In 2021, there were roughly 2,717 antisemitic incidents reported across the United States. This was a 34% increase from the year prior. Thanks to the recent rise in neo-nazi rhetoric from political figures, celebrities, and online personalities, this number is expected to increase in 2022. I see a lot of people talking about avoiding obvious dog whistles, but very few explaining how to identify them. So, that’s what I hope to do today.
WHAT IS A DOGWHISTLE?
As defined by Oxford Languages, a Dog Whistle is a subtly aimed political message which is intended for, and can only be fully understood by, a particular group. Politicians will try to manipulate their audience by using alienating phrases, and in the process, dehumanizing those they’re speaking about while also having a margin of plausible deniability. For example, let’s take the term “illegal alien”. When we think of aliens, we think of little green dudes who suck us up in flying saucers to probe our anal glands. We think of xenomorphs and The Thing, creatures that are out to get us normal folks. However, “illegal alien” is meant to refer to immigrants who migrated here through unofficial channels. These are people. Saying “these human beings need to be deported” won’t drum up as much of a response as “these illegal aliens need to be deported”.
WHAT ARE COMMON DOG WHISTLES?
Blood Libel-
An ancient superstition that Jewish people will kill non-Jews, typically babies or young people, for the purpose of drinking their blood. This myth has inspired many vampire stories, most infamously Dracula and Nosferatu, and fuels a lot of modern day conspiracies. Ever hear “these celebrities are bathing in the blood of babies to stay young”? Well, this is where that comes from. It should be noted that Romani people are often the targets of similar rumors. This is obviously untrue.
Cabal-
Similar dogwhistles include but aren’t limited to the New World Order, The Elites, Globalism, Illuminati, and the Reptilians.
The term itself stems from the word Kabbalah, which was a Jewish mystical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. It is meant to describe a secret group of people, mainly Jews, that control the world’s governments, economies, and media. Not only is this blatantly stupid, as most of the people in power are wildly antisemitic themselves (just look at Elon Musk), but it’s also just ignoring the obvious and observable fact that corporations and money drive politics and not a secret shadowy government. We don’t need a shadow when we’re already shady.
(((echo)))-
Have you ever seen a person partially censor the name of a celebrity or a fandom they’re discussing to avoid fans coming onto the post and giving them shit for it? (For example, I’ve seen a couple people post things under tags like #lum*ty when they don’t like the ship) This is the same idea, except it’s almost exclusively used by neo-Nazis to talk about Jewish people. It saw a resurgence in popularity with the introduction of a chrome extension called the Coincidence Detector, which put these parentheses around the names of any of the over 8,000 Jewish people in their database. It was mainly used on Twitter.
Jews Killed Jesus/30 Pieces of Silver-
In the Bible, Judas, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples, was bribed by the Romans to turn in Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Many people use that as evidence to say jews killed Jesus. However, anyone who has read the Bible can tell you, Jesus was also Jewish. And so were the rest of his disciples. And his mother. If anything, Jews birthed Jesus and made him into the man he was. Y’all should be thankful.
Not The Real Jews-
This typically refers to the black Israelite theory, where the tribes of Israel relocated to Africa once the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed. They claim Ashkenazi Jews are imposters, and that black people are the real Jews. There are certainly black Jewish people out there, and they’re lovely af and deserve all the support in the world. However, the people espousing the black Israelite theory cannot be further from the truth. Judaism originated in what is now considered the Middle East with the prophet Abraham who settled in Canaan which is what we know now as Israel/Palestine. Around 722 BC, the Assyrians conquered the northern part of the territory and forced the 10 tribes of Israel to move further up north, and the Babylonians did the same to the Tribes of Judah a little later on. Not to mention when they were eventually overtaken by Alexander the Great. For the majority of history, Judaism was focused in the northern part of the Middle East and the southern part of Europe. To reflect that, Ashkenazi Jews share the most genetic similarity to the Greeks and Turkish folks. There is no evidence to suggest that Ashkenazi Jews are in any way fake. Again this does not mean there are no black Jews, there certainly are, but you don’t have to deny the validity of the ashkenazi to prove that. They are all Jewish. Not to mention, those who espouse the black Israelite theory rarely practice Judaism themselves.
14-
This refers to the 14 words, which are "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." It is typically placed in social media bios alongside 88, which stands for Heil Hitler.
SITES AND ORGANIZATIONS TO AVOID
BitChute-
An alternative to YouTube created in 2017 after the adpocolypse nuked many alt-right channels. You can find anything on here, from your average conspiracy videos titled “Why are some people seeing demonic entities after the vaccine?” with the Decorative font from MS word in the thumbnail, to ISIS beheadings and Atomwaffen recruitment videos. I am not kidding about any of those.
Daily Stormer-
A popular Neo-Nazi website and message board made by Andrew Anglin to spread antisemitic conspiracies and his weird 9/11 fanfics. It’s not used as much as it used to be, but this site played a large part in propping up figures like Milo Yianapolis who has been recently hanging out with Kanye. Which I find funny, as he admitted to wanting to fuck young boys on the Amazing Atheist’s podcast and that it was a totally normal thing. Even Ben Shapiro hated that guy from the beginning.
Parler-
Twitter but more racist.
Gab-
Twitter but more racist and more buggy.
Twitter-
This is mainly a joke but you should be very mindful that Twitter has always had a neo-Nazi problem, and it’s worse now than ever.
Twitter but owned by Elon Musk
InfoWars-
Owned and operated by Alex Jones, not only do they scam their viewers out of thousands of dollars, spread lies about mass shootings, harass innocent families who lost their loved ones in horrifying tragedies, play a key role in orchestrating the January 6th attack on the capital, but they also spread antisemitic conspiracies.
CONCLUSION
It’s important to acknowledge that absolutely anyone can fall for these dog whistles without even being aware of it. Recently, my brother started falling down this horrid rabbit hole thanks to Kanye’s rhetoric and despite everything I’ve tried to warn him about, he’s not listening. By posting this, I hope to stop at least one person from following that path. Now more than ever, we need to stand with the Jewish community and show our support. Stay safe out there.