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 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 Donald Trump kicked off his first presidential campaign in 2016 by promising to reduce immigration, using language targeting Mexican immigrants that many saw as race-baiting. Lauren Villagran, USA TODAY, 11 Jan. 2024 It’s sometimes overlooked that, in 2016, Trump twinned his race-baiting and attacks on cultural élites with criticisms of C.E.O.s, corporations, and bankers who had shipped abroad American jobs, and of the politicians who had enabled them. John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 24 July 2023 Schrader’s dreary view of America conforms to Biden’s race-baiting games. Armond White, National Review, 24 May 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'race-baiting.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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 12 Oct. 2024.

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