Social Media is Not Just for the Rich

Gayatri Spivak famously asked if the subaltern could speak, and I think these readings demonstrate that they certainly can. Something I appreciate about this article and these chapters is that they implicitly challenge the assumption that social media (and, by extension, mobile devices) are unaffordable luxuries among the poor. Reading the Miller chapters, I was reminded again and again of the faces of my lay friends and family members when I tell them that my all of peers in Dakar have cell phones and tablets, despite living on $150 per month. (I know people who will eat less daily if it means they can pay for their daily purchase of internet credit.) It comes as no surprise that white Americans are less likely than Black Americans to use Twitter. The fact that this challenges assumptions about race and social media comes from a long genealogy of moralizing the decision-making of low- and no-income Americans, who are often assumed to be Black (while white Americans are the biggest “burden” on the welfare system). This rhetoric has been around since at least the Nixon administration, but it was Reagan who popularized the undying myth of the welfare queen. I mention this, because I want to point out that when “Utah congressman and seductive beaver” (Colbert 2017) Jason Chaffetz chidedlow-income Americans for choosing a new iPhone over healthcare, he challenged their connectedness to information and each other. By challenging a major democratized resource that has worked in their favor as a rallying point for resistance, he constrained their right to free assembly. In a way, he resurrected the welfare queen myth to challenge their very identities.

Confession: Most of my Black Studies courses have been Africa-based, so my America-based race politics are actually heavily influenced by Black Twitter.