Abstract
This article focuses on racial discourses on political blogs during one of the first racial controversies of Obama’s presidency. I examined the interactional dynamics in the comment sections of posts from left and right blogs during the controversy. I found that the majority of participants on partisan blogs either racialized the controversy to promote a racial claim or deracialized the controversy to protect a racial claim from potentially threatening aspects of a controversy. I focus on the ambiguous challenges to racialization and deracialization that occurred in the course of internal debate over the specifics of the case and over nonracial claims. I argue that blog participants preserved racial frameworks by managing the ambiguity that arises from debates. This article contributes to the literature on racial discourse and political polarization by identifying processes that help explain how each “national conversation on race” maintains and perhaps expands the partisan divide on race.
Nearly two years after the election of America’s first black president, a reporter remarked that the historic event, “was supposed to usher in a post-racial era in America” (Mullen 2010). After Obama’s election, pundits from across the political spectrum employed the phrase “post-racial” to predict a society that would “move beyond” race.
Part of the promise of a postracial America, in the words of one reporter, is that “we just don’t have to talk about this stuff anymore” (Dvorak 2010). Since Obama’s election, we did, however, continue to talk about it. And many felt we needed to talk about “this stuff.” The necessity arises, in part, because racial ideas constitute the increasing ideological and partisan divides that animate American politics.
In recent years, partisans have become more polarized (Pew Research Center 2012), or put another way, the parties are better sorted (Abramowitz and Saunders 1998; 2008; Levendusky 2009). This is particularly true with regard to racial issues (Baldassarri and Gelman 2008; Edsall 2012; King and Smith 2008, 2011). For example, Michael Tesler and David O. Sears (2010:26) found that “party attachments have become increasingly polarized by both racial attitudes and race as a result of Obama’s rise to prominence within the Democratic Party.” Whether the focus is on a celebrity’s coarse commentary or a deadly shooting, the public debate reveals a society that is far from leaving behind its racial past (Coates 2012). The myriad of racial controversies have, if anything, contributed to the increasing polarization and further entrenched the partisan divide on race. In short, the so-called Age of Obama has not led to a postracial politics (Pasek et al. 2009; Pasek, Krosnick, and Thompson 2012).
In this article, I focus on the “Skip Gates” incident. The controversy began when Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested after an altercation with police at his home. Gates had forced his way into his home due to a stuck front door. A woman in an office across the street reported a possible break-in to the police. The police arrived and asked Gates for his ID. Gates felt the officer was accusatory in his request and, after presenting ID, asked the officer for his badge number. Gates then followed the officer outside and loudly (according to the officer) or not loudly (according to Gates) continued to complain about the treatment. The officer then arrested and handcuffed Gates for disorderly conduct. President Obama, who called Gates a friend, was asked about the incident and said that the police had “acted stupidly.” Obama also remarked on the extent of racial profiling in our society. This incident sparked accusations of racism against the police, Gates, and President Obama.
Americans’ divisions on race come into view during racial controversies. Quite simply, a controversy becomes a racial controversy when social actors employ competing racial frames to make sense of an incident. Much of the attempt to track our distance from a postracial dream surfaces during these ephemeral racial controversies.
Exploring how these controversies not only highlight but also recharge partisan racial divides is the focus of this study. To examine this phenomenon, I look at how blog commenters managed the ambiguity that emerged among themselves as they made sense of the controversy. I pay particular attention to reactions that comments elicited among other participants to move beyond a conventional content analysis that others have done via surveys, interviews, and more recently, analyses of blogs, and toward an understanding of how the interaction dynamics among partisans helps maintain the divide on race.
The contemporary partisan divide on race is often attributed to elite political actors (Lopez 2014). However, explicit racetalk is uncommon among elite actors. Instead, elite political actors often use implicit racial messages (Mendelberg 2001) or engage in dog-whistle politics (Lopez 2014) that play upon racial frameworks. Although implicit racial messages are important, someone (or some group of people) not only receives these messages but also manages and preserves racial frameworks. Private conversations seem a likely space where groups of individuals interpret elite messages and sustain the racial frameworks that give implicit messages their racial impact. Previous research has found that private (or backstage) interactions contain more explicit expressions of racial frameworks and indeed racetalk that would be taboo in public settings (Bush 2004; Eliasoph 1996). However, this research has not detailed how nonelites sustain the partisan alignment of racial frameworks.
My research looks at a space between the public areas of elite implicit racializations and the private conversations where more explicit racetalk takes place. Partisan blogs share the more explicit racetalk of private settings due to the semianonymity of their users. In addition, although partisan blogs are public spaces, they do not contain direct debate with political opponents as they primarily contain interactions among like-minded individuals who are more common to private settings. However, because these blogs are partisan spaces, participants share a political identity and a sense of political community not always present in private conversations. As such, I see partisan blogs as an ideal place to examine what people do to sustain the divides on race in contemporary America as well as the processes by which they sustain the partisan nature of those divides.
On the blogs I examined, partisans adhered to well-documented ideologies of colorblindness (CB) and color-consciousness (CC). Indeed, I found that a unique and largely unchallenged racial framework emerged on each side. However, although partisan blogs collect people who share similar political views, these spaces are not free of disagreement. Debate often dominates the comment sections of posts. My focus here moves beyond documenting the discourse in these spaces to examining how internal debate reinforces partisan racial frameworks. I argue that coherent racial frames, which constitute and perpetuate the partisan divide on race, are explained not simply by ideological rigidity on each side, but instead by the flexible strategies each side employed to manage ambiguity produced by internal debate.
