The Mobilisation of Race and Gender on an Internet Mailing List.

Abstract
This paper explores an incident in which race and gender categories were mobilised on an Internet Mailing List.  The people on this Mailing List would resist easy classification as ‘racist’, yet race proved an issue of fracture, while gender appeared to function as a way of universalising sameness.  The process of cultural construction involves the rhetorical deployment of categories, and deployment of these categories often makes sites of ‘expertise’.  This suggests that cultural barriers are not so much latent but created in response to crisis and debate.  Competition between multiple viewpoints, uneasy truce, or resolution by departure, is a hallmark of Mailing List life.

Introduction
	It has frequently been held that offline categories such as nationality, race or gender will have less effect online because the offline markers are largely invisible.  As Baldwin and Flood write: “we cannot prejudice our interlocutor's words consciously or even unconsciously based upon powerful cultural stereotypes conveyed through visual media” (1997: np).  This implies that if people are not aware of race then there will be no racial problems.  This position is not as common in academic analysis as it one was, but still may be found among Internet users.  However, it may still be held that online these categories are primarily aesthetic or used in expressive role playing, or that the Internet is a liminal space in which roles collide, vary and are transformed (Nakamura 2002), or that individuals online cannot attach to “the fixed shapes of historic ethnicity” (Poster 1998: 208) – here the question of whether ethnicity has ever had a fixed shape is ignored (cf Holt 2000: 47).  These positions are held despite widespread work showing how the Internet may be used to intensify ethnicity, diasporic identity, or racial supremacy (cf Miller & Slater 2000, Back 2002).
This paper describe a series of interactions on the Mailing List Cybermind, which involve mobilisations of race and gender, in order to discover some of the circumstances which increase the relevance of these categories, and to show how categories can intensify even when people are denying their effect.  Cybermind is a List with marked anti-racist behaviour and ideology, and assumptions it was latently racist would be hard to demonstrate.  This response to race was created at a particular time.  However, it should become clear that the dynamics of offline ideologies, racial discrimination, and rhetorics are not immediately shed online.  
Given that most internet groups do not interact with each other, then the classic ethnographic move of looking at how groups interact within over-arching structures is not productive.   The temptation then, is to look at an isolated surface and call the analysis post modern.  With the generally disconnected or abstract nature of much Internet ethnography, paying even moderately close attention to a series of events might be radical.  

Culture, Category and Rhetoric
Life in a mailing list is like a drama or a soap opera.  Members are faced with a series of questions, expectations, or even dreads.  What moves will list members make?  Can productive harmony be maintained?  Will the list burst into flame changing things for ever? Will it continue to be worth persevering with?  Such a life can be overwhelming, tedious and suspenseful, all at the same time.  A good analysis should convey some of the sense of self-determination and precariousness felt by list members.  
In such a world, culture appears like a rhetorical process creating the grounds of its own being.  It is contested, and largely up for grabs.  Those who persuade others of the nature of their common culture may well have some control over that culture.  
Power is enfolded in knowledge and the establishment of expertise because both are about persuasion, and getting someone to do something or to acknowledge someone else’s superiority.  Power enables persuasion and persuasion gives some kind of power – even if temporary.
However the power of persuasion is limited by its tools, and by the ways that communication is structured and disseminated.  The means to persuade limit the possibilities of persuasion.  Mailing List organisation gives certain people, the moderators, greater freedom to act and restrict others, than is granted to other list members.  Further, deployment of social and linguistic categories is important, and the slippage between the two gives groups a degree of cultural flexibility and change.  
Categories do not group ‘things’ which are all the same in the same way.  The referents of a category may differ in many ways, be similar in many different ways, and may depend on context, so the positioning of things ‘within’ a category may be fluid and contested.  When grouped, certain members of the category act as good examples (or ‘prototypes’).  With social groups these prototypes tend to be normative, so that members may try to emulate the prototype.  The more features a person or thing appears to share, or can be made to appear to share, with the prototype of their category the more they will be seen to exemplify it.  Prototypes seen from outside the category may differ from those seen within the category.  Putting some one, or some process, into a particular category, or attempting to get it to match a prototype, is a major part of cultural struggle.  It is one of the ways voices do not attain the same right to be heard, or have the same value attributed to their words.  
Categories seem to have certain effects on thinking, no matter what the categories pertain to, and no matter how unclear those categories are.  For example, the persuasiveness of an argument increases if it can be assigned to a prototype of a group a person self-categorizes with.  People tend to perceive the bad features of their category as universal and the good features as unique.
As we shall see, whatever the ideology, not all voices are equal online.  Some can disqualify themselves by their protest against the dominant voices – even if their argument supports common points of view, in this case an ideology of anti-racism.  Online voices can be fragile: ignoring a voice can cause it to die, echoing a voice causes it to have power.  Repetition creates an ambience, or a mood, which helps frame messages and leads to them being interpreted in certain ways. 
Within this framework Elias and Scotson’s formulations about ‘established and outsider relations are important (Elias & Scotson 1994).  The ‘established’, are an already existing group-category, with greater access to social institutions and considerably better networks for promulgating communication than the ‘outsiders’ who are newer members.  In the case discussed here, the established are also in the majority.  Out-group members are less attractive the more they can be perceived as prototypic of a negative out-group (ibid: 60).  Elias writes: 
an established group tends to attribute to its outsider group as a whole, the ‘bad’ characteristics of that group's ‘worst’ section... In contrast, the self image of the established group tends to be modelled upon its most exemplary, most ‘nomic’, or norm setting section (Elias & Scotson 1994: xix).  

