"Payback for Pearl Harbor": Racist Ideologies Online of Karmic Retribution for White America and Postracial Resistance. (July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Oh, David C.
• Is Part Of: Journal of communication inquiry. Volume 40:Number 3(2016:Jul.)
• Page Start: 247
• Page End: 266
• Publication Date: 2016-07
• Subjects: postracism -- White supremacist discourse -- Facebook -- Twitter -- Japanese tsunami; Communication -- Periodicals; Questioning -- Periodicals; Inquiry (Theory of knowledge) -- Periodicals; Communication -- Périodiques; Recherche (Théorie de la connaissance) -- Périodiques; 302.205
• DOI: 10.1177/0196859916645922
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0196-8599

Abstract

Immediately following news coverage of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, anti-Japanese users attributed the disasters to karmic "payback for Pearl Harbor." As Klein notes, social media can legitimate White supremacist discourses, "laundering" them into popular discourse. Likewise, this article argues that Facebook and Twitter were spaces that allowed the movement of White supremacist discourses into everyday culture by coding overt racism. Twitter and Facebook, however, also acted as a space in which White supremacist ideologies were challenged, yet the challenge was limited as it reified postracism. Indeed, both the "payback" posts and "pushback" responses constructed their arguments within postracial logics in order to garner support.