Campaign 2016 vocabulary lesson: ‘Strategic racism’

Ian Haney López writes for Moyers & Company, Sept. 27, 2016

Equating dog whistling with personal bigotry minimizes the phenomenon. It’s not an expression of prejudice so much as a coldly calculated decision to seek advantage by manipulating the prejudice in others. Dog whistling is a strategy: it intentionally uses veiled terms to stimulate racial animosity, whipping up popular fears and stoking dangerous and misdirected resentments.