race-baiting

noun

race-bait·​ing ˈrās-ˌbā-tiŋ How to pronounce race-baiting (audio)
often attributive
: the making of verbal attacks against members of a racial group

Examples of race-baiting in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
But three days before the election, the former President returned to a state he’s won twice to make an explicit race-baiting appeal to the other gender. Eric Cortellessa / Gastonia, TIME, 3 Nov. 2024 Between the lines: Trump and Obama loathe each other, and the attacks between them veer into race-baiting and schoolyard taunts. Alex Thompson, Axios, 1 Nov. 2024 His incendiary and race-baiting comments, like the promotion of the baseless rumor that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio, haven’t helped either. Kizzy Cox, Essence, 2 Oct. 2024 Trump bounded onto the national political stage nearly a decade ago by making race-baiting populism mainstream again. Clare Malone, The New Yorker, 27 Sep. 2024 His running mate, JD Vance, loves to attack her for supposedly using different accents, which is really just another amateur-hour race-baiting gambit. Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 10 Sep. 2024 The Harris attacks represent a textbook example of his approach to politics, combining his belief in the strategic power of race-baiting to mobilize his base and his favorite tactic for disrupting a bad news cycle: changing the subject to something even more outrageous. Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 1 Aug. 2024 Listen to this article Loading your audio article A race-baiting neo-Nazi was sentenced on Friday to 44 months in federal prison for posting graphic death threats online against a Brooklyn journalist who wrote about his violent extremist hate group. Leonard Greene, New York Daily News, 20 Apr. 2024 Thankfully, there’s no sign of the twisted, defensive, loudmouth race-baiting that marks the legislative misbehavior of Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, and their ilk in Regina King’s salutary portrayal. Armond White, National Review, 27 Mar. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1961, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of race-baiting was circa 1961

Dictionary Entries Near race-baiting

Cite this Entry

“Race-baiting.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race-baiting. Accessed 30 Dec. 2024.

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