Why White supremacists support free speech?
For the White supremacist and the collaborators of White supremacy (including Zionists that support various forms of White supremacy, more on this in a later blog), the instrument of free speech is a powerful tool.
You will often hear the White supremacist rallying behind calls for free speech.
Such so-called higher order defense of free speech that White supremacists often jump to is to make space for far-right White supremacists to attack the dignity and human rights of communities of colour.
White supremacists placing themselves behind the freedom of speech agenda is an effort to prop up White supremacy.
The underlying agenda of the White supremacist is to uphold White supremacy as the normative structure of society.
How then do White supremacists attack voices of colour?
This therefore also means that the White supremacist simultaneously must silence the freedom of speech of people of colour, especially the voices of people of colour that draw attention to White supremacy.
A person of colour can have freedom of speech to the extent that he/she doesn't talk about White supremacy, keeps her/his head down, and puts up with the everyday forms of White supremacy. This in fact is the learned strategy for many of us, people of colour in the academe, just so we can survive the normative structures of Whiteness of the academe.
However, when people of colour do indeed critically interrogate the communicative structures of White supremacy, they must be silenced. Attempts at silencing, as in the instance of the Zionist attacks on Professor Steven Salaita, which later led to his un-hiring at the University of Illinois, or in the instance of the White supremacists attacking Dr. Saida Grundy, take the form of demanding institutions/universities to fire critical voices of people of colour.
In leaving his tenured position at Drexel University in the US as a result of a right-wing White supremacist vilification campaign, the political theorist George Ciccariello-Maher drew attention to the vitriol that is generated from invisible bigoted positions, sponsored by powerful forces in society.
Various strategies are put into place so the critical voices of communities of colour can be attacked through systematic campaigns.
I support free speech
The White supremacist attack on people of colour addressing White supremacy will usually begin with, "I support freedom of speech," or "I support freedom of speech of Dr. X."
But people of colour are radical
This preface will be then followed by portraying the speaker of colour, in this instance, Dr. X, as "extremist," or "reverse racist," or "prejudiced."
The framing of the person of colour as extremist works to silence her/him.
The portrayal of Dr. X as radical works to deny her/his right to free speech (consider Salaita, Grundy, Marc Lamont Hill).
Paradoxically, White supremacists are entitled to freedom of speech but people of colour, portrayed as "radical," are not entitled to their freedom of speech in calling out the vitriolic radicalism of White supremacy.
Note here the essential hypocrisy in the argument put forth by White supremacists.
While they cry hoarse about the freedom of speech of radical White supremacists to attack the right to dignity of communities of colour, people of colour lose this right because they have been portrayed as radical for speaking up against the violence of White supremacy.
What makes up the radical person of colour
So what kind of person of colour is labelled radical, and hence becomes the target of White supremacist attacks?
The person of colour that challenges the workings of White supremacy is the usual target of such attacks. The attacks usually take the form of unsubstantiated claims and whisper campaigns. In other instances, the attacks are propped up by right-wing media that deploy a wide range of strategies to reiterate the portrayal.
What is often common in these attacks is the absolute absence of evidence, the deployment of rhetorical fallacies, and the circulation of heuristics.
Your garden variety White supremacist will hide behind anonymous accounts to launch such attacks. Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts, websites created with anonymous identity form the strategic resources of White supremacist attacks. In most intances, these accounts can't be tracked. The unverified social media posts then are deployed toward running mainstream media campaigns and targeted attack strategies, placing pressures on organizations/institutions/administrators through invisible channels of influence. In the case of the attack on Professor Marc Lamont Hill, individuals serving as trustees played this site of opaque and improper influence.
The fiction of "reverse racism"
I have experienced such attacks in the form of being labeled "reverse racist" for calling out White privilege that permeates within institutional and organizational structures. In my writings on White privilege, I have demonstrated the ways in which White privilege erases ways of knowing, marginalizes people/communities of colour, and sets up prejudicial structures. In the backdrop of the movement, Communication Scholars for Transformation, that emerged in response to the racism in the discipline in the selection of its distinguished scholars, the labels of "hooligans," "deplorables," and "extremists" were the communicative tools deployed by a White supremacist structure to delegitimize and silence voices of scholars of colour who were speaking up in large numbers against the racism in the dicipline.
In another such instance, I was labeled "reverse racist" for calling out the racism of a faculty member who insists "there is no such thing as racism" and accosts CARE research team members working on developing anti-racist interventions in the backdrop of the Christchurch White supremacist terrorist attack with statements such as "there is no such thing as racism." That racism denial is a key instrument in the architecture of racism needs to be articulated and racism denial needs to be challenged vigorously.
Reverse racism is a fiction that is itself invented by White supremacists to attack activist and academic voices that document the racism of White supremacist structures. Moreover, the gibberish of "reverse racism" protects the pernicious politics of racists.
For the White supremacists, close interrogations of the prejudicial impacts of White privilege are labelled "reverse racist" because they threaten to expose and undo the very inequalities that form the normative structures of organizations/institutions.
