I know, I know: we elected a black president, so we’re supposed to be done with racism. Also, it’s a subject we all hate to talk about because it reminds us that the world is still full of stupid people that we’re trying to leave behind on our march toward utopia. But the Internet has a funny way of dragging our trash behind us, and if we don’t pay attention, that trash tends to build up and clog the whole system.
So as much as I’d like to dazzle you with another sarcastic commentary about Twitter trends and bullshit marketers, let’s both agree that we can handle something a bit more complex today, yes?
What Happens When We Let the Trolls Make the Rules?
On Monday, I was Googling Al Sharpton* for an anecdote in my post about the meaningless of certain words. One of my search returns was Sharpton’s “definition” on Urban Dictionary:
This is actually just one of many definitions listed for Sharpton on Urban Dictionary, but they all share two common traits:
- every single posted definition is racist, and
- every single posted definition has been overwhelmingly voted a “thumbs up” by the users of Urban Dictionary — some by a margin of 7 to 1.
A user-generated site like Urban Dictionary can only ever be a product of its audience — but what kind of audience is it attracting?
Let’s take the author of the above definition, someone calling himself (because I’d be amazed if this was written by a woman) TruthForYou. The Sharpton definition is only one of 7 entries submitted by TruthForYou, whose suggestions also include the following:
Etc., etc., etc.
Interestingly, TruthForYou’s definition of “osama” is the only one of his 7 suggestions to have more negative votes than positives. Otherwise, his submitted definitions have been overwhelmingly “thumbs-upped” by his Urban Dictionary peers, which says a lot about the expectations (and usefulness) of the site.
And, naturally, no one visits this site, right?
Wrong. Urban Dictionary has an Alexa ranking of #612, making it one of the top-1000 most-visited sites on the planet.
Yet despite that, not one non-racist definition has been submitted (or, perhaps, approved) for Al Sharpton? Amazing. Perhaps this is just an anomaly, right? For example, things couldn’t be so lopsidedly racist when it comes to a legitimate politician like President Barack Obama, could they?
Wrong. “Obama” has 22 pages of Urban Dictionary definitions, most of which are less-verbose versions of this:
I’ve only looked through the first 2 of those 22 pages, and all but one entry has been negative — although, in this case, the racism is tempered by partisan politics (i.e., including phrases like “nigga” and “monkey” while talking about Obama’s lack of experience). And, as expected, every definition (including the lone neutral one) has more thumbs-up than thumbs-down.
With support like that, why would anyone be discouraged from submitting racist material to the site?
A look at Urban Dictionary’s terms of service provides an explanation of their stance. Their TOS reads, in part:
- Users may not post Content (as defined below) that:
- is unlawful, threatening, libelous or defamatory;
- violates any party’s intellectual property; or
- is detrimental to the quality or intended spirit of the Website.
- Examples of unacceptable Content or behavior on the Website include:
- abuse, harassment, threats of violence, flaming, intimidation of any person or organization, or any other threatening behavior;
- engaging in or contributing to any illegal activity or activity that violates others’ rights;
- providing information that is false, misleading or inaccurate
- The Company has the right, but not the obligation, to limit or revoke the use privileges or editor account of anyone who posts unacceptable Content.
- At any time, the Company can refuse to allow a posting or remove a posting at its sole discretion. However, Urban Dictionary is not obligated to restrict or monitor submissions in any way, or to block users who submit inappropriate content.
So you can’t post inflammatory or inaccurate rhetoric… but if you do, they don’t have to take it down, either?
Sounds straightforward to me.
In fact, like any website worth its salt these days, Urban Dictionary pre-empts all of these terms with an opening statement that abdicates them of any accountability whatsoever for what their users post:
The Website is not suitable for all audiences. Its content is frequently presented in a coarse and direct manner that some may find offensive. If you do not consider yourself an appropriate user or are offended, please do not visit the Website.
So there you have it: if you’re offended by the content on Urban Dictionary, you should go elsewhere. Which makes sense, because that’s freedom of speech, and that’s something we Americans value more than (almost) anything else.
Which brings us to the big question:
Does Racism Matter?
Look, I know we’re not here to talk about “issues.” We’re here to talk about ourselves, and to convince each other that we’re right, and to sell stuff — preferably ourselves — to anyone who’ll listen. That’s why Al Gore invented the Internet, and anybody who tries to tell you differently is a dirty hippie who’s trying to curb your right to free speech and unlimited puppies.
But just on the off chance that you’re concerned about the rest of the web’s obvious indifference to creeping racism and intolerance, you might want to think about what everybody around you is saying, and then ask yourself:
What happens when the only people who speak up are the ones with the time to hate?
Again, I know: talking about race is uncomfortable, and actually talking to people of different races is even more uncomfortable. Hell, even Twitter refuses to tackle the issue head-on:
If Twitter can’t bridge the racial (or cultural, or class) divide, what hope do we, the normal people, have when it comes to understanding each other? Can’t we all just stay in our own little pools of similarity and hope that this whole “racism thing” blows over?
After all, we elected a black president. Isn’t that enough?
* I’m well aware that Al Sharpton is no angel either, but let’s deal with one problem at a time. (Unrelated: “Googling Al Sharpton” is among the worst potential euphemisms I can imagine.)
Tags: America, common sense, ethics, language, perception, racism, Social Media, Sociology
Anonymity brings out the worst in people. The internet seems like a nice, warm, anonymous area for bigots to crawl into.
