Dog Whistles: A Mea Culpa

I had hoped to include a reflection on dog-whistles in these musings, and it looks like today is the day. But not for the reasons I had hoped. I feel the need today to offer a mea culpa and a corrective.

According to Wictionary, a dog whistle is political allusion or comment that only a certain audience are intended to note and recognize the significance of. In the last sentence of my reflection yesterday I said "...I chose compassion, I side with love, and I believe rational conversation is a key ingredient..."

"Side with Love" is an interfaith public advocacy campaign promoting respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Under the name "Standing on the Side of Love," it emerged as a rallying point for people of faith in 2004 in Massachusetts during their early efforts for fully inclusive marriage. It's core issues of focus include, but are not limited to: LGBTQ equity, immigrant justice, and racial justice.

I should have been clear that "side with love" was a reference to a movement and organization, and I was not. I thought it was a cute homage and a nice rhetorical flourish. But a neutral observer would fairly say it was a coded message that could help cultivate sympathy among those who understood it, and slip past those who did not. Though I did not see it that as such when I wrote my conclusion yesterday, it is really is the very definition of a dog whistle.

There is a lot that is interesting there. Implicit in that definition is the idea that to one audience dog whistles are in a sense not really dog whistles. On a Unitarian-Unversalist forum, everyone would have known the meaning and it would not have been a coded message. But I am writing to a broader audience than just my church, and I should have caught that. Making that mistake opened my eyes to certain ambiguity in what constitutes a dog whistle, and a degree of sympathy for those who must speak at the same time to both broad and narrow audiences.

It seems to me it is no corrective to go back to yesterday's post and erase those words -- critical thinking requires honest self-assessment, and easily erasing the past makes such introspection less likely. Nor is it a corrective to to suggest I could not have known, or try to contend it was not a dog whistle for some. I think for me, the only corrective is to make the coded message explicit -- I have supported marriage equality since 2004 and I continue to support LBGTQ equity. I support racial justice here in the US and across the world. And I believe just treatment of human beings does not permit the gross inequality of opportunity we now see as the outcome of place of birth.

One of the great harms of dog whistles is that they allow ideas to float through our discourse without being subject to analysis. I hope I've made my beliefs explicit here, that I have demonstrated my commitment to honest discourse (as well demonstrating my own fallibility), and that I have regained a bit of your trust