Design Project Paper

I would like to dismantle institutional racism. But that’s a little much for a 4 to 7 page paper, so let me try to focus on a single instance of institutional racism that might be a good target for digital activism. Racism is alive and well here at UW Madison. We’ve seen how active it is from the experiences students of color are sharing via the hashtag #theRealUW. We can also see plainly the results of UW Madison’s institutional racism in the demographics of the student body. The 2014 US Census found that Wisconsin, a whiter than average state, is 6.6% African American, and 6.5% Hispanic or Latino. According to the office of the Registrar, in the Fall 2013-2014 semester, UW Madison was only 2.7% African American and 4% Hispanic American. If there were no institutional racism at the university, we would expect students of all demographic groups to have an equal shot at attending, and so we would expect that the figures for each group to at least roughly match those of the US Census for the state (better yet, the numbers would be higher than the state’s demographics, as UW schools draw students from around the country). But the present numbers for African American and Hispanic students indicate the presence of an institutionalized bias against such students. As a part of a larger effort to dismantle institutional racism, then, let’s work against that bias and see if we can get the university to enroll greater numbers of African American and Hispanic students, numbers at least roughly equal to the demographics of the state.

Seems reasonable, right? So how do we get it done?

First of all, let’s be clear that we cannot expect this to be an easy process. I want to assume the best about our university administrators. I want to assume that they are well-intentioned (mostly white) people who would like to see greater diversity at UW Madison but are unsure of how to proceed. Perhaps they all feel that they have no power over the situation, each thinking that someone else must act first before they can make any meaningful contribution. Perhaps admissions officers would say that they want to admit a more diverse student body but don’t have enough qualified candidates, a statement that ignores the admissions office’s role in perpetuating institutional racism while pushing blame for the problem onto other institutions, like state high schools. Or perhaps they would respond as Chancellor Blank has, by suggesting the solution the UW’s racism is to host yet another “information sharing” session, rather than to take any direct action to change university policy. In any case, a bureaucracy full of (mostly) well-meaning white people is the very definition of institutional racism, and so we cannot expect change to come easy. In order to see real change, we will have to apply pressure on UW Madison in the form of some kind of social action. But what is the best strategy for applying that pressure?

If we follow Stewart, Smith, and Denton’s approach, we will need to form a social movement. To accomplish this, we will need to rabble rouse for a while until an inspirational leader comes along and is able to act as moderator between protesters and the institution. Because this will likely be a long struggle, that leader will also help us form a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to accomplish greater diversity at UW Madison. That organization may eventually either fade out of relevance or become co opted by UW Madison, but in the meantime it will serve the purpose of organizing rallies, protests, and meetings with government officials, legislators, and UW administrators--all with the purpose of raising awareness about racial disparity in the student population here.

This approach has its benefits: it communicates well with UW Madison administration and can accomplish deals and compromises. It also is able to leverage news media and other resources to place pressure on the administration if those deals and compromises don’t pan out. And it is well designed to survive the long battle that will be required in order to make real changes in the admissions policies of the university.

In this instance, however, the social movement approach is not well matched to the goals of protest. What we are after here is a relatively small change. We want roughly 1,500 more African American and 1,000 Latinx students added to the UW Madison student body. While this is a change I expect administration to resist, it is not a change I expect too many people to rally behind. Few white students will see this as an issue to get excited about, and many students of color will see this goal as a too-small part of a much larger problem. While they may like to see this change take place, they will likely have other priorities. And so, without widespread support, we may never be able to get the numbers together to form a social movement. The demographics here are self-sustaining. Without more diverse students, we don’t have enough bodies to advocate for more a more diverse student body.

But we might be able to drum up interest and attention in this issue using some of the activities David Graeber describes. Perhaps a direct action campaign would put this issue in the minds of students and administrators and would then create a base of support for a social movement like the ones described by Stewart, Smith, and Denton. A small group of committed protesters could stage lock-downs and street festivals, for example. Street festivals in particular might be a good tactic here, as I can see many students who would not otherwise be interested in politics signing up to party for social justice. Stewart, Smith, and Denton would describe such work as the nascent phase of a social movement, but for Graeber, such actions have their own value. They form the identities of the protesters, which might be a good goal in this case. Radicalizing otherwise apolitical college students adds bodies to the cause.