This leads people to have lesser sensitivity to the bad behaviour of fellow insiders and more to the behaviour of people who are outsiders.  It may also lead some people to have shifting roles depending on their position as exemplars within an argument.  Categories are not given but are dynamic.
In both cases prototypes stand for the whole of a category, increasing the perception of differences which might have otherwise seemed relatively few, or at least no greater than differences within the category.  The rudeness of established members was invisible to other established list members, and the messages of the newcomers were interpreted in terms of a pre-existent agenda, which was established largely by reference to politics external to the list, and used to make the issues seem external to the list.  One outsider may have accepted the classification and taken on the properties of the ‘disreputable’ prototype and exaggerated it, thus providing the apparent chaos which reinforced the division and made it more real.  Societies create their own chaos as well as their own order.  Sometimes the order depends for its legitimacy on the chaos it creates.
An interest in rhetoric does not imply that everything is voluntaristic online.  As has been implied, the properties of categories, and the structures of communication have effects, whether intended or not.  The actions and reaction of others impede any absolute freedom, and criticism and responsiveness is influenced by trajectories of events.  Organisation of communication gives some players more power and freedom to act than others.  Furthermore, particular frames, metaphors, and clichés can come to possess people.  They literally cannot hear others, and largely cannot help but manifest, or be vulnerable to, certain types of arguments, or to make certain types of arguments.   These are the feeling tones, the anchorings in the body – the habitus if you will – and these cannot be shed immediately.  People may be more or less skilled in using such techniques, but we should not assume that they are completely in charge of what they are doing.

Cybermind
Cybermind is an Internet Mailing List which supposedly exists to discuss the “philosophical and psychological implications of subjectivity in cyberspace”.  It was founded in mid 1994 by Alan Sondheim and Michael Current.  Michael died shortly after the group’s founding and for many years Alan was the sole moderator for the list.  In the period under consideration the List had three moderators, Adam, Dave and Paul.  There have been female moderators of the list – it is not a position for males alone.
In daily life, race and ethnic identity is rarely of concern on Cybermind.  It is largely invisible in accordance with ideology, and seems much less a focus of interest than gender.  So it is important to observe when these kinds of identity do become mobilised and do disrupt the smooth flowing of the list.  People will sometimes mention nationality, in order to stress when a piece of news, or a world event, has an effect on them as non-American.  ‘American’ is the dominant and unstressed identity, so interest in non-American news may need explanation.  Non-Americans do not always seem sure that Americans will follow these references.  This is rarely disruptive.  However in the period in question, mid 2002, when it seemed clear to many on the list that the Bush Administration was going to declare war on Iraq no matter what, nationality started to become important.  Criticism of American policy was marked – especially from Australia and the UK – and it often seemed that criticism of the Bush Administration shaded into criticism of Americans generally – offline categories tended to blur.  The numbers of accusations of ‘anti-Americanism’ increased markedly, and some long standing relationships on the list became fraught or even terminated.  There is no evidence from Cybermind to support the proposition that nationality has become less important in terms of self identity online.  If anything it appears to increase when it becomes a marked as a matter of difference.
As Lennie et al (1999: 193-4) have remarked, a sense of community in the West is frequently maintained by steering clear of contentious topics (in her case the discussion of Aboriginal Land rights by white rural and urban women in Australia). Harmony appears to depend on suppressing the claims of some (by their voluntary silence) in order to prevent others from leaving.  
At this stage silence did not seem an option to many on Cybermind, but there was considerable angst.  Eventually the list would approach breakdown, and people would leave, either because of the politics or because of a shift into triviality which came to swamp the politics (perhaps in an attempt to restore commonality through one line jokes and sexual innuendo).  The race issue may have become so marked in these circumstances because it gave some brief break from the internal dissensions of the list.  There were marked outsiders present, who were both critical of the List, and who phrased their critiques in terms of race.  These people could easily be categorised as outsiders by List members, and could be used by some to make indirect political points, and to give a semblance of internal unity.  Nationality and Race were already emphasised by the background nationalistic disputes.  Nevertheless, the resultant debates came out of an interactive process, not out of deliberate action.  
	There are multiple interpretations of events, this is the nature of culture. What is given here is but one interpretation, and other list members could give equally detailed, but different versions of what happened.

Ethnic and National Distribution
It is not possible to give an ethnic distribution of List Members, but it would be safe to say that most active members are ‘European white’, if not all with English as their first language.  There are no visible groupings of people by ethnicity on the list (although sometimes people group by nationality), but it is possible to give some idea of the breakdown of subscribers by country.  The List was overwhelmingly US oriented (c.166 members), with Australia coming second (15).  The proportion of the Australians who posted was much higher than for people of US origin.  Other European countries make the next largest category.  There is a marked absence of people from Africa, which would be expected given the relatively low levels of Internet use there.  A general absence of people from East Asia is perhaps more surprising, but could reflect the Western cultural background of the List.