Simply throwing that label of reverse racism enables the White supremacist to carry out the campaign of erasing voices of colour without having to offer evidence or engage with the arguments regarding White privilege. The fiction of "reverse racism" obfuscates the radical hate-politics of White supremacists that desire to hold up White structures as normative.
How then should communities of colour respond to White supremacy?
The vitriol of White supremacist attacks, equipped with dishonest and personal vilification strategies, often concocting fiction, translates into the usual response of silence from people of colour. Scholars of colour are all too familiar with the very personal costs of speaking up against White supremacy, ranging from loss of job to vile threats directed at family members, rape threats, and threats of murder. Because we have witnessed the toxic effects of White supremacist vilifications on our bodies and on our colleagues of colour, wanting to hold on to the bare minimum of lifeline in an already-hostile academe, scholars of colour mostly seek to remain invisible, unheard, un-recognized. Our mentors tell us, "Don't make too much noise. Or else, you will stick out."
However, having experienced multiple forms of attacks by White supremacists and having fought them succesfully, I have learned that silence is never an adequate response. Not in protecting ourselves. Not in protecting our students, collaborators, and colleagues. And certainly not in working toward creating just academic structures that start undoing the racist infrastructures of colonialism that constitute knowledge production.
In other words, too often, academics of colour chose to stay silent so as to not provoke attacks by White supremacists, both within and outside of institutions. I understand this. However, this is not an adequate strategy as it keeps White supremacy intact, giving White supremacists a sense of confidence in their vilification campaigns. Moreover, silence continues to keep in place the prejudicial practices that adversely impact organizational life.
As academics of colour, we must speak up at every instance we witness White supremacy at work. We must learn to make noise.
Practicing solidarity
More importantly, we must stand by other academics of colour when they are targets of attacks by White supremacists. Academic freedom must be vigorously defended across university campuses. George Ciccarielo-Maher urges us:
"To faculty: tenure is a crucial buffer against those who would use money to dictate the content of higher education. But in a neoliberal academy, such protections are far from absolute. We are all a single outrage campaign away from having no rights at all, as my case and many others make clear. The difference between tenure-track faculty and the untenured adjunct majority—which has far more to do with luck than merit—is a difference in degree not in kind.
Tenured faculty need to defend the rights of all faculty, at all levels, from attacks by the Right and white supremacists. Only then can we build campus solidarities that transcend such artificial boundaries among faculty—and beyond, to campus workers and students as well—solidarities that will be the last line of defense in what is today a losing battle for universities. We need to fight to defend our place in academia against assault from the racist Right, but we urgently need to realize that the struggle for academia is part of a far broader fight."
Campus solidarities form the bulwark of resistance to racist attempts at overhauling spaces of knowledge generation. It is in this spirit that I make it my point to lend solidarity to other academics of colour, whenever they are being attacked by White supremacists, be it in the instance of attacks on Steven Salaita or on Marc Lamont Hill. In each of these instances, speaking up and speaking out are the necessary acts of solidarity. Moreover, seeing the work of solidarity as critical to connecting struggles within academia to struggles within the wider society forms the basis of transformative politics that challenges the pernicious effects of racism, neocolonialism, and majoritarianism. In the US for instance, White supremacists emboldened by the racist Trump presidency must be challenged in every disursive platform where these supremacist claims are made.
When we hold White supremacists to account, including holding their racist strategies to account, they run for cover. Because White supremacists are liars and essentially meek in character (often hiding behind fake accounts to run trolling campaigns), exposing their dirty tricks sends them packing.
Furthermore, administrators and institutions, ensconced in White privilege, typically give into White supremacists under the racist narrative of culture wars. Framing the resistance to White supremacy on equal footing with White supremacy erases the history of colonialism anchored in White supremacy, and is itself racist. When we hold such administrators and institutions accountable for enabling White supremacists, these administrators and institutions start back-tracking. When our leaders in organizations/institutions do develop policies to counter White supremacy, they come under attack for standing up to White supremacy, targeted with the boogeyman of that White supremacist fiction, academic freedom. Here once again, it must be our principled position to stand up to the White supremacists and back our University administrators.
In summary, the support of White supremacists for free speech is a facade that forms the very basis of reproducing racist structures. As noted by George Ciccarielo-Maher:
"We are at war, and academia is a crucial front in that war. This is why the Right is targeting campuses with thinly veiled provocations disguised as free speech. My case and many others show just how cynical such appeals are, and how little the Right cares about academic freedom.
In the past year, the forces of resurgent white supremacy have tasted blood and are howling for more. Given the pressure they will continue to apply, university communities must form a common front against the most reprehensible forces in society and refuse to bow to their pressure, intimidation, and threats. Only then will universities stand any chance of survival."
These hate-mongerers only want the kind of free speech that keeps their White supremacy intact. They want the "freedom of speech" to spout hate, but not the freedom of speech that iterrogates this hate and its everyday habits of laying claim to the supremacy of Whiteness.
We must continue to out, dismantle and resist White supremacy including its charade of free speech if we are to truly imagine decolonizing spaces in the academe. We must remember that decolonization is a resistive struggle.
It doesn't come about by making nice.