Making Sense of Racial Controversies
The general validity of an interpretive framework rather than its application to a specific case animates most controversies. In other words, controversial news stories are often the sites of ideological battles that extend beyond the individual incident that created the news story. For example, Lynn S. Chancer (2005:8) finds that high-profile crimes become “provoking assaults” that merge case outcomes with social causes and “stimulate discussions of simultaneously general and particular issues.” The interplay between a single case and a larger social claim often defines a controversy. As controversies gain media coverage, social actors (e.g., moral entrepreneurs) invest considerable energy into the interpretation of the specific event. The controversy, then, becomes a stage upon which to battle over, what are often, frameworks aligned with the two major political parties.
Desmond S. King and Rogers M. Smith (2008) argue that the postcivil rights racial orders (one CB and one race conscious) split the vast majority of Republican and Democratic office holders. Today, those orders largely define the ideological and partisan divide in America (Edsall 2012). In short, those on the right tend to align with colorblind ideology, whereas those on the left tend to either oppose or express skepticism toward the idea.
A CB framework views race as a mere illusion, denies both white privilege and the role of past discrimination in creating contemporary inequality, and insists on formal fairness—that is, policy that is race-blind, hence the name colorblindness (Bonilla-Silva 2003; Brown et al. 2005; Gallagher 2003; Guinier and Torres 2002). Colorblind ideology while dominant exists amid alternative public discourses sometimes called color-conscious (Bonilla-Silva 2003:131–49; Bush 2004:157–60). A CC framework views race as socially real even if not biologically derived, acknowledges the existence of white privilege, and supports race-targeting to combat inequality and discrimination.
Besides their alignment with the two major political parties, such frameworks are also inherently divisive. Each framework provides a rationale for viewing the other framework as racist. For example, CB is a framework that interprets Affirmative Action programs and the CC framework that justifies race-targeting as racist. However, colorblind proponents’ denial of the existence of contemporary racism prompted Michael K. Brown et al. (2005) to recast the ideology as “racism blindness,” whereas Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and David Dietrich (2011) call the framework “colorblind racism.”
Political Debates and Racial Frames
Although as a political strategy racial framing is not always successful in an individual campaign (Mendelberg 2001), the cumulative effect of political messages can merge racial issues with economic and social issues. Eventually, implicit racial framing can prime individuals to use racial frames to evaluate “race-neutral” policies (Gilens 1999) or use race to interpret ambiguous information (Pager 2003). In other words, racial frames may shape one’s views without explicit instruction or even fully conscious deliberation. For example, Jon Hurwitz and Mark Peffley (2005) found that the inclusion of the phrase “inner-city” in a question about crime made racial liberals less punitive and racial conservatives more punitive. Hurwitz and Peffley note that, “framing not only creates a tighter linkage between the consideration and the policy attitude, but it also elevates the importance of the consideration as a decisional criterion” (Hurwitz and Peffley 2005:102). Racial framing can both link the issue to racial attitudes and increase the importance of racial attitudes (Hurwitz and Peffley 2005:109). To some extent racial “code-words” are no longer necessary as certain “racial scripts” can impact evaluations of policies not normally associated with race (Winter 2008).
Because so many issues carry racial meanings, much of our political discourse is, in some ways, racial discourse. However, for my purposes here, racial discourse refers to explicit talk about race that attempts to reinforce racial frameworks beyond a specific topic/controversy. Racial frameworks, although pervasive, are not automatic. For example, John E. Transue (2007) found that highlighting national identity reverses the idea that only one group benefits from a specific policy and thus reduces the effect of racial frames. How dog-whistles, implicit appeals, code-words, and racial scripts retain their potency depends on their ability to evoke racial frameworks, with in turn, requires that such frameworks are sustained among the public. To understand both how racial frameworks are sustained and how their partisan alignment is sustained, we need to explore the ways in which partisans perform the work necessary to sustain these frameworks.
Social Interaction
Research shows that we need to pay close attention to how different settings impact racial discourse. Racial discourses are not simply windows into racial ideology of individuals but products of interaction rituals (Goffman 1967) and group dynamics (Eliasoph 1996). A specific social context, like a blog, will dictate both how an issue or event is framed and the discursive opportunities and constraints individuals will encounter.
Considering the importance of race in American society, racial discourse is relatively rare. In general, Americans experience discomfort when the issue of racism arises or when inequality (Bell and Hartman 2007) or power (Zajicek 2002:167) comes up alongside race. Although individuals may have opinions about racial issues, they are often reluctant to express them for fear of offending others (Pollock 2005). Most Americans are reluctant to talk about race, especially when not among close family and friends.
Racetalk, therefore, is more common in private speech. Indeed, private speech often yields a discourse peppered with overt racism that is taboo in public settings (Bush 2004; Eliasoph 1996; Myers 2005). Here, Leslie Houts Picca and Joe R. Feagin (2007:22) found that “the majority of whites still participate in openly racist performances in the backstage arena.” Public speech, however, is not necessarily a more polite way of saying things, which would be said more bluntly in private speech. Americans are not simply private racists and public egalitarians. Instead, group dynamics affect the outcome of discourse. In some cases, a group may appear through its discourse to be more overtly racist than the individuals who make up the group (Eliasoph 1996). In other cases, those who would challenge or condemn racist speech are discouraged by the interaction rituals of a certain setting (Bush 2004; Eliasoph 1996). Conversely, those who would make overtly racist remarks are constrained by other social settings.
