Codeword issues like crime and welfare may proxy for racial attitudes

Evidence

One possible explanation for this paradox is that racism did not disappear as a political force with the demise of Jim Crow. Rather, some political observers contend that racism continues to motivate much of the considerable white opposition to racial policies and black candidates, as in Edsall and Edsall’s (1991) assertion that “when the official subject is presidential politics, taxes, welfare, crime, rights, or values…the real subject is race” (also see Edsall & Edsall, 1992; Greenberg, 1995). By contrast, conservatives tout “the end of racism” (D’Souza, 1995; also see Roth, 1994). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3595

Categorization

• XREF: The dog-whistle/political-subtext claim connects to existing commentary on coded racial language in US politics.