#MeToo and the Digital Black Feminist Critique of Colorblind Feminist Politics

• In Event: 2207 - Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 05. Identity and Influence in the Digital Landscape

Abstract

In 2017 there were several high visibility reports of sexual violence committed by celebrities and public figures, as well as multiple hashtag protests amplifying survivor narratives. The resulting public debates were highly influenced by the analyses of Black feminist intellectuals on digital media. Discussion of sexual violence is such an ongoing feature of the Black feminist discursive sphere of Twitter that users who post misogynistic tweets often joke that the “Twitter feminists” will come to admonish them. Within the larger discussion, Black feminist intellectuals (BFIs) deconstruct rape culture along axes of gender, race, sexuality, class, and body size. Each of these distinct “systems of oppression” ((Hill Collins, 2005) works in concert with the others to shape the lived in experience of people who are positioned at their axes.
I collected large samples of tweets that matched the primary search terms associated with sexual assault allegations against a number of celebrities and public figures, including R. Kelly (musical performer), Harvey Weinstein (film producer), Bill Cosby (actor), Nelly (musical performer), and Neil Degrasse Tyson. I then identified important nodes in the network using graph-based network statistics and analyzed content published by those Twitter accounts.
My analysis reveals that BFIs successfully harnessed social media controversies about sexual violence to demonstrate how public discourse systematically invalidates Black women’s accounts of sexual assault and violence. Their analysis is unique in that it explicitly draws from the experiences of women who experience simultaneous oppressions (such as of (dis)ability, class, and race), and tasks more privileged women with the responsibility to amplify the most marginalized narratives. This chapter of my dissertation considers Black digital feminist perspectives surrounding #MeToo and racialized discourse about sexual assault in the public sphere.

Author

• Leslie Jones, University of Pennsylvania