Background discussion
	I shall briefly describe a discussion of racism occurring about a year before the main series of events, to give some notion of the background ‘ideas’ of the list.  The most common argument was that humans tended to be naturally afraid of difference, but with a degree of awareness, listening and ‘intellectual’ effort this could be diminished.  Thus Heloise wrote:
If [[…]]  someone calls me a racist 
I think it is best to examine the reason for the other people 
calling me so. They might be right, I am white, living in a 
predominatedly white society 

Lisa, after claiming she had adopted multi-racial children, stated that she “recognises that there is something in me which approaches racism”.  Mark after arguing that racism arises from the hunter gatherer stage of human development claimed that racism arose “when our ‘intellect’ fails to override our natural tendencies”. Another multi-racial member wrote racism is “a sign of your intolerance of the human condition”.  Najwa suggested that we are not born racist but become racist, and evidences the ways that her children pick up local prejudices.  She also suggested that racism was strongest amongst the poor and marginalised.  Lucian remarked that as multi-racial he is “sensitized to the racist undercurrent in many people’s speech”, and suggested that if you think you are pure and not racist you should ask minority members what they think, and “stand way back”.  In general the comments are as one might expect from a humanistic group with leftist leanings.  It is not fruitful to simply declare these statements hypocritical.

The Main Events
	The events described occurred in 2002 between Thursday 15th to Tuesday 20th August, and Sunday 15th to Friday 20th September.  During the first incident there were over 200 posts, and during the second there were over 500 posts.  This paper concentrates on the first incident.  
	The incident opens with a man forwarding an article claiming that men are using the Internet to exploit women romantically through netsex, and that women should not be so ‘available’ online.  To which Claire posted the following tale:

2 years ago I knew a girl here in Belgium, she started on Internet
in July 2000, discovered chatting almost immediately ... she was
really into funk music ... chatted mostly with Americans, met a cool
black guy, fell in love, had cybersex, the works. Went to New York 2
months later to meet him, was very much in love, came back, found an
E-mail from him, telling her:"Hey, it wasn't just me, it was me and
4 pals leading you on! We pulled straws on who got to fuck you when
you came over!!!"
Ah well, she was too gullible, but on the other hand Internet isn't
as "evolved" in Belgium as it seems to be in other countries, so
down here we couldn't even imagine that anyone would even think of
doing stuff like that.

There was a brief discussion about gullibility and women.  The post seems to have been framed by list members, who commented, in terms of gender behaviour.  Eventually Howard responded with his first post to the list in which he read the post entirely in racial terms: 

Haha! That's a very funny STORY. Of course, I'm pretty sure
that's all it is, a story, because the whole construction
of it reads as a typical thinly-veiled racist fantasy. I've
been on the net long enough to recognize bullshit, and you
just dumped a steaming pile on the list.

You folks are pitiful. I thought CYBERMIND was supposed to
contain at least a slightly higher level of discourse than
alt.return.of.the.third.reich, but I guess I was wrong.

The story is seen as a racist ‘urban myth’ with no basis in truth, and the presentation of the story seems to him to indicate the racist orientation of most of Cybermind.  He categorises the whole list as potentially neo-Nazi, although this could be an attempt at humour.  His remarks also characterise him as a list outsider, whether with right, or expertise, on his side or not.  There was not that much time for other list members to respond to the story, but given the story was presented by an established member as true, it would be accepted as true.  Mentioning, or drawing attention to, the race of a character could have been seen as a sensitivity to race which could put the professor on the outside of the official anti-racist posture of the list – especially if racism is ‘solved’ by ignoring race.  Initial responses to Howard from list members agreed the story sounded like an Internet legend, but urged that it be seen in a wider context of list messages and in terms of a frequent motive of romantic disillusionment and gendered behaviour.  Responses were quite good humoured.  For example Ronald wrote:
I agree though, this reminds me of the $500 cookie receipe story. 
by the way, thanks for the heads up on alt.return.of. etc.
a great cite :)

Some people seemed mildly offended by Howard's remark that the list was ‘pitiful’ suggesting that ‘pathetic’ was a better term.  
Wendy said that Howard was being “way too defensive” and gave an example of a similar story, to which Howard replied:
1. Do you notice how the framing of the above story is
completely different from the original story I complained
about? Earth to Cybermind. Is anyone home?

2. Did you notice the coding in the original story? Read it
again. Now let's list them.

First, the Setup:

1. You knew a "girl" in Belgium. Hum, no race indicated.
Well, it was Belgium, not Germany or Portugal, so most
likely she's "white."

Transgressions of White Supremacy:

1. She was really into "funk" (Black) music. Isn't
everybody? Oh, I see, that was to point out the unusual
nature of that interest for a "Belgian" girl.

2. She met this "cool" Black guy. Hum, why was his being
Black relevant? You didn't say, I knew a "white" girl in
Belgium., but for some reason, the race of the guy was
important to the story.