The glaring exception to public silence on the issue of race remains the media-fueled racial controversy. Racial controversies bring what Edsall and Edsall (1991) called “the subtext of American politics” to the foreground. During a racial controversy, those interested in promoting one racial framework over another are provided space to explicitly do so. Furthermore, the presence of a racial controversy means that even those who do not wish to discuss race will have to contend with racial frameworks. Finally, controversies always carry some degree of ambiguity regarding larger meanings. How partisans, immersed in this milieu and faced with ambiguity, preserve the racial divide is what I explore with my examination of the comment sections of partisan political blogs. This study, therefore, considers interaction on blogs as a form of joint labor (Steinberg 1999), which coproduces discourses and ultimately preserves a set of frameworks.
Political Blogs
A growing body of research has sought to understand the role of political blogs (Hargittai, Gallo, and Kane 2007; McKenna and Pole 2007; Serfaty 2011). Partisan political blogs have become important to candidates and the media environment. They have become sources of fundraising for their respective parties. They track political polls (even conducting their own) and provide up to the minute election coverage. These blogs also serve as means to disseminate campaign messages, provide politicians direct access to voters, allow citizens to track legislation, and build community around a political identity. In addition, political blogs are one place where the work necessary to sustain racial frameworks is performed.
Besides providing a space for democratic participation, partisan political blogs also epitomize much of the public and academic concerns regarding polarization. Many scholars and pundits have expressed concern about the effects partisanship online may have on the larger political discourse. The public and some academics argue that political blogs and particularly the comment sections on political blogs are unproductive spaces that increase political polarization (Grossman 2004; Warner 2010). Although, it is not clear whether partisan blogs cause polarization (Maratea 2008), it is true that, in general, liberals do not visit conservative blogs or vice versa (Lawrence, Sides, and Farrell 2010).
Still, there is no empirical support for the idea that commenters on partisan blogs are made up of extremists or a vocal minority that is distinct from the larger readership of these blogs or indeed the even larger group of politically engaged (even by the weakest of definitions) Americans. Indeed, there is research that pushes in the opposite direction. Although participants on political blogs are more partisan, more ideological, and more politically engaged than nonparticipants, a plurality of blog readers self-identify as moderates and only a small minority define themselves as very liberal or very conservative (Lawrence et al. 2010). In addition, some cross-ideological discussion is evident among bloggers (Hargittai et al. 2007).
Although there is no lack of extremist (and racist) vitriol on the Internet, partisan blogs rarely feature this kind of discourse. The ability of racists to harness both the organizing power of the Internet and to hide behind the anonymity of the Internet to voice views that modern social conventions have virtually eliminated from public space has provoked concern (Daniels 2009). Others have argued that the line between backstage or private settings and frontstage and public settings is somewhat blurred in online forums and, therefore, such spaces reveal more overt forms of racialized discourse (Steinfeldt et al. 2010). However, at the same time, researchers have found that dominant racial frameworks structure online discussion (Hughey 2012; Steinfeldt et al. 2010). These same researchers have also noted how certain virtual spaces can limit expressions of overt racism (Hughey 2012; Steinfeldt et al. 2010).
Although it is possible that active commenters, as opposed to passive readers, hold distinct views, a focus on commenters is warranted for two reasons. First, commenters are those who are actively shaping the debate and doing the work to shape the explicit racial frameworks for the larger community. Second, unlike a protest or even a letter to the editor, the barriers to participation are very low. In other words, in comparison with other forms of political participation there is much little difference in terms of opportunity to participate.
While barriers to participation are low, the blogs I examine are also not chaotic spaces lacking norms. The particular blogs I examine are moderated and, therefore, contain little of the kind of extremist vitriol that might be found on less monitored sites. These partisan blogs also contain few trolls because they require log-ins to comment, and posts rarely go viral (i.e., the comments sections did not contain a large number of people finding the post from another site). In addition, while partisan blogs exist in a space between public and private, participants voice awareness that they represent a partisan/ideological identity.
The Study
This study focuses on what gets produced in these spaces. Here, I pay special attention to the concessions/qualifications that those engaged in debate make. I argue that participants on partisan blogs work together to preserve those racial claims that constitute colorblind and color-conscious ideologies. They do so, partly, by managing the ambiguity of comments. I found strategies for managing this ambiguity involve racializing and deracializing the case to protect or promote a racial framework.
Methods
To select prominent political blogs, I sought out rankings for top political blogs. I used the Web sites wikio.com, technocrati.com, and ebizmba.com. I used multiple time points (from 2009 to 2011) to ensure that I did not pick a blog with little relevance that may have seen a daily or monthly spike. I then chose the highest rated political blogs that both identified with a specific party/ideology and were not connected to “mainstream media” (i.e., not MSNBC or Fox News blog). On the right, I choose the blogs hotair.com and redstate.org. On the left, I choose dailykos.com and crooksandliars.com.
I chose 5 posts from each of the four blogs for a total of 20 posts. I searched each blog using the key word Gates from July 23 to August 6, 2009. Although I began by picking the posts with the largest number of comments from each blog, I also wanted to ensure that I covered all the bases of a particular controversy. The selected posts focus on the key points of contention from the case—the justness of the arrest, the fairness and wisdom of Obama’s comments, and finally the larger claims about racism and specifically racial profiling implied by the arrest and Obama’s remarks. Twenty posts yielded 4,877 comments (2,525 on the left and 2,352 on the right) to review. I read all of the comments and focused on interactions that dealt with race. I did not examine comments as atomized opinions (akin to surveys answers or short interview bits) but instead situated those comments in their interactional context.
The context of an individual comment, for the commenter, is unknown. The possible context of a single comment is everything that preceded it in time and the post itself. It is highly unlikely that most commenters have read through the post, thought about it, read all the comments, and then offered their own. In addition, we do not know, looking at a comment in isolation, what criteria any individual commenter employed to label someone or something racist. I also do not know how much thought was put into this categorization, nor how strongly held the opinion was, or how temporary or long-standing this belief was for this participant. Unlike survey or interview research, participants did not respond to the same prompt.
