Yesterday, on the “All Things Considered” program on NPR (yes, they apparently are still broadcasting), the NPR “Domestic Extremism Correspondent” Odette Yousef discussed how terms such as “Western civilization” are mere code speak (dog whistles?) for racist concepts. She made the claim in a conversation with the co-host, Ailsa Chang, who could hardly have agreed more. She asked Yousef, “[W]hat are you hearing, Odette, from White House officials when they are being asked why they are using terms that are adopted by white nationalists?”
Youself replied:
The White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department all rejected or didn’t acknowledge the European extremist roots of this policy idea when I asked them about it. But I think it’s important, also, to add the context of other terms that this administration has been using, talking about Western values, Western Civilization, chiding European allies for making themselves vulnerable to civilizational suicide or civilizational erasure.
Yousef supports her claims by citing Heidi Beirich, late of the SPLC and now Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. Beirich, she decreed, says that “this is language that sits firmly within the rhetoric of the identitarian and broader white nationalist movement.”
So, the likes of Yousef, Chang, and Beirich all agree. Must be true, right?
For more, see Breitbart News. You can listen to the interview on the NPR website.