3. She talked mostly to "Americans." I guess she wasn't as
enamored of her fellow descendents of King Leopold as she
should have been. Another transgression.

Punishment for Transgressing the "Rules":

1. She got fucked, dismissed, and her heart broken.

Implicit Lesson of the "Story":

1. Stay away from those Negroes, especially the cyber ones.
They might seem nice, but then they turn into O.J. Simpson.

Dave, as moderator, intervened placing Howard within a context of ‘race sensitivity’.
Aren't you seeing your own agenda in this? You seem to be well known
in Google for looking for racist issues and bringing them out in
online forums.

Personally I know a lot of white guys that would try this same thing
when I was growing up [[…..]]

Since you've only been on the list since monday, let me challenge you
to go into the archives and find more racial stories that we've been
telling amongst ourselves. I think if you look around, you'll find
that we're a pretty diverse bunch and you're finding prejudice
wherever you look, even where it isn't.

Howard's reply is coded as a personal bias unrelated to reality.  As implied, in the English speaking world it is relatively common to argue as if awareness of racism was a form of racism.  At the same time, Dave coded Howard as an outsider unfamiliar with the list.  Dave’s move is also empirical.  He challenges Howard to find further examples of racism, particularly explicit racism, obviously confident they cannot be found in any number – something I would have expected also – and thus challenges Howard’s presentation of his expertise.  This is a challenge Howard does not take up, and it would not be easy to take up because of search engine issues.  As already stated race is not a recurrent theme on the list, and explicit racism would not meet with approval on the list.  The List Manifesto states that offensive language will not be censored but “racial or other bias slurs will not be tolerated” – which remarks were added to the manifesto after a much earlier struggle over issues of racism and free speech.  
Dave’s comments also recode the original message in terms of gender – this is how men (or 'lots of men') behave.  Gender behaviour is to overwhelm racial behaviour.  
In this initial exchange we can see the setting for the struggle over categories which guide the rhetoric of the debate, and which we might characterise in terms of the following polarities:
	Established	Outsider		
	Knowledgeable	Biased		
	Gender	Race		
	Howard will be unable to overcome the Established/Outsider categorisation, and will try to establish himself as Knowledgeable.  
	Another new list member (Ronda), who is studying online dating for a PhD thesis, strips the race issue away from Howard's comments:
The response by Howard is beautiful and I totally agree with his 
reflections and responses to a rather narrow minded opinion of what 
one may experience from Internet/Cyber Dating [[…..]]   

There is great potential for this mode of communication to open 
the world to those who would otherwise never be exposed to such 
vast and diverse opportunity

Dave takes up the absence of race, and the presence of knowledgeability, from the above and responds:
Welcome from lurking. I agree with all your statements and notice
that you use no racial bias in those findings. Since you've been here
a while longer (since May it appears), do you find a hidden racial
agenda as Howard does below on this list?

Dave is using the data available to him as moderator, to see how long people have been on the list, and thus giving the impression of his wider expertise.  Here he appears to be trying to recruit support from someone who might be considered neutral, yet is established, in favour of the list.  This emphasises Howard’s status as outsider, uninformed, and without connections.  
	Wendy intensifies her response, accusing Howard of bigotry and being engaged in "racial bitching" – using awareness of race as an indicator of racism.  Her story was intended to show that similar things happen irrespective of race.  She concludes "we're all very much at home here, where are you?", which emphasises Howard's externality to the group.  
In her response to Ronda, Wendy will tie Ronda to Howard, "i think Howard, and you, need to sudy the subject matter before going off like this", showing that what can seem like neutrality to one, can seem like joining together to another.  The ambiguities and uncertain references of Ronda’s mail are hard to resolve – it could go either way, depending on any clarifications Ronda might issue.  Wendy continues:
in reality, a person was used and Howard would rather focus on his own
personal agenda, instead of fairly focusing on the actual problem area.

By which it is implied that Howard is more interested in race than in gender issues – perhaps implying not only bias but blindness.  He is not knowledgeable about some things. She continues:
why does Howard have such a problem with race?  why is he so hostile to a
group that he has not taken the time to know and understand?  it seems
somewhat pathetic that he needs to jump into a discussion with
flamboyant, and unreasonable comments to get attention.  just like a bad
little boy who says dirty words in front of mommies friends for the
effect.

Wendy categorises Howard as immature, or not able to join adult conversations, and thus as outsider again.  The ante heightens when Lucian appears to take offence, writing a series of mails which would be hard not to see as patronising, trying to establish himself as a ‘non-white’, with no problems about race as such:
Somebody get his feelings hurt?

Lucian
Living large in the most racially mixed place on Earth.

And
Take off your racial hair shirt.
If more 'negroes' stopped reading race into everything, they'd
be much happier.

Lucian
Mixed and maladjusted in Hawaii

and
Howard should come over to the II [[Interracial Individuals]] 
list at Harvard where he could get shouted down by a 
bunch of tragic mulattos. 

He should also check out Interracial Voice web page.
[[http://interracialvoice.com/]]
That'll give him something to bitch about for the rest
of his life.

