About the Book
Cyber Racism: White Supremacy Online and the New Attack on Civil Rights (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009) is the first book to explore the way racism is translated from the print-only era to the cyber era. In this highly readable volume, author Jessie Daniels examines how white supremacist organizations have translated their printed publications onto the Internet. Through an innovative, mixed method study - from qualitative analysis of the posts at the "Ladies Only" forum at Stormfront.org (online portal of "White Pride World Wide") where women renegotiate white supremacy through a feminist lens to the "cloaked" sites which disguise white supremacy sources as legitimate civil rights websites -- Daniels takes the reader through a devastatingly informative tour of white supremacy online. Theoretically engaged yet accessible to a wide audience beyond the specialist, Cyber Racism includes interviews with a small sample of teenagers as they surf the web, encounter cloaked sites and attempt to make sense of them, mostly unsuccessfully. The result is a first-rate analysis of the emerging social phenomenon of cyber racism within the global information age and a groundbreaking study of social movement discourse on either side of the Internet revolution. Despite the common assumptions that the Internet is an inherently democratizing technology or that white supremacists are using the Internet to "recruit," Daniels debunks these notions and offers a nuanced, challenging analysis that urges readers to rethink ways of knowing about racial equality, civil rights and the Internet.
What people are saying:
"Jessie Daniels' Cyber Racism is a well-written, insightful, and exhaustive examination of white supremacy online. I recommend this book to anyone who seeks to understand how hatemongers can have so much influence on our society in the digital era."—Jack Levin, Co-director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict at Northeastern University and author of The Violence of Hate
"In Cyber Racism, Jessie Daniels provides a powerful corrective to rosy accounts of the World Wide Web as inherently progressive or liberatory. By carefully tracking both overt and cloaked hate activities on the web, Daniels reveals the dark underbelly of cyberspace: far-reaching white supremacist organizations that are utilizing the web to spread racism, hatred, and violence. The book convincingly tracks the global dimensions of white supremacy, while also illustrating the myriad ways in which racism intersects with issues of nationalism, gender, and literacy."—Tara McPherson, Associate Professor of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California and author of Reconstructing Dixie
"Pathbreaking look into new avenues for white supremacy in a digital age."—Kathleen M. Blee, University of Pittsburgh
"White supremacy never sleeps, as pathbreaking sociologist Jessie Daniels again demonstrates. We see how cyber racism spreads like a sprawling cancerous growth across the Internet, as old white-racist groups get reinvigorated and new groups form and thrive all in the interest of aggressively spreading supremacist doctrines to yet more millions across the globe."—Joe Feagin, Texas A & M University
"I've known Jessie Daniels (for nearly a decade) to be a thoughtful and well-informed observer of the social nuances of online behavior. She's been carefully tracking one of the dark sides of life online, and Cyber Racism promises to be a landmark."—Howard Rheingold, Stanford University
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About the Book
White supremacist groups have traditionally been viewed as "fringe" groups to be ignored, dismissed, or at most, observed warily. White Lies investigates the white supremacist imagination, and argues instead that the ideology of these groups is much closer to core American values than most of us would like to believe. The book explores white supremacist ideology through an analysis of over 300 publications from a variety of white supremacist organizations. It examines the discourse of these publications and the ways in which "whites," "blacks," and "Jews" are constructed within that discourse. A compelling and controversial study, White Lies gets to the heart of what it means to legitimate and sustain privileges of race, class, gender, and sexuality.
Reviewers said:
"Daniels dissects the white supremacist discourse and movements and points out its similarities to mainstream conservative ideology. ...compelling..." - Debra Van Ausdale, Social Forces, September, 1998.