Critics: Trump speech signals shift to coded race language
Source: Associated Press
Critics: Trump speech signals shift to coded race language
Jul 22, 6:02 PM EDT
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS and JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- During the primaries, Donald Trump threw red-meat rhetoric to supporters, pledging to build a wall on the Mexico border and to ban Muslim immigrants. He even told at least one crowd that he wanted to punch a demonstrator who disrupted an event.
Now that he's the GOP presidential nominee, who needs to appeal to the whole country, some observers say he's turning to tried-and-true code words to gin up racial animosity and fear among America's white voters.
Trump "didn't get on stage and issue a bunch of racial epithets," said Emory University political scientist Andra Gillespie, who watched his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. "We didn't hear the N-word, and we didn't hear other words that may offend many people. But just because he didn't use racial slurs doesn't mean he didn't frame issues in a way that people in racial and ethnic groups find problematic."
Ian Haney Lopez, author of "Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class," went further, saying Trump's speech surpassed even the coded racial language of Richard Nixon in 1968.
Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_CODED_RACIAL_LANGUAGE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-07-22-17-51-11
REALforever
(69 posts)Hello?
That's quite a gymnastic move after you've already offended so many, no?
markj757
(194 posts)but as a black person, and I'm sure many Latinos feel the same way, it was filled with the type of coded dog whistle racist fear mongering language which reminded me of the type of speeches my parents must have had to listen to from major political presidential candidates before I was born. Its a speech that white supremacist would love, and I say this with absolute sincerity, I was horrified by it because it came from the Republican Presidential Nominee, and not someone I would expect like David Duke (who posted on social media all the reasons he loved the speech). And if a majority of white people don't understand why I feel the way I do, then that disturbs me even more. Because we definitely have not come as far in race relations as I have assumed all my life.
hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)He's been signaling racist dogwhistles all along. And since 100% of African Americans are totally opposed to him, keeping it up may even benefit him.
SCVDem
(5,103 posts)That was 4 more than I really wanted to give, but I was listening to how he phrased things. This is what I got.
I will make America great and safe again for white people. We will ensure they have jobs and whatever they need to stay in the fold.
Other than white? I heard what was a cross of martial law, trust no one, and doing what that Philippine president is doing. He issued shoot them and kill them on drug offenses. This is open season on and by the citizens.
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer (sic) That is what I heard.
I'm a 61 yo white guy fwiw.