This message is self referential.  Lucian has been a prominent member of the II List, but I doubt if anyone on Cybermind is aware of this.  Certainly Howard would be unlikely to be.  It is perhaps hard online to keep in mind how little different groups interact, and thus how little people may know about you.  In the background discussions, quoted above, Lucian initiated the racism discussion by criticising a now vanished member for wanting shop workers to speak to him in English, and claiming his own sensitivity to such matters.  So whereas Lucian may be attempting to state not only his qualifications to speak, referencing a whole ‘politics of the end of race’, and trying to be self depreciating at the same time (“a tragic mulatto”), these factors will not be seen.  Indeed, there is a clear response to patronisation, from another black list member – SCORD – who now makes his first post.  Race can serve as something to draw out people, when they feel marked.
It beats being shouted down by a bunch of tragic white supremacist. 
I have been watching this thread, and find the patrtonizing attitude 
insulting and offensive.

Watch TV everyday and I get an all white assault that is disgusting..

SCORD's use of the term “tragic white supremacist” refers to Lucian's use of "tragic mulattos" and is probably intended as a contrast referring to society in general, not specifically to the Cybermind.  However, because of non resolved ambiguity it can easily be seen as another accusation that the List is racist.  Lucian response is also easily seen as dismissive:
Jezzus, where do they come from?  How do you know who's
white who's not?  You should be out on the mall whining
about reparations.

This brings up the motive of race being invisible on the Internet in order to dismiss claims about race.  Dave points out that SCORD has only been on the list a few days, and asks what brought him to “our little community” – identifying him as outsider to the group – and points out that nobody with experience has agreed with the implication that the list is racist.  This bypasses any issue about the way it is possible to perceive Lucian’s responses, and Dave must have seen some of the messages SCORD was responding to, but Lucian is a long standing list member and normally would not seem to have a ‘racial agenda’, as clearly as the newcomers might appear to do, as they have made no other posts.  As established, Lucian’s behaviour can be given the benefit of the doubt, or not perceived at all.  SCORD will respond to Dave in a way which indicates that he was responding specifically to Lucian and not to the list as a whole.
How did you interpret my comments as implying that the list community
supported this guys posts?
I posted my thoughts on what this guy posted..end of story
However categories when activated are hard not to generalise.  SCORD responded in a general manner to Lucian’s bringing up of reparations for slavery, by writing that the “whinning will shorrtly become a roar”.  Dave appeared to see this statement, which is fairly ambiguous again, in terms of a threat to flood the list with off-topic political posts – this would be worrying because the number of political posts about the Bush Administration’s War on Terror and other matters was already threatening List cohesion.  However irrespective of Dave’s intention, this could be seen as a move to silence ‘black issues’. Dave writes:
Don't threaten the long established list with an unwanted agenda.
There's no need for it here. This thread is going nowhere, move on.
SCORD reacts to the “Move on” – possibly to him it sounds like a policing instruction not to ‘loiter’ around – and asks Dave what he is doing on the list.  Dave gives a short biography and then proposes his vision of the list, emphasising its cultural variety and the difficulties of recognising gender “let alone race or culture”.  He also points out that Claire has a “lot of background” which clears her from any accusation of racism (she is established and known), and restates Howard’s outsider position:
We have regular contributors from most continents
and lots of insight into work affairs outside each of our nation's
veiwpoints. We have had discussions one most things and there's a
sense of support amount us, many having been here as long or longer
than I. Many of us are diverse and we've had many discussions about
what our view is of each other, many of us not even properly guessed
on gender, let along race or culture. Claire has a lot of background
which makes Howard's comments unwarranted, but then, he hasn't been here
long enough recognize that either.

In the same letter he shows that the comment “move on” was intended as an invitation to start another topic – perhaps silencing one thing to avoid flame war, but suggesting another opening – something which he continues in a response to ronda:

I think Howard read too much into
Claire's story and it pushed a personal hot button. That happens
around here at times, then we move on to other topics…

Why don't you start a new subthread (with a new subject since many
are already deleting this thread unread) talking about your
dissertation
Again Dave indicates the superior knowledge arising from his position – the only way he could know that many people were not reading the thread was if people had been writing to him about it – which would not be that many.  It further implies his established centrality to the offlist communication network – the invisible community of the List.  Whether his statement is true or not, it shows the moderator’s power to create the appearance of majority – especially to an outsider.  His stating of List history as normative reinforces this.  Dave adds “We're all subscribed equal, until we delurk and post!”, implying the only inequalities online depend on ability to compose text or intelligence.  The Internet is claimed as a great leveller of offline inequalities.
Ronda had written:
I was so enjoying the discussion on Internet dating....  How the hell 
did we all end up on this path?   
Oh, what the hell!  I'm a tall, thin, attractive, educated, mouthy and 
well endowed, blonde, white woman from the Midwest, USA... 
Gimme your best judgmental opinion on what my prejudices are.....
Maybe I'm an idiot but one would have to be looking for an argument 
to run straight to racism after reading Heloise or Al's responses….

