JUDY WOODRUFF: The president's criticisms
this week singling out four members of Congress,
all women of color, has set off a fierce debate
about whether or not the president's words
were racist.
As William Brangham reports, the president's
comments don't exist in a vacuum.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Last night on the floor
of the House of Representatives, an uproar
broke out when Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her
fellow Democrats wanted to pass a resolution
specifically calling the president's attack
racist.
REP.
NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Join us in condemning
the president's racist tweets.
MAN: Our rules of order and decency were broken
today.
MAN: I know racism when I see it.
MAN: This ridiculous slander does a disservice
to our nation and the American people.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: After all the debate, in
the end, the House did vote to condemn the
president's tweets.
It was a vote almost entirely along partisan
lines.
Four Republicans and one independent joined
the Democrats.
Now, we're not here to debate whether or not
the president's words were racist.
Instead, we want to explore how those tweets
and the ferocious reaction to them are part
of a long history of what one of my guests
calls the racial theater of American politics.
Joining me now is Erika Lee.
She's the director of the Immigration History
Research Center at the University of Minnesota,
and she's writing a book on the history of
xenophobia in America.
And Ian Haney Lopez is a professor of public
law at U.C.
Berkeley who studies coded racial language
in America.
He's the author of "Dog Whistle Politics."
Welcome to you both, and thank you for being
here.
Ian Haney Lopez, to you first.
You're the one I was quoting about this racial
theater in American politics.
I wonder if you could just help us zoom out
a little bit from this week's controversy
and help us explain how this theater plays
out.
What does this play look like?
IAN HANEY LOPEZ, U.C.
Berkeley: Here's the way the play works.
It's -- what I call dog whistle politics is
the use of coded racial appeals in politics,
but coded racial appeals, there's a lot going
on.
Act one of the play, some politician decides
to gin up controversy by pushing a racial
idea or meme into the conversation, but doing
so through a coded term that allows plausible
deniability.
So think of the phrase, "Go back where you
came from."
Some people see it as racist.
Other people say this doesn't have to do with
race at all.
Right?
Or think criminal and illegal aliens, or sanctuary
cities, or, contrary-wise, think, make America
great again, or real Americans, or the American
heartland
Act two, the person who is dog whistling about
race comes forward and exercises the plausible
deniability of these terms and says, hey,
me?
I didn't say anything about race, or, as Donald
Trump tweeted, "I don't have a racist bone
in my body."
Act three, turn around and say, but you know
who is talking about race?
It's my critics.
My critics have accused me of being a racist.
And since I'm not a racist, they're the real
racists, because they are falsely smearing
me with this awful charge of being a racist.
And that's the basic drama of this week in
American politics.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Erika, let's -- sticking
with that metaphor for a moment, let's go
back to act one, as Ian Haney Lopez lays it
out.
The president said, go back to your home country,
fix things there, leave this country.
I know your scholarship has looked at how
that is part of the coded language that has
evolved over time.
Can you explain a little bit of the history
of that type of terminology?
ERIKA LEE, University of Minnesota: Sure.
And it's not even that coded.
Literally get out of your of this country
is quite an insult and quite a charge.
And this has ranged throughout our history
from more softball questions such as, where
are you from?
No, where are you really from?
Sort of a symbol that the person is not really
a full American or really belongs here.
But go back has also literally been attached
to violent campaigns of mass deportation.
So, this is both coded language, but also
connected to a much longer history that is
violent, that is xenophobic, and that has
always been a form of racism in the United
States.
There's this idea that -- especially with
immigrants, that we should be grateful to
have been let into the United States, and
because of this gift of migration, that then
we should blindly and follow all of the policies
of the adopted homeland.
And that, to be sure, is not American.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Ian Haney Lopez, you were
touching before on this issue that, if you
use coded language, it allows you a sort of
plausible deniability, that you can say, I
didn't mention anyone's skin color.
I didn't mention their race.
So why are you calling me a racist?
I take it this, too, is not a new phenomenon.
IAN HANEY LOPEZ: It's not a new phenomenon.
And, well, I want to make a distinction here.
We're talking about two different things that
are connected, but we ought to see that they're
two different things.
One is the dynamic in which one person says
to another, go back where you came from.
And I have had that happen to me.
I think many people in the United States have
had that happen to them.
That's one phenomena.
The other is where some of the most powerful
people in the country, and in particular politicians,
seek to exploit racial divisions, seek to
stoke racial acrimony.
And they're being combined here.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Erika Lee, we also saw something
of a turning of the tables here this week,
where the president said, I'm not the racist,
those people who are accusing me of racism
are the racists.
It reminded me very much of a moment my colleague
Yamiche Alcindor had earlier this year where
she asked the president a question about why
his policies seem to echo so strongly with
white nationalists.
He turned the tables on her and said the exact
same thing.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States:
That's such a racist question, honestly.
I mean, I know you have it written down and
you're going to tell me -- let me tell you,
that's a racist question.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I take it that too, that
turning of the tables, is not a new thing.
ERIKA LEE: It's not a new thing.
But it has become especially effective in
the post-civil rights era.
It was much more accepting to be explicitly
racist and to have legal discrimination, obviously,
and to have those signs, "No Jews allowed,
"No Chinese allowed, "No Mexicans allowed,"
et cetera.
But, of course, after the civil rights movement,
explicit racism, explicit discriminatory -- was
illegal.
Explicit racism fell out of favor.
And so we have become much more adept at colorblind
racism, at dog whistle politics, about talking
about race without using explicitly racial
language.
So it's -- it's not new, but it has become
a new way and a very effective way in the
post-civil rights era, and I would say in
the Obama and post-Obama America, to denigrate
others, to insult them, to treat them as unequal,
to justify inequality without using the old
racial labels.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Ian Haney Lopez, the president
apparently contacted a reporter today and
said to him that he was happy with the way
this debate went forward this week, and thought
it was a good thing.
And I'm curious, do you see any good news
in this, in the way that this is unfolded,
in the conversations that are happening around
this?
IAN HANEY LOPEZ: I don't see particular good
news in this.
I see a very treacherous moment for the American
people, for our society, for our democracy.
And here's what's so treacherous.
We have a president who benefits -- who sees
himself benefiting from social division and
acrimony.
And that's what he's stirred this week.
And I think that's why he's happy with the
result.
When we have a huge outraged conversation
in this country, is Trump, and, by extension,
the millions of our fellow citizens who love
him, is Trump racist, are they somehow racist,
are people of color somehow their enemy, are
people of color threatened by them, that sort
of conversation about racial division is what
Trump wants.
It's the way he benefits.
And what we have then is, we have a political
leader who, for his own benefit and for the
benefit of his party, sees himself as leading
the country further into division and hatred
and violence.
And yet, at the very moment that this is so
treacherous, it's also an opportunity, because
President Trump is making clear, through his
actions, a dynamic that has actually plagued
our country for the last 50 years since the
civil rights movement.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Erika Lee, lastly to you,
how would you like to see us try to bridge
this chasm, to move through this and try to
heal this divide?
ERIKA LEE: I think that one of the important
aspects is to understand that this goes beyond
the 2020 elections, that the remarks by the
president and the division that it has caused
points to a much larger, deeper problem in
the United States, a problem that is about
division.
It's about race, and it's about the future
of the United States.
And I do agree that this -- these politics
of distraction and these politics of division
have driven us away from the actual business
of governing.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Erika Lee and
Ian Haney Lopez, thank you both very much.
