Online discourse in the post‐ “new racism” era?: Toward a theory of colorblind nationalism

Abstract

AbstractThe literature on styles of racetalk, the way we talk about race in racist social structures, suggests that racial discourse is either covertly or overtly racist, with covert racism being dominant in the offline world and overt racism remaining dominant online. In this study I ask: is there a style of racetalk found in online discourse that does not fit within the covert/overt binary of racetalk that is present in the current literature. To address this research question, I draw on data from three social media platforms, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter, and examine two racialized popular discourses, the cancellation of Aunt Jemima and the debates over Critical Race Theory. I find that among conservative social media users, but not liberals, neither overt nor covert styles of racetalk, describe the character of the racial discourse in my data. Instead, I find a distinct style of racetalk with three characteristics: (1) Conservative social media users draw politicized boundaries which frame Black people as part of their ingroup and leftists as an outgroup, (2) The members of the political ingroup, white conservatives and Black people, share a common threat from the political outgroup, and (3) The political ingroup should represent a multiracial political coalition who supports conservative politicians and causes. I introduce Colorblind Nationalism as a theory of politicized racetalk which situates these findings within our current socio‐political context and creates avenues for future research.