Revision: Social Networking and Racism

In the article “Theorizing Race and Racism on the Web” Jesse Daniels examines how digital interactions can lead to racism despite the perceived “facelessness” of the internet, as well as how this affects online communities where identity often develops. At one point in the article he specifically focuses on how interactions on social networking sites can reveal and lead to racism, sometimes without the perpetrator being aware of it, such as when it is unconscious. The two main sites discussed in the article were MySpace and Facebook. Regarding the two, Daniels says “Watkins found that the same racialized language used to differentiate between safe and unsafe people and communities was used to describe Facebook and MySpace” (8). The “white flight” from MySpace to Facebook made people think they were joining a cleaner, friendlier website as they left an inferior one behind. In reality, it was only as clean as they made it.

Recently, the police in Norfolk, England were contacted after a person posted a racist comment on a banter/insult Facebook page for soccer team managed by a black man. The comment was removed but not before being reported as a hate crime to police by an anti-racism group. The club seems to be attempting to separate itself from the incident, reiterating that it is not affiliated with the Facebook page, the page is not official for the team, etc. The target of the racist comments, Chris Hughton, had made no official statement or acknowledgment at the time of the article's posting.

A Norwich and an Ipswich player (the two teams on the banter/insult Facebook page)

Although this is only one example, it seems a recurring theme that it is, in actuality, Facebook that is “trashy”, and certainly not “clean” or “trustworthy” like people initially thought. There have been several articles regarding racism on Facebook recently, and almost all of the perpetrators were white. Many of them were contacted by the police for hate-crime related sentiments. Some, however, were just disrespectful without actually being threatening, leaving others to marvel at their ignorance. The fact that the move from MySpace to Facebook is called “white flight” in itself implies that these white users fled the more racially diverse scene of MySpace in lieu of  the monoculture of Facebook—they found a ‘whiter’ place to exist online, and thus exhibit signs of racism themselves. Although digital demographics are able to shift very quickly, Daniels assumption that Facebook is more ‘white’ may still hold true. What does not hold true is some users’ assumptions that Facebook is a superior, cleaner site due to its white presence, or that MySpace is ‘ghetto’ because it is diverse.