It’s Not How You Say It, It’s What You Say: Ambient Digital Racism and Racial Narratives on Twitter

Abstract

Social media has been used to disseminate hate speech and racism. Racist opinions can be disguised through a language that may appear to be harmless; however, it can be part of a racist rhetoric toward communities of color. This type of racist communication is called Ambient Digital Racism (ADR). Through a thematic analysis, this project sought to identify and analyze social media racist discourses on Twitter in the context of George Floyd’s death. This research examined original tweets posted during the time of the protests using three known counter Black Lives Matter (BLM) hashtags, namely, #WhiteLivesMatter, #BlueLivesMatter, and #AllLivesMatter. After the analysis, two themes emerged, namely, the discourse of oppressor’s reverse racism and the social criminalization of BLM. These themes described the narratives used by these groups to develop a racist digital discourse that goes unnoticed by social media regulations and policies and that leaves an open space to negotiate what constitutes acceptable race talk and what constitutes a racist discourse. It was found that both themes were grounded on White victimization, color-blind racism, and the dehumanization of BLM as a social and racial justice movement.