race-baiting

American  

[reys-beyting] / ˈreɪsˌbeɪtɪŋ /

noun

1. acts of racist provocation, especially in speech and writing, including racial dog whistles, hate speech, threats, and other forms of harassment targeting one or more racial groups or members of such a group, often in the context of political or cultural polemics.

2. any rhetoric or act that pits one racial group against another or incites racial hatred.

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Other Word Forms

• race-baiter
  noun

Etymology

Origin of race-baiting

First recorded in 1940–45; race ² ( def. ) + -baiting ( def. )

Example Sentences

A Muslim group accused Davies of "Islamophobic race-baiting" after he wrote about allegations that non-halal meat was not available at a school in the Vale of Glamorgan.

From BBC • Nov. 28, 2024

Many Georgians across racial lines are proud to claim a New South identity and may recoil from anything that smacks of overt race-baiting.

From New York Times • Dec. 7, 2020

Other statues would soon also be toppled, among them a likeness of Philadelphia’s race-baiting mayor of the 1970s, Frank Rizzo.

From Washington Post • Jun. 6, 2020

In this case, Ron Stallworth, an African-American Colorado Springs police officer, infiltrates a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1970s by posing, on the phone at least, as a race-baiting white supremacist.

From Seattle Times • Feb. 18, 2019

Her backers dismiss attacks against her on those grounds as race-baiting and false, but Vanity Fair grudgingly concluded that they are valid and noted her claims “can be traced back more than 30 years.”

From Washington Times • Feb. 3, 2019