While these limitations make it difficult to discern individual meaning from single comments, I am not interested in a single participant’s opinion. Instead, I seek to understand how a political blog maintains common discourses amid the cacophony of voices. Here, I am guided by research on CB/CC as I look for discursive expressions of these frameworks. Furthermore, I acknowledge the ways in which these partisan spaces condition discursive opportunities. Finally, as comments sections on blogs are collections of sometimes overlapping conversations, the data are comprised of interactions. As such, I examined comments as a multidirectional (e.g., directed at allies and opponents) and as a dialogic process of framing (Steinberg 1999).
I provide overviews of frequencies but I caution against reading too much into these numbers. For example, a post might only contain 10 percent of commenters who engage with race. This does not mean that race was unimportant to commenters. Instead, such comments sections often contained either little disagreement on race and/or disagreement on some other unrelated or off-topic point. Instead of comparing percentages from blog to blog or post to post, I note those arguments that are unique to either the right or left (or if they do appear on the other side, the commenter is marked as a troll). 1 I also note sentiments that were common on each blog—that is, it was repeated and approved of by others.
Here I present interactions that demonstrate the management of partisan racial frames during a controversy. The management of frames emerged in the face of ambiguity from other commenters. To be clear, ambiguous comments were not those where someone simply failed to take a position on race but rather comments whose meaning regarding support for or opposition to a racial frame was ambiguous. Ambiguous comments were not common, but the responses to these comments were common. I seek to highlight how these particular interactions were specific to each blog. As such, I present common reactions to ambiguous comments and highlight the uniqueness of these reactions for each blog.
Although controversies involve simultaneous discussions of the specifics of a case and larger issues, how a partisan group contends with claims will be my focus. During the controversy, these groups contended with evaluations of the individual case, a set of possible frameworks for interpreting the meaning of the case, and the case’s evidentiary value for a larger claim about race. The particular moments I highlight add the ambiguity of statements from one’s comrades.
The Gates Case
The guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house; there was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place . . . My understanding is, at that point, Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in. I’m sure there’s some exchange of words. But my understanding is—is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house, and at that point he gets arrested for disorderly conduct, charges which are later dropped. Now, I’ve—I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcing disproportionately. That’s just a fact. (President Barack Obama)
The above exchange came at the end of a press conference regarding President Obama’s health care initiatives on July 22, 2009. Obama’s comments sparked a lot of racetalk regarding the arrest itself and race relations in contemporary America (both offline and online). Those on the left blogs adhered to the idea that racism (e.g., racial profiling) is a problem requiring attention per a CC framework. And, in contrast to right participants, those on the left assumed that racism primarily, if not exclusively, negatively affects minority groups. Those on the right blogs denied the existence of significant racism but voiced conservative ideas of “reverse racism” and “the race card” per a CB framework. Within blogs there was little explicit argument about these broad racial frameworks.
Despite within blog consensus on race, as we see in Table 1, both sets of blogs featured disagreements on the case. Participants on both sides argued that the arrest was a violation of civil liberties and/or an abuse of police power. This view was in the minority on the right blogs. On hotair.com, the percentage of commenters who argued that the arrest was wrong ranged from 0 to 2.4 on the five posts. On redstate.org, the range was 0 percent to 10.3 percent. Although these numbers were small, such commenters often provoked and helped sustain debate that took up a substantial portion of the comments section. For example, the two largest comments sections (and the ones I focus on here) on the right were also those with the largest percentage of commenters with minority views. On the left, those who argued that the arrest was just were in the minority ranging from 2 percent to 6.2 percent on dailykos.com and 0 percent to 17.9 percent on crooksandliars.com. Again, the small percentages are deceptive because they do not measure the scale of the debate. In addition, although the disparity in views from right to left was expected, the overlap from right to left regarding the arrest pushes against the idea that partisan blogs are a nondeliberative space where rigid discursive scripts (or “talking points”) are repeated and amplified without challenge.
Ratio of Commenters Objecting to Dominant Position on Arrest and Total Number of Comments by Post.
Although virtually all debate began with arguments about who was wrong regarding the arrest, questions about race entered these debates. Participants racialized or deracialized the case in two distinct ways. On one hand, participants racialized the case to use it to promote a larger racial frame, what I call “promotive racialization.” This process was characterized by the majority of participants applying a racial frame to the case and resisting attempts to delink the case from the larger racial frame. In doing so, they ensured promotion of the racial frame and preserved the evidential value of the anecdote.
On the other hand, participants also deracialized the case to protect the larger racial claim from a possible implication of the case, what I call “protective deracialization.” This was characterized by a majority of participants avoiding using the anecdote to support a racial frame and/or agreeing to delink the single case from the larger racial frame. Indeed, those supporting the larger racial claim sometimes pushed to delink the case to protect the larger racial frame from a possibly disconfirming anecdote. In this way, the larger racial frame was protected and existed alongside the case rather than as an explanation for the case.
As I stated earlier, these strategies were prompted by debates over the specifics of the case or disagreements about the issue of civil liberties. These debates often contained comments that created ambiguity regarding whether or not everyone supported the racial frame. Participants challenged ambiguous comments and prompted concessions from those who made them. I argue that the above processes are key to understanding how participants preserved distinct racial frames while engaged in internal debates. In this context, “promotive racialization” and “protective deracialization” emerged as strategies for maintaining the partisan divide on race during the controversy. In this specific case, a promotive racialization was the dominant way in which those on the right managed ambiguity, whereas a strategy of protective deracialization dominated such management on the left.
