Your Privilege Is Trending: Confronting Whiteness on Social Media

Abstract

Social media activism provides an important space for dialogue and consciousness-raising. Racism, privilege, and inequalities have received considerable attention in social media discussions. #WhiteProverbs was one attempt to confront this issue, focusing particularly on White privilege. The tweets show how social media is a site where “serious games” are played, as agents are constrained by the “rules” but still able to make choices and push boundaries. This article explores the #WhiteProverbs tweets that came from Australian users to better understand how Australian social media users understand and confront whiteness. Through the use of humor, specifically irony and sarcasm, Twitter users identify a number of key ways that White privilege is reproduced, including justifications for racial inequality, questioning claims to racial differences, and constructing an exclusively White national identity.

“We’re not treated equally as Indigenous people or as women”: The perspectives and experiences of Indigenous women in Australian public relations

“…Racism and Indigenous work stress/burnout for other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in varying professions are evident (Bargallie, 2020; Petray and Collin, 2017; Thunig and Jones, 2020; White, 2010) and demonstrate almost identical themes, aligning with the pressures and experiences that Indigenous women are all subject to. The perpetuation of public relations theory and practice committing to Eurocentric patriarchal foundations marginalizes all women and can create negative emotional responses and stress.…”

“…The social construct of whiteness is based on the concept of Caucasian peoples having power, privilege, and priority, to the extent that it has long been the “invisible default” (Petray and Collin, 2017). This has been reported within Indigenous Australian public relations scholarship (Clark, 2012; Clark et al, 2019; Fitch, 2020a; Johnston et al, 2018; Petersen, 2016; Sakinofsky et al, 2019).…”

Donald Trump’s “Political Incorrectness”: Neoliberalism as Frontstage Racism on Social Media

“…Mexican immigrants have been framed in US public dialogue as peon laborers turned illegal aliens (Flores, 2013). Metaphorically, Latinx immigrants have been described as a disease within the national body, a "brown tide" of floodwaters overcoming the sacred US white home, and as "lowly steerage-dwellers" weighing down the lifeboats of an already strained ship (Santa Ana, 2002, p. 293 Petray and Collin (2017) in their study of Twitter users and tweets responding to #WhiteProverbs, in collecting positive responses to Trump's tweets I did not aim for a systematic sampling of all tweets responding to or disagreeing with Trump's "incorrectness," nor for statistical significance (p. 3). Rather, I gathered tweets qualitatively from users interacting with Trump as a "central node" on Twitter and reifying Trump's "political incorrectness" as part of popular political logic and discussion.…”

“…Additionally, positive Twitter user responses to Trump’s tweets were collected to show ways in which Trump’s neoliberal “incorrectness” is supported. Like Petray and Collin (2017) in their study of Twitter users and tweets responding to #WhiteProverbs, in collecting positive responses to Trump’s tweets I did not aim for a systematic sampling of all tweets responding to or disagreeing with Trump’s “incorrectness,” nor for statistical significance (p. 3). Rather, I gathered tweets qualitatively from users interacting with Trump as a “central node” on Twitter and reifying Trump’s “political incorrectness” as part of popular political logic and discussion.…”

Discrimination and Black Social Media Use: Sites of Oppression and Expression

“…Opposite ideologies tend to collide in online spaces; Black Americans also have to contest color-blind ideology and white supremacy online (Carney 2016). Similarly, they call out white privilege, sometimes in humorous ways with hashtags like #WhiteProverbs (Petray and Collin 2017). Although social media might seem like a double-edged sword, Black Americans hold it in high regard.…”