post 10 blog

 The #CommunicationSoWhite debate and critique is a response to a troubling academic and political context that is intricately intertwined. We are in the midst of a widespread expansion and rise of global white supremacy, which is disturbingly evident in the trajectory, rhetoric, and actions of Donald Trump in the United States, Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom, and Golden Dawn in Greece, as well as a growing white supremacy. The power of right-wing and authoritarian regimes more generally: China under Xi Jinping, India under Modi, Brazil under Bolsonaro, etc. In this moment of cultural and political crisis, a large group of scholars recognizes the central role of media and communication in facilitating these shifts, increasingly countering, intervening, and reshaping our field. #CommunicationSoWhite is an intervention that calls attention to the complicity of the academy in perpetuating existing racial and intersectional hierarchies. By focusing on race, inequality, and exclusion, we highlight the importance of engaging issues of power, identity, and politics in communication and media studies. We recognize that the transformative potential of "diversity" efforts has become increasingly diluted as the term is invoked simply for the presence of black or brown people - for example, among faculty - with little regard for the complex intersections of nation, class, caste, and religion, or with no real intention of reflection or structural change. -with little consideration of the complex intersections of nation, class, caste and religion, or any real intention of rethinking or structural change. Emphasizing the problematic dominance of the West in communication studies should not ignore important racial and colonial critiques, including those of marginalized Western scholars about white supremacy as the dominant global ideology.

Chakravartty, Paula, et al. “#Communicationsowhite.” Journal of Communication, vol. 68, no. 2, 2018, p. 262., https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqy003.