The Right
Most on the right used the case as evidence of pervasive false claims of racial profiling/discrimination against blacks. In doing so, they applied a CB frame that minimized racism and cast accusations of racism as the key racial problem. Of course, such a discourse was not literally colorblind. This should not be surprising because, despite the name, CB is not an ideology that ignores race but instead one that makes a series of racial claims (see Bonilla-Silva 2003; Brown et al. 2005). Although commenters on the right blogs exhibited little sympathy for Gates, a few commenters invoked civil liberties to cast the arrest as wrong. A comment that argued the officer was wrong or linked the case to a civil liberties claim threatened to undermine the evidentiary value of the anecdote and thereby created ambiguity with regard to the racial frames that participants on right blogs were promoting via the case.
This process happened in the comments section of a redstate.org post titled, “Release the Crowley/Gates Tapes.” As we see in Table 2, only 3 out of 29 commenters argued that Gates did not deserve arrest. Out of the 26 commenters who argued the arrest was correct, most invoked race. Six of them wrote something like “I agree” as a title for their comment with no additional text. This leaves 20 participants, of which 15 mention race. Of the 13 participants who commented more than once, 10 mentioned race. All 3 commenters in the minority were accused of supporting an accusation of racism against the officer, though none of them said this. Debate with these 3 commenters consumed virtually the entire comment section as this debate began after the second comment. Below is an interaction that begins with 1 of the 3 commenters who criticized the arrest.
. . . Why should any citizen give more information than what is required? . . . Many police use intimidation and lie to coerce people into giving them information allowing them to searching their cars or property . . . (mom2oneson
2
) . . . The officer was responding to a breaking and entering call. That gives him the right . . . As to this being racial profiling—I am sick of hearing about this . . . (drquido) . . . I agree with you about being sick of racial profiling stuff. What is needed is education on how to treat people like citizens . . . (mom2oneson)
Redstate.org Post: “Release the Crowley/Gates Tapes.”
The reference of mom2oneson to a nonracial frame might be a move toward deracialization of the case. Still, she never mentioned race, and indeed no one in the comments section had yet done so. As a result, this framing did not preclude a complementary racial frame. However, it did create ambiguity. In other words, it was unclear to others if this comment was arguing against the claim that false accusations of racial profiling are pervasive and therefore rejecting the larger colorblind racial framework that minimizes racism. drquido interpreted this comment as possibly rebuking a CB framework by providing fuel for claims of antiblack racial profiling. drquido implied that mom2oneson had accused Crowley of racial profiling and said that he or she was “sick of hearing about this [racial profiling].” Although drquido disagreed with mom2oneson on the case, he or she also informed mom2oneson of the possible reading of his or her comment and prompted mom2oneson to clarify her potentially ambiguous statement by situating her comment within a CB frame.
Throughout the comments section, participants largely maintained a strategy of promotive racialization of the controversy (i.e., using the case to promote a racial frame) especially when faced with comments that argued the arrest was wrong. The majority pushed the three commenters who took a divergent stance on the case to acknowledge that Gates was racist against whites (i.e., reverse racism) and/or that racial profiling was not a serious problem. As the majority of participants linked the anecdote to the larger racial frame and used the anecdote to promote CB, disagreement on the case could undermine the value of the anecdote. Although this led to, sometimes fierce, debates over the case specifics and civil liberties, the racial framework was preserved as others confronted and worked with challengers to manage any ambiguity with regard to the racial frame.
Similar debates developed on hotair.com post, “How Not to Win the Support of Police Unions . . .” (Table 3) This comment section was, by far, the largest on the right. Of the 254 commenters, 48.8 percent of them brought up race. Although only 6 commenters argued against the arrest, the ensuing debates consumed 47.1 percent of the 915 comments. Despite the prominence of race in the comments section, each of those who argued the arrest was wrong did not initially mention race. Instead, each made a point about civil liberties or a negative statement about the police. The first comment here referenced others who had criticized the police. Here the commenter again linked the case to a larger civil liberties framework.
I’m glad to see . . . commenters . . . don’t simply give a knee-jerk “don’t question cops” reaction. . . . Crowley did arrest Gates because Gates hurt his feelings. . . . (Ahh a Lion) Glad to see you’ve got the knee jerk “cops are racist pigs” comment going. (Esthier) It’s pretty obvious the only racist in this situation was Gates . . . questioning the cop’s motivations and actions is . . . an important part of maintaining a society based on liberty. (Ahh a Lion)
hotair.com Post: “How Not to Win the Support of Police Unions . . .”
Again, Ahh a Lion did not mention race in the initial comment. Ahh a Lion used a reading of the case to promote a nonracial frame about civil liberties. Such a frame involved disagreeing on the specifics of the case that others had employed to promote a racial frame (i.e., minimizing racism by using the case as an illustration of false accusations of racism). In doing so, Ahh a Lion potentially undermined promotive racialization of the controversy and created ambiguity with regard to the racial frame.
The response from Esthier used an accusatory interpretation of Ahh a Lion’s comment. Esthier accused Ahh a Lion of saying that the police are racists. The use of an accusatory interpretation was often employed to force a concession. Ahh a Lion took a slightly different tact than mom2oneson, by confirming the racial framework as useful for understanding the case rather than explicitly agreeing to the general claim about racial profiling. Ahh a Lion conceded that Gates was “the only racist” in this specific case, before reiterating his or her general civil liberties frame. Gates’s racism (now uncontested in this interaction) could still be employed to promote a racial frame that minimizes racism.
All of those who made civil liberties claims, or argued about the case specifics in a way that interfered with the promotive racialization of the case, made concessions. In other words, those who created ambiguity were asked by others to solve it. Commenters were unable to assert civil liberty frames that undermined the value of the anecdote without addressing the larger racial framework and, as above, preserving the link between the case and the larger frame—here by agreeing that Gates was a racist and thereby implicitly minimizing racism against blacks.