As effective as the street party may be in drawing white bodies to support greater campus diversity, Graeber’s direct action methods do have some obvious limits here. In particular, these methods tend to be those used by groups of predominantly white activists, activists who feel more comfortable directly resisting police than protestors of color might. White activists risk less in taking direct action. Further, any large-scale protest of UW Madison students is by default going to be majority white, and such protests enact the very problem we are seeking to address. Creating an environment full of partying white people is not a rhetorical strategy well-suited to our present goal.

Perhaps then it would be best to emulate the movements Manuel Castells discusses. These movements begin online and then move to occupy civic spaces. #BlackLivesMatter is one such movement, and it would seem that #theRealUW is moving in a similar direction. Perhaps we could join our cause to #theRealUW by tweeting about the demographic discrepancies we have discovered. We could even maybe land a meeting with admissions officials to discuss our findings and then tweet about the results of that meeting, using the hashtag. In fact, with only a few actors, we could approach many, many administrators with our simple request for greater diversity and tweet on the hashtag about all the red-tape and excuses they offer in response. We have already seen local television and newspapers cover #theRealUW, so perhaps we would be able to build on that coverage and draw greater attention to this problem, thereby placing greater pressure on admins to actually respond to our requests for equity and action.

While I do think this is the best strategy I’ve discussed so far, and the most appropriate to both the cause and the digital age we live in, I need to be clear that I am a white graduate student who is in no real position to suggest any strategies to #theRealUW participants. To co opt their movement for the goals I’ve described for the purposes of this paper would be all kinds of offensive. Students of color do not need me stepping in to set their agenda or to push their movement in a particular direction. That said, if students of color wanted to take #theRealUW and use it as a platform to report on a campaign of direct address to university admins, I do think it could be effective, even though their goals may be different (or broader) than the goals I’ve outlined in this paper.

One last approach I’ll discuss here is that of “clicktivism” as described by Halupka. While clicktivism as such is a noncommittal, easily reproducible interaction with a political “Object,” someone has to generate the Objects clicktivists interact with. Sites like MoveOn.org and Avvaz (see Kavada) specialize in generating such content. This isn’t clicktivism per se but it is a necessary precursor, and represents a valid strategy for political engagement. We could produce social media posts and memes and profile pictures like the ones Halupka discusses. These “political Objects” could then be used by students who feel our cause is correct and want to support it without having to commit or risk too much.

As a thought experiment, let’s imagine a bunch of memes where we crop out the image of a student from a campus photo and replace it with a grey silhouette and a question mark, accompanied by the words “How many white faces do you see?” We can post these pictures online and around campus with brief notes about demographic disparity and a call for students to look around their classrooms and count white bodies vs non-white bodies. Let’s say these memes generate attention and are shared widely among UW students, and that many UW students change their FB profile pictures to grey silhouettes with question marks.

While this form of protest does not create as dramatic a scene as Graeber’s direct action campaigns or Stewart, Smith, and Denton’s social movements, it does have the advantage that, as a low-risk action, it can attract greater numbers of participants from around campus. Many white students might be willing to become clicktivists for our cause even if they might not want to show up for a protest IRL. This form of protest also avoids the problems I brought up earlier about enrolling lots of white bodies in a street protest. Here, even though the majority of protesters would be white, their white bodies are not on display en masse. The downside of this form of protest is that, because it represents very little commitment on the part of participants, administrators are not likely to perceive it as any real threat to business as usual unless it enrolls a massive number of participants.

These approaches all have their merits and limitations. They all engage others in the issue we’ve identified. They all raise support and put pressure on university administrators in one way or another. None are likely to produce the results we want, which is a simple acknowledgement of the problem, a clear commitment from admissions administrators to make specific changes, and a system of transparency and accountability through which students can monitor the work of administrators as they progress or fail to progress toward their commitments.

