are fighting to defund police departments. Fox News, 6/6/20 | Violent crime has exploded. ABC News, 6/24/20 | You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America. | TRUMP   PENCE   KEEP AMERICA GREAT   20 ] TRUMP: I'm Donald J. Trump and I approve this message. [Color/ emphasis added.]

In conclusion, the barely covert racism in the GOP's political messaging that was so prominent during Trump's administration, and currently in the DeSantis Florida administration (among other GOP administrations) was not new. It was deliberately fostered by Republicans, starting in the 1960s, as they deployed their "Southern Strategy" to woo white voters who still had some overt or covert racial prejudices. The "Southern Strategy" relied on Republicans incorporating into their messaging strategies the kind of covert racist messaging that George Wallace used.

This strategy has unfortunately succeeded all too well.

[edited]

______________ *Transcript source (before layout changes/ edits) of the 1968 Nixon campaign's ad "The First Civil Right,"(alternatively called "Law and Order"): Museum of the Moving Image, The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2012. **Note that the "male narrator" sounds a lot like Nixon (at least to me). ***The transcript of the Trump campaign's 2020 "Abolished" ad is based on the English auto-generated YouTube transcript, as well as the video text and sounds/music.

[anqaspond]

white people will go on and on about how poc talk too much about racism but its like. dude. its like being visibly trans in a very transphobic small town except the small town is fucking everywhere on earth. fundementally this is something i cant change about me. fundementally this affects how i experience the world. OF COURSE racism is fucking everywhere to us

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

ayo this is a dog whistle!

[IMAGE ID: a YouTube comment by lyleessex4631 which reads, “paul just about everything that we buy in Australia is made in china, it doesn’t matter which which shop you go into you will still buy something that will have the made in china :Chinese flag emoji: on it” END ID:]

the paul is poll btw some people spell phonically and it gets confusing.

so you see right here? This seems pretty run of the mill right?

but just the entire part of it is screaming with dog whistles, this is how anti-Asian hate gets so insidious.

“Poll everything we buy in Australia is made in china” this by itself is a normal ass sentence, but this is referring to the video I took the screenshot from, and how people are not buying as much Australia Day stuff. (Topic for another day lol)

and so this guy is saying how if the Australian population knew that most of the stuff they bought was made in china they would hate that fact. (In this context it’s because they hate the Chinese people not the government just the people, and would like them to not be in Australia because of the racism and xenophobia. This is literally what they say.)

“It doesn’t matter which shop you go into it will all have the made in china 🇨🇳 on it”

Again pretty normal thing to say, but how they are saying it and the context is that-

“china and the Chinese people are icky and spies and I think they are bad”

again this sorta thing is incredibly suspect because no one else was talking about china, there was no references to china, and this came out of nowhere.

this is full on a dog whistle in anti-Asian hate, and just in general.

this rhetoric in my country (Australia) is very dangerous, since there are TONS AND TONS of displaced and diaspora AAIP people.

and loads of them being from Taiwan or Hong Kong or Vietnam or China or a shit ton of places. (Because iykyk)

and this stuff really fucking needs to be called out, because I’ve seen so much hate in my life so fucking much and it’s only gotten worse since I was little.

It started like this, the devolved into hate campaigns and crimes and conspiracies.

these are dog whistles get to know them please !

[thegh0stlee]

friendly reminder!!

if you're RACIST, you're NOT alt if you're ANTI-LGBTQ+, you're NOT alt if you're XENOPHOBIC, you're NOT alt if you're ABLEIST, you're NOT alt if you're RIGHT WING, you're NOT alt

be a fuckin person or get outta the pit, fucker

AND IF YOU'RE A CAPITALIST PIG, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE!!

[uboat53]

I think today is a good day to talk about Scott Adams. LONG RANT (TM) ahead.

WHO?

For those who aren't aware, Scott Adams is the creator of the comic strip Dilbert. He's also been in the news previously for comments that veer toward far-right racism.

Recently, on a podcast, Mr. Adams went on a rant, responding to a poll showing that a large amount of African-Americans disagree with the statement that "it's okay to be white". In this rant, Mr. Adams declared that he wanted nothing to do with black people and that "white people should get the hell away from black people". As a result, many major newspaper chains have dropped the Dilbert comic. He is now claiming that he is being "canceled".

THE POLL

So this is where it starts to get interesting. The poll Mr. Adams references was conducted by Rasmussen Reports, a far-right pollster with, frankly, questionable methodology. They polled what they viewed as "anti-white beliefs" and one of the questions was whether or not a person agreed with the statement "it's okay to be white". 72% of respondents agreed with the statement, including 53% of African-Americans.

This result, along with others from the poll, are being reported by Rasmussen as well as other conservative media outlets like the Washington Examiner as somehow being a refutation of "wokism". In reality, the idea that only whites can be racists or that all white people are inherently bad (beliefs examined by this poll) is a straw man concocted by the far-right rather than a true representation of what the vast majority of people who would consider themselves "woke" actually believe, so this result is unsurprising. But that is beside the point.

Mr. Adams, though, took issue with the fact that 47% of African-Americans in this poll DID NOT agree with the statement that "it's okay to be white". He took this to mean that nearly half of African-Americans harbor animus toward whites and that, for this reason, engagement of any sort with African-Americans by whites, including himself, was potentially unsafe.

"IT'S OKAY TO BE WHITE"?

Yeah, let's look at that question, shall we? It turns out there's some "fun" history here.

