Dog-Whistle Racism is political campaigning or policy-making that uses coded words and themes to appeal to conscious or subconscious racist concepts and frames.
For example, the concepts ‘welfare queen,’ ’states’ rights,’ ‘Islamic terrorist,’ ‘uppity,’ 'thug,' 'tough on crime,' and ‘illegal alien’ all activate racist concepts that that have already been planted in the public consciousness and now are being activated by purposeful or accidental campaign activities, media coverage, public policy and cultural traditions.
So, what’s dog whistle racism? It’s pure political theater to push buttons to win elections and policies. StopDogWhistleRacism.com, a project of the Center for Social Inclusion, is here to identify, expose and help you to track it. Join us.
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The Center for Social Inclusion is proud to announce the publication of One Region: Promoting Prosperity Across Race, a new report that examines access to services, resources and opportunity in different geographical and racial communities in the New York City metropolitan region. One Region finds that communities of color are largely isolated from the resources that create individual well-being and thriving communities. These disparities, exacerbated by decades of efforts to undermine social welfare programs by the right, threaten the economic viability of the region if they continue to go unaddressed.
The highest-ranking black congressman questioned Thursday whether South Carolina’s governor was “playing the race card” when he compared using federal stimulus money to Zimbabwe and other nations that printed cash in tough economic times.
Gov. Mark Sanford wrote a letter to President Barack Obama on Thursday asking for a waiver to spend $700 million in stimulus money to pay down some of the state’s debt — a day after comparing the package to other countries that dealt with hard times ineptly. Sanford has been an outspoken critic of the stimulus but hasn’t outright refused any of the money.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., has already lambasted Sanford and other governors who said they may not take some of the stimulus money, calling such a move a “slap in the face of African-Americans” last month. Thursday brought renewed sparring, as Clyburn criticized Sanford for mentioning Zimbabwe.
The comparison “was beyond the pale,” Clyburn said. “The question that ought to be asked of him: Is he playing the race card? I don’t know why he picked that country.”
With the federal economic stimulus bill out of Congress and signed by the President, CSI has prepared a second set of talking points intended to ensure that stimulus funds are distributed equitably, and address the needs of communities of color.
Communities of color are especially vulnerable in challenging economic times and it is critical that we implement the stimulus in a way that recognizes this. These talking points examine the role that race played in creating the financial crisis, and the need to address subprime and predatory lending and the lack of affordable housing for communities of color. This will not only address the needs of these communities, but hasten recovery: research has shown that lifting up the poorest among us actually benefits us all.
We hope that these talking points will be used by advocates working at the state level to ensure that implementation of the stimulus bill.
January 30, 2009. Center for Social Inclusion Issues Talking Points, Calls for Advocacy to Ensure that Economic Stimulus Does not Leave People of Color in the Cold.
The Center for Social Inclusion (CSI) has released a set of talking points intended to help racial justice advocate affect the implementation of economic stimulus, and to make sure that it is a fair and effective process.
“The stimulus package bypasses economic stimulus in communities of color, and in the current environment, that will harm us all,” says CSI Director Maya Wiley. “But we can change that if we focus on advocacy at the state level. States will be responsible for distributing the funds, and we can make sure that they do so in a racially inclusive and equitable way.”
The StopDog team is taking a hiatus, but we hope to be back for the policy debates that the presidential transition will bring. In the meantime, we do want your feedback on what StopDog should do next!
How can we support more education around symbolic racism, and organizing and advocacy..ya know, help community organizers govern?
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