Cracking the Racial Code: Black Threat, White Rights and the Lexicon of American Politics

• Published date: 01 May 2018
• Author: Hannah Walker,Dylan Bennett
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12240
• Date: 01 May 2018

Cracking the Racial Code: Black Threat,

White Rights and the Lexicon of

American Politics

By Dylan Bennett* and HannaH Walker†

aBstract. Raciall y coded language that appeals t o r acial bias without

open bigotry has a long history in the politics of the United States.

Politicians intentionally activate the latent racial biases of both racial

conservatives and center-left liberals without explicitly talking about

race. Conservative positions on significant policy areas have shifted

over time on the basis of coded racial appeals. Fundamental rights are

coded as white rights. Government actions to aid the poor or reduce

discrimination are coded as black threats. The racial dimension

explains the changing positions of American conservatism on gun

rights, crime and mass incarceration, immigration, the welfare state,

federalism, and economic policy. White racial identity, mobilized by

coded political talk, restrains the potential for cross-racial coalitions

and perpetuates the political repression of nonwhite Americans.

Language gets its power because it is defined relative to frames,

prototypes, metaphors, narratives, images, and emotions. Part of its

power comes from its unconscious aspects: we are not consciously

aware of all that it evokes in us, but it is there, hidden, always at work.

If we hear the same language over and over, we will think more and

more in terms of the frames and metaphors activated by that language

(Lakoff 2008: 15).

American Jour nal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 77, Nos. 3-4 (May-Septe mber, 2018).

DOI: 10 .1111/ajes.122 40

© 2018 American Journ al of Economics and Sociology, Inc

*Dylan Bennet t is an associate professor of polit ical science at University of

Wisconsin–Waukesha. Email: dyla n.bennett@uwc.edu

†Hannah Walker is an assi stant professor of political science and crim inal justice at

Rutgers University. Email: hlwa lker@polisci.rutger s.edu

690 The American Journal of Economics and Sociology

Introduct ion

The rise of Donald Trump in the politics of the United States came

with a torrent of pithy racial insults and resurrected wh ite nationalist

slogans. Trump painted an explicit portrait of Mexican immigra nts as

rapists and murderers; black people lived in a horror landscape with

nothing to lose; and Muslims needed to be banned from the country

because they might be terrorists. His lang uage was striking because it

reenacted essentially the same message U.S. politicians have delivered

for decades, but without the usual finesse and intentional ambiguity.

Politicians usually invoke race without talking about it. Instead, they

talk about crime, drugs, welfare dependence, and big government

as a strategy for conjuring negative mental associations in the minds

of white voters. When Trump was asked about the conflict between

blacks and police during a debate with Hillary Cli nton, he was closer

to the traditional formula. The country needs “law and order,” he

said flatly, recycling a phrase that scholars have long understood as a

racialized message to white voters that really means: “Black people are

dangerous and out of control—put the Black Lives Matter protestors

in jail.” By drawing water from this well, Trump was wholly unorigi-

nal. Neutral sounding comments that invoke racial fear are standard

code language in U.S. elections and policy making. Politicians deny

racial intent, but voters get the message. The routine of racial messag-

ing from politicians and the fear and resentment of white voters taps

into the deep American story of racial subordi nation and gives racial

identity a central role in U.S. politics.

To understand how the forces of racial exclusion endure in the

context of legal equality, one must understand strategic language and

racial identity. Explorations of racial politics that are aimed at under-

standing how racially coded language functions often stimulate a de-

fensive reaction from white opinion leaders who do not acknowledge

racial exclusion in the daily lives of black and Latino people. Instead,

those leaders perceive efforts to talk critically and reflectively about

race in politics as the actual problem. There is at least a half-plausible

reason why these white leaders might not recognize the racial mech-

anism in U.S. life. Formal discrimination is illegal. Openly racist talk is

culturally forbidden (Mendelberg 2001). Racial equality and fairness

691

Cracking the Racial Code

have become the expected standard of appropriate behavior. Yet, ex-

plicit racial slander has been replaced by what scholars consider racial

code or “dog whistle politics” (Ian Haney-Lopez 2014). Politicians use

a special language about race that their followers understand clearly

despite the absence of direct racial language. Racial code involves

talking about race indirectly while not mentioning it explicitly, which

enables the speaker to enjoy plausible deniability. The intentional use

of carefully framed and coded race language and symbolism taps into

hidden and submerged white assumptions about blacks, Latino im-

migrants, and Muslims. “Misrepresentation of a marginalized group,”

writes racial politics scholar Ange-Marie Hancock (2004: 5), “can pre-

dictably stunt the dissemination of accurate information and thus the

development of accurate attitudes about them.” President Trump is

only the current conduit of this oppressive tradition in the politics of

the United States.

Racial exclusion is a central feature of the U.S. political experience.

Like South Africa, white supremacy is a primary characteristic of U.S.

political development, including the violent displacement of Native

American societies, the conquest of Mexican territory in the 1840s, and

the enslavement and domination of African Americans. A particular

focus on the black experience in the United States. acknowledges that

the national constitutional bargain was built on racial exclusion and

on the continued exclusion of blacks from the full benefits of political

equality (A. G. Marx 1998). Effectively repressed since their formal

emancipation in the 1860s, blacks have faced a continuum of required

obedience to the white agenda, physical terror, and cultural mockery

and appropriation (Rogin 1996). They have also endured an indus-

trial prison-labor complex (Blackmon 2008). Racial hierarchy persists

through harsh segregation in housing (Massey and Denton 1993).

Workforce exclusion and deindustrialization have eroded the socio-

economic capacity of the black community (Schmid 2004; Pawasarat

2013). Voter suppression and the compounding force of mass incar-

ceration, which disenfranchises one in 13 African Americans due to

felony convictions, pushes blacks away from political participation

(Walker 2016; Alexander 2012; Uggen et al. 2016).

In sum, progress toward more racial equality is never guaran-

teed. Sometimes, the transformational cause of equality loses ground