What’s the line between legitimate opinion and bigoted trash-talk?
Just now I read a post on the Social Networking Blog about racial segregation online. The post talks about two social networking sites aimed at specific groups, New Saxon and NiggaSpace, and claims that these sites are representative of racial hatred.
We all know of sites that are basically launching pads for inflammatory ideas. However, my limited look at NiggaSpace turned up nothing racial, really. No statements about white devils. No exhortations to black power or separate black homelands. Nothing praising events in which whites or anybody else was massacred. The “N-word” is really the only thing on this site that could be claimed to provoke racial discord in certain contexts.
New Saxon is different. The site’s mission explicitly shows favor toward a white-only society. It displays symbols openly associated with genocide, like the swastika and the number “88″ (which stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet twice; in other words, “HH” or “Heil Hitler”), and states a whites-only platform advocating that “all non-Whites currently residing in America be required to leave the nation forthwith and return to their land of origin: peacefully or by force.” I particularly thought the “look, learn, and let the hatred burn” advertisement for white power videos was pretty austere.
Granted, I don’t think either of these sites really has much to offer anybody who’s not a “gangsta” or a “white racialist.” But I do think the sites are two entirely different things. To compare a purely cultural social networking site like NiggaSpace with the fractious politics of New Saxon is dangerous, because it lumps sites that might seem annoying to some with those that openly discriminate. No sir, strong cultural expression is not the same as racism—and this is a question we really need to get right if we want to avoid more harmful conflicts.
What do you think? Please, add your comment!
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I agree that the NiggaSpace site is not even close to half as bad as the other site. Segregation is a form of racism though. I understand that this is just a site that is geared toward a certain type of person, just like a lot of social networking sites are but when we get into separating people just solely based on color, I thing that’s a form of racism, maybe not hatred, but racism all the same.
Comment by Lin | Saturday, June 23, 2007
I respectfully disagree. NiggaSpace is not a racial site at all, it is a cultural site.
If you make a website primarily intended for Italians and call it PizzaSpace, or a site aimed at Lebanese called “the cedar tree,” there is nothing racist about that in my opinion. You are using a stereotype or caricature of the group, yes, but nothing is actively promoting the exclusion of anyone else. Such is the case with NiggaSpace.
iVillage is a site aimed at women, but that doesn’t mean men can’t go on it—thus iVillage is not sexist. MiGente is aimed at Americans of Hispanic heritage; again, not racist at all. At some point, you’d have to term every site that aims at a particular group as racist.
Racism “without hatred,” if there is such a thing, would be something like this: “we favor a society in which (group) only date other (group) because we believe race-mixing will harm our race.” Of course, very few comments along these lines go too far without somebody getting angry!
Comment by U | Sunday, June 24, 2007
I see your point. Your right in that sites such as iVillage would fall into the same sort of category. There’s nothing on that site saying that whites can’t join so you’re also right in saying that the site is not racist as such. I certainly don’t want to get into an argument about racism, since I personally don’t understand the concept myself. Maybe the better word would be segregation, but then that would also relate to sites such as iVillage. The name of the site bothers me, but I suppose I shouldn’t let a word bother me.
Comment by Lin | Monday, June 25, 2007