Dog Whistles 0
Political blogs will frequently refer to rhetorical “dog whistles,” meaning statements that sound innocent until their connotations are dissected.
One famous “dog whistle” was Ronald Reagan’s references to “welfare queens.” It said, “welfare fraudsters,” (and anyone can deplore fraud, unless it’s committed by Wall Street banksters, apparently), but it meant “persons of the not-white persuasion.”*
At We Are Respectable Negroes, blogger chaunceydevega challenges us to understand the dog whistles, using the Gingrinch as his example:
I think it would be more fun to rehab Gingrich’s logic.
Follow the link to see the rehab treatment.
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*One attempt to trace the history of Mr. Reagan’s remark to see whether it contained any truth concludes that it did contain an eensy-weensy itty-bit, but that the facts were completely contrary to the tune played on the dog whistle.
