In July 2019, when the Communication Studies discipline imploded, with the inner workings of the discipline rendered visible because of the decision of the leadership of the National Communication Association (NCA) to change how Distinguished Scholars of the discipline are selected and the subsequent backlash from the discipline's Distinguished Scholars, a number of us, scholars of colour, critically interrogated the racist ideology that forms the infrastructure of Communication Studies. I had responded with a series of blog posts, arguing that not only do scholars of colour have to excel many times over, but we also have to bear the pain of living through unequal structures. Much of our labour is erased, written off, denigrated. Our work is labeled as activist to delegitimize it. Our voices are framed as angry to undermine our concerns at the racism that inhabits the cellular structures of our disciplines, institutions, and organizations. When we speak out, we are targeted, labeled as uncivil.
At the same time in 2019, I had also posted a series of tweets about an ongoing conversation at our university about the English language proficiency of international students. The question of English language proficiency is often used as a racist trope to stigmatize the competence of international students, obscuring often the vast diversity of English language proficiencies demonstrated by international students. In a series of tweets, I had noted how the trope "international students can't communicate in English" or the trope "international students plagiarize" are inherently racist because they take an entire category of international students and undermine their competency with language. Moreover, such racist tropes fail to take into account systemic structural issues such as the support that institutions offer to international students when admitting them or the university's promotion to international students as a marketing stategy when the domestic market for students is drying up. To my argument that categorizing international students in broad stereotypical language is racist, the typical response of Whiteness was one of discounting. My tweets then set up a series of juxtapositions to depict the Pakeha student, filling in for the sort of categorically stereotypical labels made up about international students.
It appears now that both of these interventions made uncomfortable the prevailing structures of Whiteness.
Through an anonymous blogsite, the White infrastructures of hatred have turned me into a target. Capturing my tweets and posts, the blog argues that I have no business being Dean (I am actually not a Dean, but a Dean's Chair Professor) at Massey University.
Labeling me reverse racist, the blog observes:
"Racism is within an individual’s control. We wield the power to hurt one another. However, the power dynamics of race in today’s society seems to absolve some races from being labelled as racists. It also affects how “racist” comments from a supposedly minority person are absolved as fighting for their rights. Look at how he has become a reverse racist even on Twitter."
Oblivious to power and its workings, it performs the tried and tested communicative inversion, inverting materiality to symbolically prop up the opposite. I am reverse racist for calling out the racism in communication studies. I am also reverse racist for calling out the racism of statements categorizing international students with broad stigmatizing labels.
The post then goes on to call for me being held to account:
"If extremists like Mohan Jyoti Dutta do not want to engage in good faith without resorting to namecalling or threats, we cannot force them to. However, we should not blindly allow these people to indulge in their racism at the expense of others."
From calling me reverse racist, the blog goes on to label me extremist. This strategy of labeling persons of color that speak up and stand up to Whiteness as extremist is not new. In fact, we witnessed similar strategies being deployed by the White power structures of Communication Studies when being held to account. The anonymous writer of the blog blames me for not engaging in good faith without name calling or threats.
This call to civility, dialogue and engagement is ironically embedded within a blog post that is calling for me to not be allowed to express my views in my role. This too is a tried and tested technique of Whiteness that deploys freedom of speech on one hand to perpetuate racist speech, and on the other hand, labels people of color as extremist to deny their freedom of speech in calling out the racism.
The infrastructure of hate and targeting demonstrated in the blogsite is similar to attacks elsewhere launched by White supremacists on colleagues of color. These anonymous digital infrastructures of hate run their targeted campaigns by vilifying our voices at the margins that speak out against the deleterious effects of racism.
It is painful and emotionally difficult to read the communicative inversions that are strategically deployed through anonymous hate campaigns. The form of targeting here is irrational, and yet, in this irrationality, it is threatening. Note how the blog doesn't counter any of my arguments. If for instance, it wanted to demonstrate I was being racist for calling out the name-calling of international students as racist, it needed to offer warrants, backing, evidence to support the claim. Similarly, if it wanted to argue that I was being "reverse racist" (which itself is a fallacy as racism is intertwined with power, colonialism, and Whiteness), it needed to first make the case for reverse racism as a concept and then demonstrate which of my statements was reverse racist.
Knowing fully well the blog is irrational (as is much of White supremacy), I felt paralyzed for a while. Yet, it is this paralysis we must fight.
In every instance such as this, we must stand up and raise our voices so racism is disrupted.
Such anonymous blogs don't intimidate me. And they shouldn't intimidate us. For it is only in speaking up can we hope to make changes to the infrastructures of racism that comprise the colonial sites of knowledge production.