The word “dog-whistling” is one of those cool new compound words, like “pearl-clutching” and “gaslighting,” that captures the evils perpetrated against the woke. No explanation needed. Just utter the word and, boom, you negated whatever was said, whether well-reasoned or not. In the case of “dog-whistling,” it means that you put out seemingly neutral ideas into the ether that may be silent to some, but can be heard by racist ears to be a call to their prejudice.

A lawyer friend on the twitters accused me of dog-whistling. He didn’t use the word, but his point was the same. My dog-whistle? The call to end the riots, the looting, the violence and destruction. As the discussion fleshed out, it wasn’t that he was suggesting that my condemnation against violence was intended to be a dog whistle. Indeed, he told me that he, too, was against violence because violence was an inherently bad thing.

But he raised a point that has some validity: While I may have a career dedicated to fighting racism, defending black people and criticizing police use of force, abuse and misconduct, my well-intended calls to end the destruction were heard by people who lacked my “credentials,” as he called it. My calls went out into the wild, and the people who heard them were using my condemnation of violence to support their racist views, or at least dismiss concerns about racism and the broader efforts to address it.

Can I tell them not to riot because violence is bad? Yes. But that’s all I got. I can’t tell them peaceful protest works when white people historically lose their minds over that too.

I’m not buying the argument that the riots are sufficient reason for people to ignore the majority using non-violent protests and the cause for reforming acceptable police conduct. That’s a line of horse pucky. People using that as excuse were never in.

Nor am I buying that condemning the violence is going to satisfy those kind of people either and get them on board. And it’s not like me condemning those rioting means those doing it are going to stop. They haven’t so far.

So if condeming violence incorporates those who would condemn peaceful protest as well, sweeping the two together as so interconnected that riots can’t be distinguished from the protests around them, to condemn violence is to condemn all action. Then again, condemning violence doesn’t work, as the rioters really couldn’t care what we condemn. Then again, the peaceful protests don’t work either, as white people’s support is “soft” and convenient, their generic support for reform and the elimination of racism fades when it isn’t convenient or they learn the details of the fixes, whereupon “white people historically lose their minds.”

The discussion begain with a simple question posed to me.

And the solution is…..?

Of course, there is no easy answer to that question, not that my condemnation of violence suggested I had an answer.

I wish I had a “solution.” All I have at the moment is my ability to condemn it and all the bullshit arguments promoting it.

That wasn’t going to suffice, and that’s where I was informed why my calls to end violence were dog-whistles to people who were never behind police reform or the elimination of racism.

Right now it’s a lot of
“Your protests are losing me because of the violence”
“We don’t condone that”
“Not enough. Condemn it”
“We condemn it”
“Not good enough”
“we strongly condemn it”
“Better”
“Now, what about the police abuse”
“The what?”

Bear in mind, this was tapped out quickly on the twitters, so the medium invites less than precise wording. But this compounds the problem. How does one condemn violence, not just because it’s an inherently bad thing, it harms the innocent, those undeserving of suffering the destruction no matter what rationalization is claimed, without simultaneously providing cover for people who never gave a damn about racism or police reform in the first place?

And if that’s not enough, what about the grievance that while the violence is wrong, nothing else is right? If all other efforts are doomed to fail, but rioting is wrong but understandable, where does that leave us? Does that mean we are doomed to racism and never reforming the police, prosecutors, judges and the legal system, or does that mean riots are wrong but a necessary evil?

But I reject the proposition that peaceful protest, that broad support to end racism and to reform the cops, have and will continue to fail. There has been no time in the past 50 years that these ideas have enjoyed the broad public support they do today, and with that support change is possible where it hasn’t been before. Not overnight miracles. Not wild unsustainable ideas by simplistic activists who want to abolish everything. But serious change. Effective change. It is possible, and that’s where the riots, as well as the childish demands of the rioters, comes into play.

It may well be true that the arguments I make, against violence and against dumb solutions, provide fodder for people who were never really against racism or for reform to seize upon. To their ears, condemnations may well be dog-whistles. But if that precludes calls to do better, because some out there will use them for their own purposes, then it also precludes their use to do better, to take this rare opportunity to call for change that could actually work and make things better. Whether that’s a solution, I don’t know, but it will certainly be an improvement over what’s happening now.

Yet, the riots and looting, the destruction and violence, are happening, and it’s making things worse, making reform harder, because it not only feeds into the cries of those who use it to shut down reform, but loses the public support of those who would create the consensus we’ve always wanted to make sustainable change a reality. You can’t drive away your friends and then complain they weren’t good enough friends if they can be driven away.

We can call it an impossible dilemma and give up, or we can keep pushing, both to end the absurd and counterproductive violence and to use the moment to change things in desperate need of change. I choose not to quit or wallow in the futility of it all. I may not win, but I sure as hell won’t give up. So if that means my efforts will seem like dog-whistling, so be it.