Not everyone who argued against the arrest asserted a civil liberties framework. Below is an example of a counter claim that remains at the level of the case rather than a larger civil liberties framework. Here a commenter argued that Crowley was wrong to arrest Gates. Subsequent commenters implored this commenter to address Gates’s racial claims. I argue that this was an attempt to gain acknowledgment of the evidence for a colorblind racial framework.
Can anyone explain how it was wise for Crowley to arrest Gates rather than just go on his way? Surely we can all agree that everybody would be better off if Crowley had let it slide off his back and went off to do some real police business. (orange) As soon as you explain how it was wise for Gates to scream racist at the police who came to protect his home from a potential break-in. (Scrappy) Huh? What’s the logic there? If Gates does something unwise, that gives the police free reign to be as unwise as they want? Bad idea. (orange)
Here “orange” delinked the racial accusation from the other specifics of the case. orange did not acknowledge the use value of the anecdote, and the potentially ambiguous, with regard to the larger racial frame, meaning of her or his comment. However, orange conceded that Gates was wrong, which confirmed a false accusation of racism in the case. Others responded to ensure that the frame was confirmed.
As noted, some, like orange, questioned the specifics of the case, while others, like rokemronnie (below), made general claims. While the focus of these two commenters was distinct (as well as their tone), the possible racial implications of their positions allowed others to group them together. While there were only a handful of “trolls” on all of the posts I examined, some sought to cast those who contested the promotive racialization of the controversy as outside the bounds of acceptable discourse. One commenter, for example, called rokemronnie and orange racists and others charged them with supporting leftist ideas. Both responded to this by denying that they had suggested anything racial about the case. Here, faraway accused those who said that the arrest was unjust of making false accusations of racism.
Proven: racists see racism behind every rock. Gates, orange, Ronnie. (faraway) Where have I said that racism was involved in this situation? (orange) . . . you’re a libelous idiot. I haven’t said a word about race, other than to say that I didn’t think the cop was acting on race and that Gates was wrong to so quickly deal the race card. See, now you’re acting exactly in a manner that you say was wrong for Gates, you’re falsely accusing someone of racism. (rokemronnie)
Again these two commenters, rokemronnie and orange, both denied supporting Gates’s claim of racism by confirming it as “falsely accusing someone of racism.” They both somewhat confirmed the blog’s racial analysis of the specific case and agreed that Gates was wrong to make false accusations of racism, and they further denied any association with a CC racial framework, which acknowledges rather than dismisses racism.
A series of arguments created ambiguity in the context of promotive racialization of a controversy. Whether a commenter employed a general civil liberties frame, disputed the majority reading of the case, or threatened the link to a larger racial frame, all of these kinds of comments created ambiguity and prompted others to challenge these comments. Those challenges created a discourse that ultimately confirmed a distinctly conservative racial frame and removed obstacles to a promotive racialization of the case.
The Left
On the left, the majority argued that the arrest was wrong. Those arguing that the arrest was wrong often moved the discussion from racial profiling to civil liberties and deracialized the incident. For the minority of commenters who argued that the arrest was just, part of their evidence was the assertion that Gates’s racial analysis was wrong. Few on the left defended Gates racial analysis, although some did grant him the license to misperceive the situation. Most, however, when challenged on the accuracy of Gates’s racial accusation dismissed the racial angle and moved to debating civil liberties. The dynamics, at first, seem very similar to those on the right and perhaps in line with CB. However, as I pointed out earlier, CB is not the absence of racial analysis. In contrast to CB, those on the left acknowledged institutional racism and, in contrast to those on the right, did so while downplaying the role of race in this specific case.
On the left, a protective deracialization was the dominant means of dealing with ambiguous comments. In other words, many protected a racial frame from the case rather than promoted a racial frame via the case. Here I show interactions that stemmed from commenters challenging the majority opinion on the case. In each of these interactions, the initial commenter created some ambiguity with regard to their support for the larger racial frame As such, others worked to manage this ambiguity to preserve the racial frame via a protective deracialization of the case.
A post from crooksandliars.com titled, “Actual Facts About the Henry Louis Gates Case,” which contained 243 comments from 84 commenters, had substantial discussion of the arrest. As we see in Table 4, only a minority of commenters went against the dominant position and argued that the officer was right to arrest Gates. The majority who argued that the arrest was wrong deracialized rather than racialize the incident. Twelve commenters who argued that arrest was wrong mentioned race. Out of those, 9 deracialized the incident and 2 engaged in protective deracialization. Still, when faced with a commenter who threatened to undermine a CC framework, participants on the left were not willing to abandon the larger racial frame. Even if they delinked the specific case from CC frames (i.e., that blacks face disproportionate police misconduct), participants worked to protect a CC framework that acknowledged a context of racism involving minority interactions with police. In other words, none of the deracializations were employed to support CB. Instead, many of them were decidedly in favor of CC and were protecting that frame from the case whenever it got brought up.
crooksandliars.com: “Actual Facts About the Henry Louis Gates Case.”
No one on the left called Gates or those who criticized the police racist. However, saying that Officer Crowley (the arresting officer) was wrong could mean, potentially, that the officer was a racist, and saying that the officer was wrong could mean that Gates was right about racial bias. But such case-specific claims were ambiguous both regarding the framing of the case itself and the support for the larger racial frames employed for understanding the context of the case. In the first interaction here, a commenter began with a case-specific comment that went against the majority.
