Race card
Playing the race card is an idiomatic phrase, referring to an allegation raised against a person who has unnecessarily brought the issue of race or racism into a debate so as to obfuscate the matter. It is a metaphorical reference to card games in which a trump card may be used to gain an advantage.
The phrase is used in two contexts. In the first, and more common, context, it alleges that someone has falsely accused another person of being a racist in order to gain some sort of advantage. An example of this use of the term occurred during the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, when critics accused the defense of "playing the race card" [1] in trying to present Mark Fuhrman as a racist and thus not a reliable witness against Simpson. Another example would be a criticism of Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney's assertion that she was the victim of "racial profiling" [2] after she physically attacked a Capitol police officer who had asked her to show her identification at a security checkpoint.
In the second context, it refers to someone exploiting prejudice against another race for political or some other advantage. The use of the southern strategy by a political candidate is said by some to be a version of "playing the race card", such as when former senator Jesse Helms, during his 1990 North Carolina Senate campaign ran an ad showing a black man taking a white man's job, intended as a criticism of the idea of racial quotas. The ad was interpreted by many people as trying to play to racist fears among white voters.
There is no limit to possible constructions, and similar phrases have also been used, such as "Playing the religion card", "Playing the anti-Semite card", or "Playing the cancer card."
The term "race card" is often used to discount valid identifications of racism. As in the example above, where it is alleged the defense team played the race card, by depicting Furhman as a racist. There were numerous audio recordings and accounts, that did indeed prove, Furhman was to some extent a racist and an unreliable witness.
See also
External links
- The Race Card video about the use of the race card in the debate over illegal immigration in the USA.