But who is the recipient of the hint? Context makes a big difference.
Consider a pro-LGBT Christian trying to persuade anti-LGBT Christian opponents.
If both sides understand that “don’t judge” (or whatever) is code for LGBT support, then there’s no deceit and thus no dog-whistle. You’re just observing the shared group norm of euphemizing words that Christians might find objectionable. We could call it a shibboleth, since you’re using in-group language to reinforce your membership in the group (to compensate for violating group norms of belief).
If you’re signaling to pro-LGBT people that you’re one of them, without raising suspicion of anti-LGBT people, then that could qualify as a dogwhistle.
Though generally, IMO, dog-whistling is just part of a spectrum of deceit. As a behavior it only interests me as a minority-recruiting phenomenon. What really interests me is words and phrases that are popular as dog-whistles, how obscure phrases end up reliably signaling some unrelated thing.
A good example would be the phrase “The Dred Scott Decision”. If you heard someone throwing that around, as George W. Bush did while musing about his SCOTUS picks, you might they’re talking about slavery or civil rights movement. But if you’ve followed pro-life rhetoric then you know that they see Dred Scott vs. Sanford as identical to Roe vs. Wade. When you see them invoke Dred Scott it’s almost certain that someone is trying to rally the base without the opposition picking up on it.
The trouble with the OP is that the left and the right are not two halves, yin and yang. They are differing ways of looking at the world and other humans, but they aren’t binary. Dog whistles are for people who feel they must work in secret. There’s nothing secret about the left that I’ve noticed.
What makes you think BLM only cares about Black lives ended by white cops? I think they care ALSO about Black lives not only ended by racism but also limited in quality by systemic racism.
Methinks you are attempting to be provocative or demonize BLM.
I never took it to be some kind of secret code among a particular in-group. Instead, I always took a “dog whistle” issue to mean something relatively innocuous on its surface that when brought up, causes a certain segment of people to start howling for no apparent reason, like dogs do when someone blows a dog whistle (i.e. they can hear it and it’s uncomfortable, even though people can’t).
To that end, I always thought that dog whistles were stances/commentary on topics meant to specifically inflame a certain group, without necessarily being overtly racist or overtly unreasonable.
I have some ideas about what left-wing dog whistles (i.e. things that would trigger left-wing people without necessarily sounding entirely unreasonable) might be, but I’m staying quiet for the moment, as I suspect that a lot of people around here are going to hear those as dog whistles that I believe in, and not necessarily as mere examples.
I’ve lived in Chicago most of my life. Every week, we see the tally of black murder victims, killed by black perpetrators. I have NEVER ONCE seen a representative of BLM decrying this state of affairs. So, with all due respect, and for my city, you don’t know what the hell you are talking about.
Wow, that is a completely different interpretation of “dog whistle” than how I’ve ever heard it used. Let’s define the O.P. shall we?
A dog whistle is used to call dogs to come to you without being audible to other humans. The classic example is a politician giving a speech where he says, "We oughta do something about Those People, if you know what I mean, and I think you do … "
Or think of an outraged parent telling their teenage daughter not to hang around with Those Kinds Of People anymore.
I would just like to point out for the record that whistles which cannot be heard by humans but can by dogs, are not used to direct herding dogs, and in fact, having traveled in various dog training circles (competitive Obedience, Agility, and sheepdog trialing, along with some dabbling in Search and Rescue and a few other things) for nearly fifty years, I have never come across one of these whistles, seen one advertised for sale, or witnessed one being used.
Well, now that you have edited your post to remove the part where you said you weren’t sure if they even existed, my post looks a little less relevant.
But they are used, not often, but they are. Usually people use the electronic ones, rather than the ones that you actually blow into. I’m not a huge fan myself, but there are others that swear by them.
They do do a good job of getting a dog’s attention.
Yes, I posted too soon. It looks like some hunters use them. Don’t know anything about hunting dogs. They do exist, just out of the realm of my knowledge.
Yeah, but you’ve got to look for that; they don’t show that on the 10:00 news every night. It’s more important to tell you that 7 people were shot to death last weekend than it is to show you the grass-roots efforts to try to stop it.