This mail continues her deletion of the race aspect from Howard’s responses, as if she had not seen it, and introduces a gender/sex aspect, perhaps as a form of unification.  Several members follow her request to go back to the issue of online dating, and restart the original topic, without the racial layering. 
	At this moment Alan writes to the list asking for a degree of calm. It is notable that as well as specifying his own anti-racist credentials, he praises Howard (he has previously published work by Howard), and proposes that anti-racists need to be more active.  The whole mail is delicate and semi-apologetic.
Please, everyone, try and keep cool in the heat this summer.

I've been running the list, co-moderating, for eight years now, and
haven't seen any real signs of racism here. I may be naive, but I'm
sensitive to it.

Actually, I have – and the people in question were unsubbed and 
blocked; they were trying to raise hell, and did. (As far as I know, 
they were white, by the way, whatever that's worth. There was 
also an anti-semite talking about "the Hebrews.")

I've admired Howard for years; he runs an excellent newsletter that I 
used to read, and his activities are well-known. And given the 
racism in the US, which is all I can speak of coherently (well, a 
little bit Japan), more activism is necessary.

I do worry about throwing race/racial/racism around on this list – 
at each other; it doesn't help anyone at all.

Forgive me if I'm out of line here -

Jennifer agrees with Adam – saying she was about to ask people to cool it as well.  She says she enjoys discussions of race and gender “but only so long as the discussions remain civil”.  SCORD has a somewhat different attitude, claiming a special basis for his comments based on his experience and hence expertise.  It will later seem that for SCORD only black men are the victims and fighters against racism.
I've been living black all my life and I doubt that you recognize 
racism as I do or that you have the same sensibility to it.
I don't throw race around, it's ever present and someone insinuating 
that we have to look for it oviously isn't as sensitive to the issue as 
they could or at a level that would effect some change in this country [[….]]

I know personal rights have been greatly deminished at this point in 
time, but to my knowledge, freedom of expression hasn't been totally 
eradicated as of yet.

This moves into discussions about the Bush Administration, ‘dumbing down’, and the power (or lack of it) of intellectuals.  It offers some hope of finding common ground, and the offering shows that List member’s representation of Cybermind as friendly is not without basis.  However, this common ground is also potentially dangerous in terms of the existing splints over the Bush Administration.  The truce is not stable and because of message order, some list members still have to read and respond to earlier mails.  Lucian, reintroduces reparations and his multi-raced background, wondering:
Should I take money out with my left hand and give it
over to my right hand so that some of my ancestors
can pay for oppressing others of my ancestors ;-)

This might ignore the issues of whether all ‘multi-raced’ people have the same access to the mainstream as others, and of whether there is more than one way to give ‘reparations’ – but this is not rare in presentation of this subject.  Howard continues his discussion with Dave:
I wasn't saying that guys aren't assholes
or that Black guys can't be assholes. I'm Black, and I know
a lot of Black male assholes. That wasn't the point of the
discussion.

Gender behaviour is taken for granted.  It is assumed to be common, something we can all agree upon. He continues: 
I was simply trying to point out that whether intentional or
not (and this is key, White Supremacy is not about the KKK
or Neo-Nazis, it's about institutional racism and
privilege), the framing of the story was done in such a
manner as to undergird White Supremacy. It's not about the
person who told the story as an individual, this is a
structural problem with people's worldview and assumptions.

That's one of the reasons I chastise Cybermind as a whole,
and not just the individual who told the story. This is not
a single individual's problem, it's all of ours.

It seems he is attempting to include himself within the criticism, and not push himself outside the group – but the race theme will not make this easy.  Neither is it likely a largely American audience will respond positively to an implication that morality is not individual.  He continues his theme of racism not being an individual issue in another mail:
I don't believe that anyone here has a
necessarily conscious racial agenda. The people here may
even mean well and refer to themselves as liberals.

Unfortunately, that's besides the point. The reality of
White Supremacy and Racism is that whether intended or not,
it leads to inequitable distribution of wealth, power, and
life chances for the MAJORITY in the U.S. and globally.

In other words, good intentions are not enough.

It is then difficult to figure out what Howard might have expected in response to his first email.  His argument may well be correct, but there is little place for movement or interaction.  Even if ‘everyone’ agrees, it does not solve the issue.  Howard also responds to Lucian, ‘multi-racial’ take on the issues:

Are you sitting down? OK, here goes:

All Black people are mixed and interracial.

One more time, because I know you're slow:

ALL "Black" people are MIXED and INTERRACIAL.

Blackness is not and has never been specifically about
genetics, phenotype, or skin color.

Sorry dog, but there are no Louis Farrakhans in this room.

He will also respond to Lucian’s “where do they come from” remark, by giving his location in the US, and asking if anyone wanted to meet for coffee, and in response to the message from Ronda about guessing her prejudices writes: “Who cares. What I want to know is, are you single? ;-)”.  In this he joins the movement to play the break down, by implying the uniformity of male/female interaction.   
Another member, Peter, who was with the possible exception of myself the most marked left winger on the list tried to introduce a broader left perspective with something of an apology and a remark about unaccustomed aggression – in a list which has had many fierce arguments.
Sorry Howard,

I seem to have missed most of this strand – perhaps because of
the subject line – and so I have little idea what kicked the row off.

