“We need to take these people on. They are often connected to drug cartels. They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about how they got that way but first we have to bring them to heel.”
They are not gangs of kids anymore. Super-predators. This is the kind of dehumanizing language that former New York Senator and Democrat presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton used to describe gangs of kids in 1994, while stumping for her husband Bill Clinton’s pet Violent Crime Control Act. In modern media parlance, we’d describe that as a “dog whistle,” the kind of clearly racially coded language meant to stir up and evoke that most effective form of American political currency: the fear of black people.
Today we’d expect to ascribe that kind of dog whistle language to conservative lawmakers of the Trump, Cruz, and Carson ilk. However, here it is a counterpoint against efforts to sell Clinton as a racially progressive candidate, especially as in a recent essay by Michael Eric Dyson at the New Republic, which claims that Clinton will surpass President Obama’s contributions to the black community.
Dyson is right to scrutinize President Obama’s “accomplishments on race” as a way of supporting this claim. However, the kind of reasoned policy or political analysis that could ground such a comparison is missing, save for a few very broad paragraphs addressing Dyson’s personal disillusionment with Obama. Dyson writes:
But I grew disillusioned with his timid responses to racial crisis, with how willing he was to disclaim his racial affiliation, and more grievously, his shirking of his political duty—“I’m not the president of black America,” he has said. Obama will undoubtedly go down as one of the most important presidents in our nation’s history. But his accomplishments on race will not be what gain him that distinction.
These are certainly valid critiques. Even including a recent uptick in language more amenable to the Black Lives Matter movement, including a speech defending the slogan and acknowledging the “legitimate problem” it addresses, the president’s track record on racial rhetoric has remained frustratingly lukewarm.
