In a country as racialized as the United States, it is important to analyze how race intersects with politics. Politicians can impact public opinion and voters can eventually shape political talking points. Discussing race and racism in politics can be a conversation starter or a conversation killer. Understanding how to do the former is crucial as a first step to unpack racism in politics and greater society.

In today’s class, we specifically drew from three chapters in Ian Haney López’s “Dog Whistle Politics”. López wrote about how politicians get away with racism, how commonsense racism came to be and what stakeholders can do moving forward.

We began the class by understanding the brief history of race in politics, and how the G.O.P. and the Democratic Party used to have beliefs and voter bases that are polar opposites of their current statuses. (Historical context is often an important frame for discussion.) Then, we looked at cases of dog whistle politics in recent U.S. and global events.

We considered how the 2018 Florida gubernatorial election paralleled the “racial jiujitsu” mentioned in the readings. There were also the smear campaigns directed at President Obama during his terms involving birtherism, vacation days and food stamps, which drew from stereotypes of “the lazy black man”, and the racialization of Islamophobia and xenophobia. I also introduced cases of racial politics in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia for a broader global context of the same issue.

This class’ discussion tied back to previously introduced sociological concepts such as Bonilla-Silva’s colorblind ideology and colorblind racism and DiAngelo’s idea of white fragility. Colorblind ideology is often employed by politicians who claim not to see race and that it doesn’t matter. This belief makes it easier for politicians to appeal to white voters, brush off acts of racism they get called out for and support policies that are not race-conscious.

The class responded to all these issues the same way I did, with outrage, confusion, and general shock. The “I’m A Racist” ad and the “Willie Horton” ad sparked much discussion; we couldn’t believe how blatant and tone-deaf both were. The first was a representation of white victimization and white fragility in the media, and parallels the reading’s strategy for how politicians get away with racism: they make being called a racist a personal attack, act as victims and claim past support for nonwhite figures to justify how they could not possibly be racist. The second ad does a good job of showing how blatantly racist political advertising was a few decades ago, displaying how stereotypes of the Iconic Ghetto are mapped and pinned to black bodies and exploited for a white man’s political gain.

There were several lingering cases and questions we didn’t have a chance to examine as a class. We wanted to touch on the congressional race in the 19th district of New York, analyze the William Horton ad in greater depth, and debate whether each of us agreed with the appointment of nonwhite figures such as Clarence Thomas to positions of power, and the costs and benefits of such appointments.

We can further use the strategies that López talked about in the reading to scrutinize how race plays a part in the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential elections. Are there nonwhite figures that have a lot of support from white voters but lack support from people of color? Are there politicians who are race-baiting, race pandering or employing dog whistle politics? Are politicians’ racist acts subtle, following recent trends, or are they loud and blatant? And are voters reacting in line with how López suggested they would? These are all questions we can ask ourselves as the elections play out to see how much has changed since the time of Clint Bolick.

For 18^th November’s discussion, Katie and I led a discussion on the first three chapters of “Algorithms of Oppression” by Safiya Umoja Noble. As a class, we discussed the ways in which we individually interact with Google and the Internet and how it shaped (or did not shape) our upbringing. We shared about how Google has changed racist or sexist search results over the years since the book first started collecting data and saw how algorithms warped our ideas of both race and gender. We delved into the topics of censorship, corporate interests and finding agency and familiarity within technology (in the creation of safe spaces on the Internet).

We linked Noble’s book to several theories and past readings: Google and Silicon Valley are seen as white spaces, per Anderson’s theory, where people of color (or even people that are not men) are systematically being denied access or treated as outsiders when they are there. Linking to our previous discussions around DiAngelo’s White Fragility, we discussed who the onus should fall on for representation in algorithms: the dominant group already present in the industry or the marginalized people of color, through programs such as Black Girls Code. Noble also brought up the idea of Omi and Winant’s theory on racial formation on page 79, but we did not discuss much about that.

As a class, we were introduced to new concepts to further our understanding of capitalism vis-a-vis our discussion on Google and algorithms. We learned about the idea of soft power and hard power and Max Weber’s iron cage of rationality. Weber’s idea of the iron cage becomes relevant to analyze technology’s place in our lives as it grows in dominance. Are we okay with giving up our privacy and data and conforming to using racist and sexist software if it’s the most convenient? Is it even possible to avoid using Google and all its algorithms?

I was surprised to learn how many people still used Google as their main search engine, expecting that there would be more push back since more people across the globe are beginning to understand its more nefarious, profit-driven intentions. Upon reflection with Prof. Greene I also understood how connected I still was to Google, through Gmail, Google Docs, Google Slides, Duo and the use of my Gmail account to link to accounts on other websites. Even if I wasn’t using the main search engine, I was still stuck in the iron cage that is Google’s services.

We also analyzed how soft and hard power could explain whether Google was a form of American or Western imperialism. Noble raised a point about how Google is seen as an international product but is predicated on U.S.-based norms, which several classmates refuted, or attributed to more ‘Western’ ideals rather than American ideals.

I found this particularly interesting. As someone who grew up outside of the United States, I knew Google was from the U.S., but I never doubted its knowledge of regional contexts given that it had special extensions like .sg for Google Singapore, or .uk for Britain. I couldn’t see how something like Google – which to me, was more like a sandbox – could impose any norms on its users. It’s still difficult for me to see it in my own life at this point, but now I have a new lens to view it with as I go about my further interactions with Google.

When I presented the article about using your forearm as a ‘pass’ to get into the Black People Twitter, I was surprised at the responses from the class and how many people thought it was unacceptable. I disagree and think that people are entitled to safe spaces, even digitally, especially people who have been denied and degraded for so long in these same spaces. I don’t think using your forearm is the best way to go about it, for efficiency’s sake, but I understand the intention behind it.

Technological redlining and algorithmic oppression as terms to frame the discussion were things that could have been discussed more. Noble also brought up suggestions of legal protections and education that we could have touched on, with more general deliberation on what we can do to counter this technological iron cage.

Abby raised an interesting question about which advertisers pay Google the most. I wasn’t able to find any information for recent years, but a chart revealed that Amazon was the top spender in 2013, followed by Priceline, AT&T, and Expedia. (Source) More recent data from 2018 shows the industries that spend the most on Google advertising, which are retail, automotive and telecom. These are some interesting things to consider about how capitalism and technology have become so deeply intertwined.