Episode 239 — Miss America Twitter Backlash

[JulyDiaz 2797]

Creator of AngryAsianMan.com, Phil Yu joins Andrew Ti to answer racism questions all this week. Today they talk about Twitter’s racist backlash after finding out who was crowned as Miss America. Be sure to call us at (323) 389-RACE to ask if anything is racist.

[Homelessbird 2]

I don't think you all are wrong about this, but here's another idea to consider: I heard a linguist talking on NPR a while back (don't remember the details, unfortunately) who was saying that one of the reasons we see so much racism on the internet is that that's what's shocking to people now.

 

Words like "fuck" and "shit" will only shock your grandmother nowadays - they've been so oversaturated into our culture that the sensation you experience when hearing them is minor at worst. But racist words can still shock, they still have a sting to them.

 

The internet is largely still an anonymous culture - even if you have your real name tied to what you're saying, the experience of comenting on twitter is of being just one line of text next to a profile picture in a sea of tweets. You can't stand out with a mild expression in such an environment. If you want to be read, you have to be saying something extreme - or at least, that's the line of unconscious attention-seeking drilled into people with parents that ignore(d) them. People reach to racist words to make you pay attention to them, essentially.

 

Not saying that makes them excusable, of course. Just an interesting thought.

[Joshie 125]

.