Saul, J.M. (2017) Racial Figleaves, the Shifting Boundaries of the Permissible, and the Rise of Donald Trump. Philosophical Topics, 45 (2). pp. 97-116. ISSN 0276-2080
Abstract
The rise to power of Donald Trump has been shocking in many ways. One of these was that it disrupted the preexisting consensus that overt racism would be death to a national political campaign. In this paper, I argue that Trump made use of what I call "racial figleaves"—additional utterances that provide just enough cover to give reassurance to voters who are racially resentful but don't wish to see themselves as racist. These figleaves also, I argue, play a key role in shifting our norms about what counts as racist: they bring it about that something which would previously have been seen as revealing obvious racism is now seen as the sort of thing that a nonracist might say. This gives them tremendous power to corrupt not just our political discourse but our culture more broadly.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Philosophy Documentation Center. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Philosophical Topics. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Philosophy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 24 Mar 2017 16:03 |
Last Modified: | 29 Jan 2021 09:00 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics201745215 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Philosophy Documentation Center |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.5840/philtopics201745215 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:113930 |