I think it’s fair to say that the problem I’ve identified is a real problem, and that the solution I’ve called for is reasonable. I’m not calling for quotas or reparations (which I would also support). I’m just saying that if the UW serves the state, then it ought to represent the state. That is all. The fact that none of these strategies for social action perfectly addresses this issue speaks to A) the difficulty of confronting institutional racism on any front, B) the need to address larger issues of institutional racism in order to make any progress (e.g., if we can replace the administrators with reasonable numbers of people of color, then maybe we’ll see some results), and C) the fact that calls for small changes are not well suited to social action campaigns, which are better at pointing out larger social ills and calling for more pressing, dramatic changes (e.g., #BlackLivesMatters wants to eliminate institutional racism from the entire US police force and #theRealUW wants to eliminate institutional and interpersonal racism from the university).

These reflections leave me with a number of questions. We have heard that direct action and movements like Occupy (and I suppose this applies to clicktivism, too) do well at forming the identities of the protesters. But what of the identities of the resistance? How do we reach them? Should we even care? The goals of social movements and direct action campaigns tend to be large, sweeping goals. What if we want them to make small changes to improve conditions on campus or elsewhere? What can we do about that? Institutional racism presents us with a situation of “racism without racists,” in which groups of well-meaning whites enact white supremacy without being able to identify their own personal responsibility. In this situation, to whom does one address one’s rhetorical appeals? Who can be persuaded when racism is everywhere but none of us white people are capable of thinking ourselves racist? And must that happen (that realization that, yes, we whites are the system of oppression) happen first before any real change can take place? If so, will changing the identities of protesters be enough? And will protesting itself be enough? I find it unlikely that any white UW students will realize themselves as complicit with institutional racism in any of the situations I described above. So then, what? Do we just wait for the coming national demographic shift away from whiteness to finally push white people out of the center?

What is it that we can do--right now--to make the environments we are in more diverse and inclusive?

Readings for 4/5

Gladwell argues that digital activism cannot produce the kind of social change that traditional activism can because social change requires bodies in public. People have to take on high levels of commitment and risk to join a traditional activist movement, and so they are only likely to join if they have a “strong link,” or a close friend, in the movement. Social media works via “weak links,” and can only generate low levels of commitment and risk. He tells a story of a white wall street guy who lost his phone and then had the Internet hunt down the black girl who had it. Whitey Wall Street Guy then used the media attention generated by his Internet connections to pressure the police into arresting the girl. Gladwell suggests that weak links are good for small actions like this and that strong links are required for larger changes.

Halupka tells us that “clicktivism” gets a bad rap, often from people who don’t even give a good definition of the phenomenon. So H develops a heuristic with the help of a couple concepts: Cause and Object. By Cause, H means the “factors which guide a decision to act,” and by Object, she means, simply “online content” (120-121). Clicktivism, then, “should be understood as  a  response  to,  and  engagement  with,  an  established  political  Object” (121).

How do you tell if an Object is a political Object? This gets a bit tricky, as it depends on where the Object is located online. The same Object could be political in one place and not political in another.

For H, clicktivism is always:

-Situated online

-impulsive gesture

-Noncommittal

-Does not draw upon specialized knowledge

-easily replicated

-engages a political object

-an action performed

Clicking “social buttons” such as the Facebook “like” button counts if one is “liking” a political Object. Importantly, writing a political FB post is *not* clicktivism, but the creation of a political Object, which others can interact with.

Questions:
So it seems that Halupka is responding directly to Gladwell and others. G says social media won't make any real changes. H says that it is a valid political act and that there are more ways to be political online than just clicking. We might take up this debate in class: Can social media make important social changes? If so, does it have to involve more than "clicktivism" as Halupka defines it, or is clicktivism enough?

Halupka's piece also seems to speak to Kavada's piece about Avaaz. H makes a distinction between clicktivism (what Avaaz's users do) and the creation of political Objects (what Avaaz's managers do). I don't think H says that one is better than another, but reading these two articles together seems to suggest that the authoring of Objects is the necessary driver of clicktivism. We might think about the relationship between authoring content and sharing or liking it. Does one represent a higher level of commitment and civic engagement than the other? Is one more likely to produce social change than the other? Or is sharing a post to your wall more or less the same as authoring the statement yourself in terms of its commitment, engagement, and impact?