Online Hate Goes Mainstream @ ESPN.com
In my first book, White Lies, I made the argument that "white supremacist discourse—whether produced by extremists, Madison Avenue, or academics—serves to sustain privileges of race, class, gender, and sexuality which are endemic to a white supremacist context” (1997, p. 7). I also did a lot of work in that book connecting the extremist expressions of racism (racist cartoons of "welfare queens") to more mainstream expressions of racism (Clarence Thomas calling his own sister a "welfare queen.")
And, it looks like a similar argument could be made about expressions of racism on the internet. In a story published by Tolerance.org this week, the commercial website ESPN.com is dealing with bigotry on its discussion boards, but not dealing with it very well. While ESPN.com does have a policy that the boards are not to allow any "bigoted, hateful or racially offensive" posts, it appears that whoever is supposed to be sweeping these boards for such material is not doing their job. I wonder who ESPN.com hires to do this (almost all the big outfits subcontract this work out to companies such as LiveWorld). I also wonder if the folks at ESPN.com are going to pay the latest invoice from whichever company they've contracted with given the current controversy.
ESPN.com and their subcontractor did manage to add a "report abuse" button to the boards, but it doesn't seem to be doing much good. According to the article:
"A survey of recent posts reveals that despite the step, a problem remains.
'Can blacks go to Heaven? If so that would be a bummer! Ghettos, lazy people, unkept frontyards, & welfare lines in heaven,' reads one message, typical of dozens of racist messages added since the new link [to the report abuse button] was activated."
Clearly, white supermacist rhetoric on the internet, like the same rhetoric in print, is not resctricted to extremist websites. It also appears in solid bastions of the mainstream like ESPN.com.
>> DO SOMETHING
Tell ESPN.com's Patrick Stiegman and Paul Melvin to stop the racism on ESPN's message boards.
And, it looks like a similar argument could be made about expressions of racism on the internet. In a story published by Tolerance.org this week, the commercial website ESPN.com is dealing with bigotry on its discussion boards, but not dealing with it very well. While ESPN.com does have a policy that the boards are not to allow any "bigoted, hateful or racially offensive" posts, it appears that whoever is supposed to be sweeping these boards for such material is not doing their job. I wonder who ESPN.com hires to do this (almost all the big outfits subcontract this work out to companies such as LiveWorld). I also wonder if the folks at ESPN.com are going to pay the latest invoice from whichever company they've contracted with given the current controversy.
ESPN.com and their subcontractor did manage to add a "report abuse" button to the boards, but it doesn't seem to be doing much good. According to the article:
"A survey of recent posts reveals that despite the step, a problem remains.
'Can blacks go to Heaven? If so that would be a bummer! Ghettos, lazy people, unkept frontyards, & welfare lines in heaven,' reads one message, typical of dozens of racist messages added since the new link [to the report abuse button] was activated."
Clearly, white supermacist rhetoric on the internet, like the same rhetoric in print, is not resctricted to extremist websites. It also appears in solid bastions of the mainstream like ESPN.com.
>> DO SOMETHING
Tell ESPN.com's Patrick Stiegman and Paul Melvin to stop the racism on ESPN's message boards.
posted by Jessie Daniels at
2:04 PM