I wonder if we are on the verge of an internet anonymity apocalypse. After all, IP addresses, emails and other things are often quite traceable.
There are a lot of people who would be embarrassed to own up for their internet lives in their real lives.
Funny. Sad. But simple: Lower quality always means higher volume. There’s truth to the idea of a loud minority, and it almost always stinks.
I wonder if people are hoping to do with racism what seems to have happened with profanity. No one notices expletives on television any more, and the ratings board even conformed.
Still, you can’t expect racism to go away unless everyone stops thinking of others as “Them” – it’s very difficult to curb a trend when people when they’re wrapped up in playing into the stereotypes to fit into “their own culture”.
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Justin, flip the coin a little here. The examples you have given are blatant, obvious, and I wouldn’t go around defending those comments. (Well, the stuff about Sharpton is generally right until he’s called a FAT N****R and the stereotype of fried chicken is thrown in.)
HOWEVER, this creeping insensitivity can also be seen as a backlash against a saturation of accusations of racism. When even the littlest things get a THAT’S RACIST! reaction, people get desensitized to actual racism.
I don’t go to Urban Dictionary for that reason and so many more. For example: feminism is “a federally funded, politically correct, special interest hate group,” domestic abuse is “how you get your significant other to shut the hell up when you can’t please them sexually,” and a woman is “The most powerful money reducing agent known to man.” Even a Republican is “An undereducated american who loves to hate minorities and scam and lie.”
It’s a forum for a bunch of people to be ignorant together. I don’t see it as a backlash as much as groupthink unchecked.
I agree with your point that racism is still a real problem today, but this is not a real way of gauging it. The turning point for the awfulness of it all is that only a moron would look up a person’s name (Al Sharpton) in a dictionary – dictionaries don’t do proper nouns. Once upon a time, morons looked it up, and it wasn’t there, so they added it, which is only the cream of the crop of morons. It turns out that morons are more often racist. Only a moron would go to urban dictionary for a real word that is obviously in the real dictionary (feminism), as well as being a movement with a history putting it in the encyclopedia (e.g. wikipedia) as well. The morons get together, they realize they’re in the majority, start handing out +1s for moronic stuff. Is it really any great tragedy that these people, whom we already know to exist, have a place in the virtual world, in a dark corner of a dark corner?
If I want to know what a kangamangus or a cleveland steamer is (with a guarantee that there will not be pictures), well, then urban dictionary is the right place to go. We have an example of the now-familiar concept of non-intuitive results, where we get a much better definition on that site for something like Cleveland Steamer than we get for Al Sharpton.
@Jayvie: Whites don’t get to have a “backlash” to “oversensitivity about racism” until racism isn’t a problem anymore. Since racism is still a huge damn problem, this is just a bunch of folks whining because they are so selfish and ignorant that having to think about any problem that doesn’t directly negatively affect them is intellectually exhausting.
Come on. I’m white and I can see this is a total bullshit complaint. Open your eyes. Using racial slurs and stereotyping people who aren’t the same as you is neither a “little thing” nor “not actual racism”.
@Angela:
So you’re saying white people “don’t get,” meaning, “not entitled to” a reaction, based on their race? THAT’S RACIST!
@Angela, the truth about racism is that as long as the feeling of otherness exists, the bigotries based on what is not a choice — racism, age discrimination, sexism — will always come front and center. People are individuals, and racism works in the form of FAT N*****R slurs vs Sharpton as well as ideas like yours, where you have the audacity to forbid a group of people based on their race from having an opinion.
The best means of removing the otherness is community and acceptance by individuals, towards individuals. If you’re the type who cannot see that basing decisions on race — whether towards a positive social good such as admitting into University students of a particular ethnic group whose grades do not square away with whites, or towars an nefarious goal, such as having a whites-only drinking fountain — are inherently racist, then I have no grounds to get into a discussion with you over this.
There’s a big difference between your right to have an opinion on a particular topic and your need to act like a big ol’ baby about it. Suck it up, dude. White folks aren’t a marginalized population, we don’t have it so bad, and we need to stop whining like children whenever someone points that out.
Our inability to civilly discuss the nature of racism makes it hard to civilly discuss the nature of race itself. Like so many topics, racism creates such a charged emotional response from people that we react to things much more strongly than we would if we were considering them strictly from a logical point of view.
Of course, if a topic *doesn’t* incite emotional responses, no one talks about it in the first place — even behind closed doors.
Justin, this is the kind of racism that I prefer to focus on and condemn. It’s when a sitting US Senator declares that opposition to his bill is support of slavery. I’ve been trying to have a discussion here without yanking emotional chains, and you know that if I wanted to go there, I can, but that’s not the point here. Racism exists in more forms than what is obvious.
Jay: I agree that racism comes in all forms, and that some are obviously more immediately troublesome than others. “Choose your battles wisely,” etc.
I also agree that cries of “racism” have become crutch for people who want to play the victim card, or who want to motivate others through irrational stimuli.
In terms of immediate concern, physical violence based on race > politicians using race as a buzzword > web trolls posting racist comments on message boards. But if we agree that racism is displayed in numerous forms, then it stands to reason that those numerous forms each need to be combated in their own way, and in their own scale. I may not personally be able to stop one group of neanderthals from assaulting people of a different race (or nationality, philosophy or sexual proclivity), but if I can present problematic evidence and ask questions that get a few lightbulbs to flicker on in the minds of the general public, it’s a start.
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