Suspicious Person or Neighbor? Heightened Surveillance of Black Men On a Predominantly White Neighborhood Listserv

• In Event: 204 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Paper Session. Youth, Safety, and the Street

Abstract

This paper systematically examines emails submitted to a neighborhood listserv to explore the racial attitudes and fears that are conveyed. Specifically, we investigate what types of people are most likely to warrant emails warning of "suspicious" persons to residents in an upper-middle class, liberal, predominantly white neighborhood in a Southern city, and we analyze what these patterns say about ways in which neighborhood residents define “outsiders” and construct and monitor boundaries of community. Our research methodology consists of a content analysis of 4543 emails over a twelve-month time period, from September 2008 through August 2009, paying particular attention to racialized and gendered patterns associated with who is labeled, "suspicious." Findings indicate that black men are much more likely than any other gendered and racialized group to elicit an email to the listserv warning of suspicious activity. We discuss the implications of these surveillance practices in terms of notions of “community,” the generalized fear of black men as criminals among white liberals, the maintenance of white neighborhood spaces, and the reproduction of racialized, classed, and gendered hierarchies.

Authors

• Maria R. Lowe, Southwestern University

• Angela Stroud, Northland College

• Alice Nguyen, Southwestern University