The officer did not arrest him simply because he was upset, the officer arrested him for violation of a law . . . (Timjoebillybob) This case sure smokes out the Authoritarians . . . (bad_robbie) . . . Screaming at a cop and calling him a racist is a pretty good way for them to . . . charge you with anything . . . (Timjoebillybob) . . . I don’t think any party is yelling racist . . . This is now about the boundaries of the law and a man’s castle, that’s all . . . (Ape-Man) Gates is . . . (Timjoebillybob)
Arguing the arrest was just, Timjoebillybob stuck with the case itself rather than larger claims about race. In other words, he or she did not employ the case to promote a CB frame. bad_robbie challenged Timjoebillybob by invoking a larger civil liberties frame rather than asserting a promotive racialization of the case as we saw on the right. Timjoebillybob then brought up race by implying that Gates made false charges of racism. At this point, the interaction is somewhat similar to what takes place on the right. However, although individual comments appeared similar across blogs, the interactions were distinct because they preserved distinct racial frames, and in this case, used distinct processes to preserve those distinct racial frames. So, instead of a confirmation of the right’s racial framework, Ape-Man deracialized the case. While timjoebillybob still disagreed, he or she did not invoke a CB framework that would refute a liberal stance on racial profiling. Instead, of saying that he or she was sick of hearing about racial profiling, he or she stuck with an evaluation of the individual case (i.e., that race was not a suitable framework for this particular case).
Another conversation from this post cautioned against siding too quickly with Gates and argued against the accusation of racist cops—an accusation that no one on the blog had yet made. Here we see a preemptive deracialization.
I think everyone here needs to read the reports . . . before passing such critical judgments . . . too many potential witnesses to . . . rant and rave about racist cops (sugarbiscuit) . . . [the officer] could have defused this . . . And, I do believe Crowley when he says he isn’t a racist. I think this was less about racism on Crowley’s part than it was about teaching this professor a little respect. (TreadingWater)
While sugarbiscuit’s comment would not be out of place on the right, here the commenters focused on the applicability of racism to the individual incident. While TreadingWater seemed to believe that the racial accusation against the officer was wrong or at least unproven, the commenters above stuck to the specifics of the case, and together while arguing about the case dismissed the racial claims concerning the case itself. For many on the left, this single case had little value as an anecdote to promote a CC racial framework. However, a CC framework was not absent nor was it replaced with a CB framework. Instead a CC framework often appeared alongside the analysis of the case. So while there is simultaneous discussion of the single case and larger racial issues, the anecdote was sometimes delinked from a CC framework.
The interaction below demonstrates this phenomenon. Here sugarbiscuit continued to debate the specifics of the case with several other commenters. This person again invoked race before anyone else did.
. . . again, I’m a defense attorney. I spend every day trying to beat cops. But running around screaming that all cops are lying fascist racists isn’t going to win my clients anything . . . (sugarbiscuit) . . . Fair enough. But my . . . beef is not with racism. It’s about how cops can pretty much use their discretion when arresting . . . (debaser71) . . . I agree with you wholeheartedly . . . but . . . how many criminal defendants get a platform to talk about the unfairness of their arrest? . . . Particularly Black criminal defendants? (sugarbiscuit)
After talking about rights and the victories of the Warren court, sugarbiscuit called Gates’ behavior imprudent. But this person acknowledged rather than dismiss a CC framework by pointing to racial bias in the criminal justice system. Again there was a deracialization of the incident but not a denial of the larger social problem. sugarbiscuit and debaser71 worked to protect a CC frame by disassociating it from the potentially threatening anecdote. In other words, sugarbiscuit acknowledged that it was still a valid framework for understanding police interactions with blacks.
As noted earlier, race was less prominent on the left blogs. Most commenters did not firmly take a stance with regard to the role of race in the particular situation. The dailykos.com post, “Cambridge Police Union: Put Prof. Gates on Trial,” garnered 495 comments from 185 commenters (Table 5). The comments section featured a good deal of argument about the facts of the case, which facts were relevant, and the plausibility of different scenarios. Only 30.8 percent of commenters on this post mentioned race, whereas only 13 percent marked the case itself as racial. Although race was not always the dominant topic of discussion, underlying these disagreements were deeper points about race and racism.
dailykos.com: “Cambridge Police Union: Put Prof. Gates on Trial.”
The following thread began when someone brought up the presence of a black officer who agreed with the arrest. The commenter did not explain what he or she thought that meant. As such, others were left to address the meaning. Faced with a potentially disconfirming anecdote, 4 out of 10 of those who responded to this comment deracialized the incident and 3 of them worked to simultaneously protect a CC framework, whereas only 1 commenter racialized the case.
Here’s something to chew on . . . CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—A black police officer who was at Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s home when the black Harvard scholar was arrested says he fully supports how his white fellow officer handled the situation. (C Barr) I’m willing to stop making this a race thing and start making it a police in this country are freaking gestapo thing. (Hunter Huxley) Good, ’cause that’s what it is. No question that black and brown people get the gestapo treatment more often than white people do, but the point is that nobody should get that treatment. Nobody. (sierrak9s)
The next comment is a response to the original comment about the black officer. The one below that is a response to that comment.
It doesn’t matter. This wasn’t a racial thing. This is an out of control cop thing. (Skex) That happens to people of color 1,000 times the rate it happens to white folk. Yep, not a racial thing. Not at all. Nothing to see here, move on. (samddoermann)
Faced with the implication that the incident was not racial, Hunter Huxley agreed to deracialize the incident and presumably protect a CC framework from a possibly threatening anecdote. The interaction, however, did not end there, as sierrak9s recognized the possible reading of this interaction as a colorblind dismissal of racism. As such, sierrak9s noted the discriminatory treatment that “blacks and brown people” face. Here, the racial frame exists alongside the case, whereas the civil liberties frame was reasserted. Later in the thread, when Skex deracialized the controversy, another commenter seized on the omission of the larger racial context to mock the deracialization by sarcastically remarking, “Yep, not a racial thing. Not at all. Nothing to see here, move on.” Here we see pushback against deracialization and the limits of the strategy. Samdobermann responded to a commenter who, unlike the others, did not accompany his or her deracialization with an acknowledgment of a CC racial framework that views racial profiling as a serious social problem.