But it seems way out of the norm in pungency as I join in….

Much as white supremism (?) (not -acy??) and racism are
loathsome, the inequitable distribution of wealth etc ... in US and
particularly globally is surely about less than 1% of the population
(perhaps 2 to 5% where there are concentrations of powerfools)
"running things" and up to 99% of the population "being run".

How much has this got to do with whiteness or blackness?…

But where the colour is (mostly) taken out of the situation the
situation seems to remain the same.

The real enemies have in each case cleverly divided and still rule.

On Cybermind there are disagreements and misunderstandings
but no enemies as far as I can see.

This also seems to render the issue of race secondary, or invisible, to other actions, while restating the nature of Cybermind as a place with disagreements but not vicious ones – something he will soon learn is not the case when a member comes to the list pseudonymously and proceeds to attack him.  
	Another poster introduces another kind of cliché; that of the black male as sexually potent.  Helen, after announcing her return to the list after a busy summer writes:
if the belgian girl + black american guy e-love story gone bad had 
actually turned out good, would we be talking about racism?

[the way i read "black guy" = sex god, i mean, you know, black 
guys (well, the few i've had the pleasure to "know") are objects of 
pure lust...!!! so, the belgian girl may have been "deceived" but the 
sex was probably really good.]

Oddly, neither SCORD nor Howard visibly object to this characterisation.  Heloise responds: “Please don't suggest that all black men are good for is sex ;-)”.  Helen replies by reference to the sexual one-liners that she and some other members exchange with each other on the List:
;- ) (i'm just glad this conversation isn't going to mention breasts...)
of course Heloise, i do mean that in order for the sex to be good, 
the minds have met in a powerful way first....!!!
a good discussion, nay, argument (!) (and let's leave spanking out of 
this one) is a great aphrodisiac...which brings us back to cyber romance...

Heloise responds to the one-liner hint…
I feel quite restricted

no spanking, no breasts ;-)

And Helen continues:
	restriction is also a good aphrodisiac

This is a move taken up by several other people and seems to be a relatively safe game which provokes no protest and may assert business as usual among the established list members.  Race as fragmenter, is supplanted by ties of gender. After a few more exchanges, any kind of serious discussion of the issues then wanders into a long set of exchanges about sex and food, bringing to mind Hage’s remarks about white-liberals showing their multi-culturalism by displaying their eating habits (1997: 118-24, 130-4).
However the race issue is not buried it is still simmering and bursts into prominence again several weeks later.  
	The next debate begins with Ronald talking about the Christian dark ages, and comparing them to the Taliban.  “The muslem's dark ages will expire” he writes, the US might fade also under the current leadership. Other people join in criticising the Bush Administration for its fundamentalisms. Margaret, who is Australian, makes a number of remarks about America, for which she later apologises. She goes on to write that President Bush is:
prepared to sacrifice almost everything that
makes the US so admirable.

In years gone by, there was much to be admired about America. 
I remember as a child watching television shows and movies that 
showed the unity of family life, moral principles and motivation.

SCORD responds: 
You're reporting how there was much to be admired "back then", 
except that as a period of terrorism for black people and it always 
gets ignored when people are reminiscing about the good ole days. 
People were ecluded from eating places, water fountains, schools,
restrooms and opportunity[….]

The good ole days, for who?

Jennifer writes, generalising the racism:

Thanks for reminding everyone of that.  I'd also like to add that
things are still pretty terrible for Native Americans, especially out
west.  I pitched a fit over a "No Indians" sign about ... hmm, a little
over fifteen years ago…

> The good ole days, for who?

Why, for the good ole boys, of course.

SCORD will not have this:
And girls, for after all when the truth is told, you went to the same
schools,shared the same wealth and experienced the same priviledge 
as the good ole boys. When we were marching for rights the most 
violent and out of control people were white women..

Lisa thanks SCORD for reminding her of this, Najwa asks SCORD to elaborate a little.  In the background Margaret (from Australia) has stated she would never want to go to America again after her last experience, and Peter has posted a call to arms from the Third World which states “I, the man of colour, want only this: That the tool never possess the man. That the enslavement of man by man cease forever”.  To which Najwa remarks “yes, and while we're at it, can we add "man's enslavement of woman"?  Would be nice...”.  So the scene is set for gender, race and nationality to be mobilised again.  
	SCORD remarks that race relations are at the worst ever, that multi-culturalism as subject for teaching has been destroyed, and that he has even worked with children who thought black people had tails.   Perhaps reacting to the earlier way that unifications of gender had seemed to undermine the exploration of race, SCORD explains his feelings about white women:
We would march through a town or through the streets of Houston and 
white women on the sidelines were the most vociferous in their cursing,
name calling, spit ing, throwing things and generally demonstrating a 
lack of control. Often I would notice white men trying to restrain them, 
with great difficulty. It offends me when I hear about the complaints of 
white women when they have benefitted by the same priviledge as their 
white male counter parts. [[…]] 
When we tried to get schools,or neighborhoods integrated, we received 
the same resistance from white men and women. [[…]]
Nixon supported and promoted the women's movement as part of 
his policy of "benign neglect" toward black people. He knew the result of 
the movement would be that white women would take positions from black 
men, which is exactly what happened. Let's get real.. 

