Sankofa Series Starts Semester by Tackling Racial Discourse in Social Media

What language has to be used to be considered hate speech on social media? Are there "bad" and "good" expressions of racism? These are some of the questions that were posed in Dr. Felipe Agudelo's presentation Social Media and the Construction of Racial Discourse as part of QCC's Sankofa Lecture Series, sponsored by the Diversity Caucus. 

Agudelo, the associate director of Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion for Boston University's School of Medicine, has a background that includes extensive research in public health, curriculum design and restorative justice.

When social media platforms, such as Twitter, were first developed many people would often use them to communicate their whereabouts. According to Agudelo, in approximately 2016 things shifted more towards what people were thinking. While these platforms increased a global sharing of knowledge, users often inserted opinions with information and would not be critical of the content they were receiving.

Over time, Agudelo said, a sense of digital togetherness developed in which perceived relationships developed online through shared fears, stereotypes and experiences that could be used to communicate beliefs or apparent knowledge about those considered a threat to their identity. This is turn led to many counter-movements such as those that try to delegitimize Me Too and Black Lives Matters by calling them "racist" or "anti-American."

Among this landscape is what Agudelo describes as ambient digital racism, a term he coined for the racialized content that promotes and assigns negative behaviors and characters to people of color, thus promoting oppression and discrimination. This content is often subtle and negotiable to hide the racist message.

Agudelo provided an example he saw on Twitter right after the murder of George Floyd in which a user posted a message saying they were proud of their freckles and used the hashtag "whitelivesmatter." While this post didn't use outwardly racist language, the intentionality is what matters.

Social media platforms have implemented user policies to control hate speech, Agudelo commented, but those policies still leave the door open to interpretations of what constitutes acceptable racial discourse. Agudelo stressed the importance of education surrounding media literacy, but also in a broader sense of being critical of who we are and what our privileges are. He also notes that it is vital to have voices of people of color in these discourses on social media so we can created a more conscious and accepting digital landscape.

For more information on this lecture or the Sankofa Series, contact Professor of History Benjamin Wendorf at bwendorf [at] qcc.mass.edu.