Dog Whistle Politics

As the Republican Party takes more control of America, white people who continue to vote for them will begin to feel their disregard for their well being but it is going to be difficult due to the very same political language that they've been using while discussing African Americans and other minorities for years, the "dog whistle".

Sidebar: Dog-whistle is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The phrase is only used as a pejorative, because of the inherently deceptive nature of the practice and because the dog-whistle messages are frequently themselves distasteful, for example by empathizing with racist or revolutionary attitudes, it is an analogy of a dog-whistle, whose high frequency whistle is heard by dogs, but is inaudible to humans.

The following is an excerpt from an article, that appears in National Geographic, by Tracie McMillan, entitled " The New Face of Hunger", with a byline that reads, "Why are people malnourished in the richest country on earth?"

"On a cold gray morning in Iowa, Christina Drier sends her three year old son Keagan to school without breakfast. She does this to force him to eat the free breakfast for which he qualifies and because if he eats at school, her family will have more food for lunch and dinner. When Keagan and his sister come home for lunch and if he has passed on his free breakfast, the tater tots and chicken nuggets left over from the day before, will not be enough. On some days, Christina's lunch will consist of the crumbs that are left on the kids plates.".

Due to the cuts made in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP / Food Stamps), by Congress last fall of $ 5 billion dollars the Drier family's benefits went from $ 205 to $ 172 per month. The SNAP program was included in the farm bill cuts that also eliminated the majority of African American farmers in America, who had consistently been denied loans to finance their crop growth.. She and her husband Jim are balancing a household on Jim's $ 14 dollar/hr. pay on his job applying pesticides to crops for commercial farmers. Their van is on the brink of repossession but Jim can't afford to take off from work to open a bank account so that the car note can be paid by check in the mail so that he doesn't have to continue taking time from work to pay it in cash.

More than likely, you would not see Christina Drier, who is white, married, clothed, housed, and even a bit overweight, as someone with food availability problems. This hunger is different than the Depression Era hunger because today's hungry Americans are working longer hours, eating bad food, and most importantly making less money. The number of starving people in America has risen 5 fold since the late 1960's to 48 ,million with 65 percent of those being white. In 2014, in America, 1 in 6 Americans confessed to running out of food at least once a year. By contrast, in Europe, the number is closer to 1 in 20.

When the Drier's, who live in Iowa do buy food, it is the cheap and non-nutritious variety that the government subsides the large corporate famers to grow such as corn raised beef, chicken nuggets fried in soybean oil, and Mountain Dew sweetened with corn syrup. the most alarming indication that the Republican led cuts are not in favor of hardworking Americans is this fact: During sequestration, the Federal Government allocated $ 12 billion dollars in subsides to insure the growth of commodity crops like corn and soybeans, while spending only $ 1.6 billion to promote the growth of fruits and vegetables which by government nutritional guidelines, should be filling up our plates.

The most alarming part of this story that all Americans, especially white Americans should heed is the reality that your Republican led Congress has created a new "dog-whistle" term to ease the blow and cloud the ugly truth in what they are doing when discussing hunger in America. That new dog-whistle term when used properly is, "Mrs. Drier and her family are what is now classified as "food insecure". Maybe when you all realize that your favorite politician's dog-whistle language that he or she uses to discuss and feed your dislike for minorities, they also have dog-whistle terminology for you.

Mad Man