	SCORD develops an argument that white women corrupt black women through feminism, lesbianism and witchcraft – in effect alienating nearly all the vocal women on the List.  Najwa will make a common point in asking:
why does one group's battles have to cancel
out another's?  I think we need to recognize that the
fights against racism and sexism are inextricably
bound.  In fighting one, you fight the other.  And
this is a view that many African American women share
and propose.  To state the obvious, more than anyone
else, they have had to bear the brunt of both racism
and sexism.  Their struggle has been nothing short of
heroic.

However SCORD appears to see Black women themselves as an obstacle, and as unheroic, as much as they accept feminism.  He argues that contraception and AIDS are genocidal plots against black men, and will eventually get himself thrown off the list by the third moderator Paul in response to a perception of SCORD abusing Lucian, when Lucian alleges that SCORD:
sent me an anti-Semitic
screed about the Rothchilds which he doesn't seem to have the courage
to post to the list.

	The question of trust is raised here, but Lucian is established and knows that allegations of anti-semiticism are not likely to go down well with Alan, and will further mark SCORD as an outsider and as biased.
	Several people who were not happy with their gender being obliterated by statements that gender was invisible online, responded to SCORD by stating that he did not, and could not, know their race online, and making this a call for universal experience.  For example:
How do you know I am white? indeed I may not even be female. why not
just be available to share ideas form "people" instead of "types".
After all we all share a common humanity. Isn't that what
counts?
Likewise the difficulties SCORD had with Lucian can be completely unseen, when compared to the largely engaged way with which some members of interacted with him. Thus Adam writes, agreeing that whites are racist:
But you don't seem to understand how you
yourself come across; you have repeatedly attacked people personally,
calling them names, etc. etc. No one is doing that with you in return [[….]]
Look at it this way – within one or two posts of mine, you were already
comparing me and Najwa to George Wallace. How do you think that comes
across?
The point is made again that SCORD does not know the people he is criticising and is thus an outsider.  To which SCORD responded, apparently able to see ambiguities in communication one way:
That was your interpretation of my interpretation of some thing 
that you said. [[…]]
I have been called names, right from the start. I reserve the right to
respond. If you don't want me calling names, then don't call me any.

This conflict also allowed people to make peace with Howard, who by comparison was perceived as rational and insider – especially to the extent he disagreed with SCORD.  SCORD was classified as trying to inflame the list, or as a ‘troll’ in Internet vernacular.
	Mark, who was the source of most of pro-Bush argument on the list, would wonder why it took the List so long to see that SCORD was racist and misogynist, and proposed that it was because everyone else was so politically correct: 
What I found amusing was how people DIDN'T call it racism because the
perpetrator was black.  Everyone knows it's politically incorrect to call a
black man (or woman) racist! I was making bets with myself as to how long it
would take.

Despite these disruptions the list could go back to normal when the disputes are largely confined to outsiders.  When the disputes are between the established, and classified in terms of nationality, the return to normality will not be as easy.

Conclusion
It is perhaps tempting to wonder what might have happened if Howard had not arrived at almost exactly the same time as the post which offended him.  Would there have been more time for him to establish himself as an in-group member, able to survive ‘outsider’ categorisation?  If Lucian had been absent, or more careful, would that have made a difference to List history at that point?  The temporary shape of culture as well as depending on successful rhetorical moves, depends upon accidents and outside debates – it is subject to multiple causation.
	List culture at any time, seems to depend on a variety of rhetorical moves.  In particular moves which mobilise certain marked categories. In this case the Categories of Belonging, Gender, Race and Politics.  Perceived expertise was allocated by membership of these kinds of categories, and argument flowed around the question of what kind of category an issue should be framed within – in particular whether the discussion was about race or gender.  We might say that part of the struggle concerned whether being black gave special knowledge of, or bias about, racism and whether being established or outsider gave special knowledge of Cybermind.  
Not all moves had the same effect.  They gained from being repeated by others, especially those who are already established, even if the numbers who actually participated in that cultural formation was relatively small – less than 10% of the total membership participated.  Further the interpretation of moves alters through the way the person making them could be classified.
	It also seems that ‘Black’ and ‘Black American’ in particular seems to act as a prototype of the racial ‘other’, making it much easier to activate issues of race when people identified as such are commenting upon their experience.  Gender seemed in this case to function as a kind of universaliser, something which could be used to cut across, or exaggerate, these differences.  Race, or nationality, seemed to mark almost irreconcilable differences, while gender marked possibilities of intimacy and joining.  This latter might be unexpected as usually gender seems to part of the way ethnic groups often separate, males can usually marry out but females are expected to marry in.  I have previously remarked that gender seems to act as a tool for, and marker of, intimacy in online groups (Marshall 2003), but further work obviously needs to be done to find the limits to its overpowering of race, ethnic or national difference.

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