You see, "it's okay to be white" started off as a trolling slogan among white supremacists on 4Chan in 2017. White supremacist ideas are not the sort of thing that most people feel comfortable expressing openly, so dog whistles like this are the main way that they are expressed in public. In particular, the racist right has shown a propensity to prefer statements that appear innocuous on their face, allowing them to accuse others of anti-white racism if they object to them.

A "dog whistle", for those who don't know, is a seemingly inoffensive statement that is taken by a group and given a more offensive secret meaning. Like a dog whistle, the real message is designed only to be heard by the intended group, the dogs, while leaving others unaware of that message.

AWARENESS OF RACISM

This, I think, is the key to the whole thing, and it's something I'm actually fairly familiar with myself so I'm going to talk from personal experience here.

I'm Jewish. By birth, not religiously. But, being Jewish in any sense, you are made very aware of anti-Semitism, mainly because those people can (and occasionally do!) kill you and people like you. I'm sure I'm aware of many times more information about anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic beliefs than the vast majority of non-Jews are and I'm not even religious!

I should point out that this isn't necessarily because non-Jews are malicious or because they don't care about Jews, it's just that they aren't as directly affected by it. Anti-Semites attack and threaten Jews all the time, but they prefer to do this out of sight and hearing of other non-Jews. If you're not Jewish and you don't put any particular effort into becoming aware of it, it's very easy to live your entire life perfectly unaware of the anti-Semitic harassment and violence that is happening all around you.

In much the same way, I'd bet that African-Americans are far more aware of anti-black racism than whites are. This includes dog whistles; you're far more likely to know that the guy who says things like "globalists" and "it's okay to be white" is secretly racist if your life may depend on it.

In other words, African-Americans probably showed relatively low levels of agreement with that statement in the poll because a reasonably high percentage of them recognized it as a racist dog whistle.

THE CROSSOVER

So why is a "mainstream" right-wing polling organization like Rasmussen asking a question based off of a racist dog whistle from 4Chan?

Well, this is where we have to look at the crossover between the right-wing generally and the racist right. The far right in this country is increasingly racist, but they form a key part of the right-wing base in ever closer elections as the Republican Party loses appeal with other parts of electorate. Because of this, there's a big incentive for the larger right-wing to ignore that racism and even to deny that it is happening at all.

The dog whistles are key to this, by speaking in dog whistles the racist right is able to signal solidarity and express their beliefs while allowing the broader right-wing to deny the truth of their intent by focusing only on the literal meaning of the statement. Those on the more "mainstream" right are also incentivized to try to normalize those statements in order to "prove" that they aren't just secret statements of racism.

This is what Rasmussen is doing here. By pretending that "it's okay to be white" is just a plain statement rather than a racist dog whistle they are attempting to normalize it and demonize those who attempt to point out its nature as a dog whistle for racism.

DUE DILIGENCE

This is where Mr. Adam's racism becomes very clear. You see, on the face of it, I too would be concerned if I saw that a large amount of people of a certain group expressed what appeared to be a racist opinion about my group (note to white people, this is how racial minorities feel just about all the time, but I digress). But the first thing I would do is try to see if there's other context behind that.

And it's not as if the context is hard to find. I just Googled "it's okay to be white" and the very first result I got was the Anti-Defamation League (an anti-racism group) article that I linked above which explains the origins and meaning of this phrase.

Mr. Adams clearly did not even do this one basic thing, he just jumped to exactly the racist conclusion that the white supremacists who created this dog whistle intended for him to jump to. He is, at the bare minimum, racist enough to believe inflammatory things about African-Americans without the slightest bit of hesitation.

BROADER IMPLICATIONS

Here's the thing, though, it would be bad enough if a public figure like Mr. Adams were so committed to racist ideas, one person with his influence can do a lot of damage, but it's not just him.

This type of dog whistle racism is endemic across conservative spaces and has been for some time. It is repeated and accepted as normal discourse in right-wing politics and punditry, particularly among those who support the MAGA movement and the former President, and it is defended even by those conservatives and Republicans who are not otherwise seen as being racist themselves.

The conservative movement in general has a problem when racist ideas are defended and racists are allowed to use dog whistle language to convince others of those ideas. People like Mr. Adams and his turn to overt racism are just the tip of the iceberg that indicates a much deeper problem beneath.

CONCLUSION

Mr. Adam's statements are despicable and he is rightly being condemned for his bigotry, but he's far from alone. There is an entire system of dog whistles, denial of racism, and latent beliefs about minorities which enables people like him and allows these kinds of racist ideas to be brought to those who might otherwise reject them outright.

That's why it's important that all Americans, regardless of your political or racial beliefs, do at least the bare minimum. If you see information that surprises you and makes you feel upset, particularly if it encourages you to think poorly of an entire group of people, find out where it's coming from and what's behind it. The odds are pretty good that you're being manipulated.

The racists are out there and they are growing in influence. Don't sleepwalk into becoming one, learn their codes so that you don't get taken in.

[shoujoboy-restart]

The fucked up thing about modern racist dog whistles is that they porpusefully start as trolling, jokes at the expense of people's worries that someone may be a threat and then boom they become exactly representative of danger.

Like the OK symbol, starting as a troll to "show how gullible people were" and then boom that shit got double agent'd and it's now a actual and obvious symbol used by self admitted white supremacists and neo-nazis killing people around the world, but because of that trolling phase you can't be like "ummm hey why is that far-right politician that talks about being anti-immigration and hating poor people random with no context flashing a symbol multiple mass murderers used?" Without useful idiots that never outgrew their anti-sjw phases throwing what-aboutism and naive contrarianism your way.