Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

11.14.06 | One of my first experiences lurking on a racially dedicated social networking site made it clear just how invested participants were in these webspaces. When a participant questioned the motives of white participants who were “corrupting the exchange of ideas,” most respondents agreed that this homeland—an immaterial territory—should be marked and defended. The territorial impulse expressed here is fairly typical on dedicated sites. Common enemies are identified along racial or ethnic lines, frequently the enemy are whites, who are representatives of white power structures that inevitably thwart ‘nation’ (and movement) building, identity formation, belonging, and ownership.

Despite the popular claim that the internet presents the possibility of a raceless space, participation on racially dedicated sites is growing exponentially, suggesting that the dissolution of racial identification in cyberspace is neither possible nor is it desirable. Make no mistake, the desire for a racially ‘pure’ site is something that participants are especially not afraid to talk and turf about. For many, racial identity serves as common ground and ought to be the primary determinant of one’s right to participate.

Rather than casting these discussions as simply cases of reverse racism, we should instead subject these discourses to meticulous, long term study in order to better understand how sustained online contact impacts the ways ethnic communities talk about race and their histories with racism. Of real interest to me is the role young people play in teaching/learning about which aspects of race and ethnicity are fundamental for participation in the public sphere.