At times, more developed ideas about race grew out of deracializations of the incident. Here the first commenter criticized racial accusations directed at the incident. All of the subsequent commenters (5) on this thread offered clarifications invoking the larger racial context. In other words, they moved to protect a CC framework.
This is about civil liberties NOT racism. Criticize the cop for abusing his power, for wrongful arrest based on a misuse of a law, for not respecting Gates’ rights in his own home. Fine. But to say “the cop must be racist cus Gates is Black” just makes you look ridiculous. (brizzlefoshizzle) Yep. I mean, there is always a possibility that race is an issue, because racial profiling is a well-known problem . . . Racism could be involved, but it isn’t right to assume that it is unless there is evidence. . . . (Frank) Racism is difficult if not entirely impossible to discuss in public discourse in this country because racism has been defined (by racists) as nothing more than simple bigotry. This particular case may or may not be an example of bigotry but it is certainly an example of racism—the kind of systemic racism that made it more likely, by a measurable percentage, that Professor Gates would be subject to this kind of arrest and treatment than a white man in a similar circumstance. Racism is a complex structure that operates at social levels far deeper and more pernicious than simple bigotry and when it’s defined away as nothing more than hatred for folk with “dark” skin colors than we are made blind to its operation and very real effects. (Pd)
Here, Frank agreed that the case may not be about racism but made sure to say that racism could be involved because “racial profiling is a well-known problem.” Such a caveat was never present on the right. Here, the potentially ambiguous meaning of deracialization was managed by the two subsequent commenters. The last comment here allowed for a deracialization of the case but elaborated on the importance of larger issues (and presents one of the most sociological takes on the incident I found).
Some of the comments on the left regarding the case were not wholly different from the discourse on the right. We could pull perspectives from particular comments and find shared views across the partisan divide. As I mentioned at the start of this section, there were some on the right who argued the arrest was wrong and there were some on the left who supported the arrest. However, the orientation toward racial frameworks made the context and ultimate meaning of these comments distinct. Although a poll might find overlap between Democrats and Republicans on a racial controversy, an examination of the interaction between active partisans, like these commenters, reveals much of that overlap to be illusory—especially regarding race. The two sides worked to ensure that virtually no overlap existed on larger racial frameworks.
Conclusion
Researchers have detailed the distinct racial perspectives that divide Americans. Studies also note that such perspectives do not neatly line up with right and left. Presumably, some of those on the right, especially those who were in the minority regarding the arrest, possessed more liberal views on race than their compatriots. Similarly, it is likely that those on the left who argued that the arrest was just held more conservative views on race than the majority of left participants. Although different views on key racial claims would likely emerge within groups in an interview setting, that research method while more probing of individual attitudes does not explain how racial frameworks are sustained within social interactions.
What I have examined here is how one form of political talk actually takes place. Partisan politics is an interactive group project. As such, an examination of group dynamics is essential to understanding the colorblind/color-conscious divides on race that fuel periodic racial controversies and ultimately stagnate discussions on race. Other spaces where like-minded individuals discuss and debate controversial events may contain similar processes occurring for a wide range of issues. Whether or not the same kind of processes are as likely when dealing with other issues, like sexism, or in offline spaces will require further research.
I also found that a case involving an accusation of racial profiling is not automatically one in which each side will attempt to employ the case as anecdotal evidence for their racial claims. Although in this case, one side engaged in what I call “promotive racialization” of the case, whereas the other side engaged in “protective deracialization,” I do not mean to imply that one tactic belongs to the right and one belongs to the left. I believe that had the case been different, we might have seen a reversal of these or perhaps both sides engaging in promotive racialization. The potential of each side to harness a case to promote a racial claim likely leads to the intensity and length of racial controversies. In other words, the frequency and intensity of racialization will likely vary from case to case and within those cases from right to left.
This particular combination, however, should be especially troubling. Racial frameworks are important because they not only explain single cases but because they condition individuals to interpret events by, say, a CB standard that evaluates racism by standards of formal fairness versus a CC standard that takes into consideration existing inequality. Sociologists, almost universally, consider CB inaccurate, misleading, and unsupported by empirical data (Brown et al. 2005). To be blunt, the racial frameworks employed by the American right are wrong. A CC framework, although not always accurately expressed by those on the left, offers a far more accurate depiction of our social reality. To the extent that racial controversies involve the promotion of CB and the removal of CC, debate may push real issues of racism, like white privilege and institutional racism, to the periphery of the national discussion. 3
After a racial controversy, pundits and politicians often call for a “national conversation on race,” often failing to realize that we just had one. I think what they mean is that they desire a more satisfying one—or one that changes something, anything, about race in America. Americans have witnessed and will likely continue to witness a media spectacle every few months and then be engulfed in a collective disappointment over the lack of change.
The stagnation is not, in my view, the result of ideological rigidity or the monopolization of the conversation by extremists. Instead, the partisan divide on race owes its resiliency to the flexible discursive strategies described here. Strategies of protective deracialization and promotive racialization, which manage ambiguity, are flexible enough to absorb the impact of those controversies, which we might be tempted to think, should, by virtue of the attention they garner, change something.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
Author Biography
References
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