In what is a watershed moment in Communication Studies, recent conversations on what constitute diversity and excellence have created an opening for articulations of the problem of racism in the discipline.
That Communication Studies as a discipline has historically operated on and reproduced racist norms emerged as the site of organizing.
The long-hidden racist codes of the discipline, which so many of us at the margins struggled against and were all too aware of in our individual struggles, became visible. The intuition that disciplinary and sub-disciplinary awards, modes of recognition, and pathways for progress are racist was crystallized in the sudden-visibility of documents that have otherwise been hidden behind opaque structures and processes meant to evaluate merit.
The normative constructions of Whiteness that are systematically written into the everyday structures of the discipline, tucked away under the polite language of diversity and inclusion, were rendered visible through a planned editorial, rife with racist undertones, and the subsequent release of exchanges among the distinguished scholars of the discipline and the disciplinary association. These exchanges brought to the forefront the notion that markers of excellence as well as the processes for selection of excellence are themselves embedded in deeply racist, faulty, and incoherent ideas.
For a number of us scholars of colour and scholars at the margins, the codes and disciplining games of Communication Studies became all too evident. What many of us had long suspected in our individual journeys found collective voice in our readings of the letters and exchanges.
This was the backdrop of the emergence of a movement that has drawn in over 2000 scholars from across a wide range of contexts and trajectories, speaking out about the racism problem in Communication Studies.
The Facebook group, "Communication Scholars for Transformation" has emerged as a powerful space for articulating our struggles, for calling out the racist ideology of our disicpline, and for voicing strategies for dismantling this pernicious ideology that occupies the everyday spaces of disciplinary work.
As expected, such an anti-racist infrastructure for strategically erased voices of the margins would threaten the very roots of the racist status quo. When voices from the margins percolate into hegemonic formations, the challenge they offer is typically co-opted or actively undermined. It is therefore no surprise that the White, racist structure of the discipline would respond to these voices with the monolithic goal of silencing them.
Of course, the racist status quo would find the voices articulated as responses to the discipline's racism as uncivil. Of course, the racist status quo would find the voices of transformation of poor rhetorical quality.
Of course, the racist status quo would reminisce the golden days of the disccipline, the days of yore when the quality of discourse was elevated, unlike the hooliganism being witnessed now. The status quo is actively at work to remind us of the golden days. The golden days when White men performing heternormativity dictated the norms and standards of the discipline, set the standards, and then conveniently changed these standards as it suited them to fill the spaces of the disscipline with more Whiteness. With the brown, black hooligans at the gates, the purity of the discipline is under seige. What with the migrants, the refugees, the threats at the borders so carefully walled out. No wonder then that the language of purity, coded as merit, is once again the fallback strategy to discredit powerfully articulated, rhetorically sophisticated and courageous voices of resistance.
Of course, questioning the mediocrity of the whole game of disciplinary production invites the wrath of the White status quo that has systematically benefitted from the perpetuation of erasure.
A significant portion of this racist status quo hides behind the language of politeness. It calls for more dialogue, gently reminding us that communication is after all about understanding and two-way exchange (the performance of two-way communication too is dictated by standards of Whiteness). Implicit here is a civilizational call, oblivious to the racist roots of dialogic overtures written in codes of White supremacy. Dialogue, or at least the performance of it, hides these racist undertones.
A fringe segment of the status quo however animates the fears and insecurities of Whiteness, going on a targeted and systematic campaign to vilify those voices at the margins that speak up, in spite of the tremendous costs that come with speaking out. The voices of the margins are attacked with various labels, often called uncivil, at other times, called irrational, and yet at other times, labeled dangerous.
In the virulent attacks, these voices at the margins are framed as threatening, ironically then using the label to threaten the voices. Various forms of targeted attacks and silencing strategies are carried out on a wide variety of platforms, with threats of outing scholars at the margins, threats of contacting employers, and threats of destroying careers. Scholars at the margins are called names, and painted as demons threatening the very essence of the discipline. The entire platform is vilified as well, capturing and mostly misrepresenting conversations on the platform to carry out the vilification campaign.
Using all these tactics, virulent racists claim "I am not racist," threatening lawsuits for calling out their racist tactics.
While these attacks are carried out by virulent racists, there are the "both sides" White scholars, those White colleagues that call for dialogue by suggesting that both sides are at fault. They point to the "mistakes" committed by "both sides," asking then for exploring bridges as the quick fix. They are very driven to find solutions, impatiently stating, "We have heard enough. Now let's find a way to move forward."
Underneath this veneer of wanting to find common ground, the "both sides" Whiteness plays a key role in keeping intact White hegemony. The "both sides" camp reminds us how much the conversations have gotten out of hand.
I have too often experienced this "both sides" trick that is essential to perpetuating Whiteness by equating racism and the anti-racist resistance to it. The silly equalization of racist tactics with anti-racist tactics retains the hegemony of Whiteness, criminalizing the voices of people of colour, long silenced, and built upon much strength and conviction to just speak.
It is at the end the White man/woman who decides that the norms of the discipline (themselves White) have been violated. The normative ideas of moderation, mediated through Whiteness, position themselves as tactics for moving forward.
It is not the virulent racism that I find challenging. I have lived with and learned to resist it.
It is the seemingly benevolent "both sides" racism that I find much more difficult to work against because it quickly claims the language of understanding to stigmatize my experiences and to silence my voice. We are told by the "both sides" White man, "This is enough (note here his assumption of the role of a referee, as if in an equal opportunity conflict). Now is time to move on and heal. Now is time for both sides to calm down and participate in dialogue so we can move forward (the very meaning of what it is to move forward is determined by logics of Whiteness)."
Voices from the margins are reminded, "You must now shut up because things have gone too far."
Toxicity, White toxicity, is kept intact through the active erasure of the voices of the coloured margins, precisely through the performance of "both sides." The "both sides" tactic works alongside the virulent attacks, placing White structures as referees and rule setters of the conversation.
One silences by calling for civility while the other launches aggressive attacks. Both actively erase the stories of our oppressions, the stories of our loss. Through benevolence and malevolence, working in synchrony.
In the face of these complementary attacks, voices from the margins say, "We will continue to narrate our stories. We will keep searching for ways of expressing our collective pains." They remind us, "It is not time to move on." They stare back at the racist attacks and call them out for what they are, racist.
If production of fear is the dominant strategy of Whiteness, the conviction in calling out the strategies of fear mongering offers pathways for "other" imaginaries.