Computers and Composition 21 (2004) 197–216
Ranting about race: Crushed eggshells in
computer-mediated communication
Ann M. Bomberger
Allegheny College, Meadville, PA 16335, USA
Abstract
When conflicts about race erupt in computer-mediated communication (CMC), what can an instructor
do? This article draws a distinction between unnecessary conflict and conflict that makes visible deeply
held values and resentments. It provides suggestions as to how to forestall unnecessary conflict and
emphasizes the importance of working through values-driven conflict.
© 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Computer-mediated communication (CMC); Conflict; Electronic discussion boards; Flaming;
Pedagogy; Race
1. Introduction
Joe’s1 original post (9:16 p.m.)
I think that Farber [author of The Age of Great Dreams (1994)] and others place too much
importance on the fact that African-Americans were so persecuted. There was no excuse for the
violence and destruction of the riots. Other oppressed groups never resorted to such measures.
Women who couldn’t find jobs never bombed office buildings, and there have never been any
accounts of mass violence by midgets (or dwarves), and they’ve had it pretty rough too. I’m
not saying that Black power was necessarily the cause of the riots, but they were certainly not
caused by anyone who didn’t even take part in the chaos.
David’s response (11:53 p.m.): You can’t possibly be serious
Not only are you downplaying the centuries of persecution and hatred with which Blacks have
suffered, but you have also made one of the most asinine analogies I have ever heard of. How
could you possibly use the lack of violence by the women’s movement to support the idea
Email address: ann.bomberger@allegheny.edu (A.M. Bomberger).
8755-4615/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2004.02.001
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that the oppression of Blacks had nothing to do with the race riots? Have you even done the
readings??? There is an old saying that says you can only beat a dog with a stick for so long
before the dog fights back. While I am not comparing Blacks to dogs, the same idea applies to
people. The race riots were just the result of decades of pent-up frustration from being put down
by the White man. And dwarves??? What could you possibly have been thinking? Black Power
was about self-respect, not trying to destroy your own city in the name of Black supremacy.
Half asleep, I logged onto the electronic discussion board of my writing and speaking class
one morning to learn an electronic brawl—a “flame war”—about race had erupted the night
before.2 The fight that began between a White student, Joe, and a Latino student, David, and
ultimately pulled in six other students. Clearly, the students felt very passionately about the
issues at hand. Politeness was not particularly in the forefront of their minds. What started
out as a fairly simple homework assignment had engrossed some of them enough to write
extended, sometimes quite thoughtful (and sometimes not very thoughtful) postings. Some
students referred to issues we had discussed in class while others brought in examples they
had learned elsewhere in order to back up their assertions. This series of postings demonstrates
both the potential of electronic discussion boards to bring in the voices of students normally
quiet in face-to-face (ftf) discussions as well as its ability to encourage a level of incivility and
disrespect rarely seen in a ftf encounter.
However, just because conflict surfaces does not mean that we should not use computermediated communication (CMC) in the classroom. When faculty members become aware of
what kinds of conflict can happen, they will be more likely to shape it effectively.3 Because
the electronic discussion board is steadily making its way into the curricula and yet is still
relatively new to many faculty members, a summary of some of the research as well as my own
observations on how CMC may encourage more extreme responses than ftf communication
seems warranted. I will then turn to a discussion of how this medium might be particularly
effective, but dangerous, if used in emotionally and politically charged discussions, such as
those focused on race. My narration and interpretation of a series of conflicts that erupted in
one course discussion board will then bring to light some of the intellectual and emotional
issues at stake in such conflicts. Finally, I’ll discuss several strategies for shaping CMC use to
make it an effective tool rather than a venue that worsens a class’s sense of community.
2. Why might conflict be more likely online than face-to-face?
2.1. Less inhibition
Social psychologists have debated for some time whether people are more likely to be less
inhibited in their expressions online or not. Some argue that physical separation may encourage people to act more rudely and with more hostility. While online, people may experience
deindividuation—a sense a person attains in a crowd or a group that may cause him or her to
act more rashly and emotionally than he or she would normally (e.g., violent behavior while
in the midst of an angry crowd at a soccer match) (Kiesler, Siegel, & McGuire, 1984). The
medium, under this theory, might increase the chances of conflict. Other studies such as the
one conducted by Spears, Lea, and Lee (1990), however, found different results; their study
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suggested people may be more aware of social mores and contexts while online. If people
feel themselves as part of a group, they will be more likely to follow group norms than if
they consider themselves primarily as individuals.4 More recent scholarship draws these two
theories together suggesting that the context of the communication will dramatically effect
how inhibited or uninhibited the communication is. Tom Postmes, Russell Spears, and Martin
Lea (2000), for instance, argued, “the content of communication within CMC will be contextually determined and influenced not only by the general norms of the subcultural milieu
(e.g., McCormick & McCormick, 1992), but also the specific local norms and practices of
the communicating group” (p. 366). Over time, they argue, a group is likely to cement its
communication practices—one group might consider itself the funny group, another the rude
group—and subsequently act according to those expectations. Since discourse patterns seem
to be shaped early in group discussions, early intervention seems warranted.
In some contexts, then, the electronic medium will encourage people to lash out against
others. With the rhetorical flourishes of an admitted flamer, William P. Millard (1995) described
factors that contribute to this kind of behavior:
Abstracted from real time, from immediate perception of the audience, from personal acquaintance with most of its members as bodied individuals, and from any credible hint of physical
intimidation or desire, the email writer becomes for public purposes a purely alphanumeric
entity, under no obligation (except for those self-imposed) to share with others any substantial
degree of control over the pace or tone of a message. Textual cyberspace offers a freedom from
social restraint that is heady, exhilarating, and potentially dangerous. (n.p.)
The simplicity of clicking on the Send button without allowing time for reflection, Jay Machado
(1996) theorized, adds to the tendency to flame (p. 135). We all have impulsive thoughts,
but the easy accessibility of the Internet allows us to act on those thoughts instantaneously.
Disincentives to flame, such as the lack of anonymity, grading, and the potential reaction of
peers, need only be forgotten for a few minutes for a student to hastily compose and hurl a
hostile missive at another.
2.2. An unfamiliar terrain
Others hypothesize that, particularly for new users, the lack of social cues—such as body
language, status, race—may disorient participants and cause them to take offense more easily
than they would otherwise (see Kiesler, Seigel, & McGuire, 1984; Siegel, Dubrovsky, Kiesler,
& McGuire, 1986). Several studies suggest that as familiarity with the Internet grows, people
will be able to use CMC in more sophisticated ways. Patricia Wallace (1999) noted that lack
of familiarity with emoticons—keyboard shorthand used to express emotion, such as : ) to
represent a smiley face—may lead new users to view CMC as particularly distant. Those users
who can interpret emoticons will more likely catch jokes, irony, and other expressions highly
dependent on tone of voice and body language.
Compounding the difficulty with the technology, many of our college students may not
have written extensively in the past. As academics we tend to think of the written word as
more precise than the spoken word, yet many students feel more adept at oral communication
than written communication. Therefore what they write may not be exactly what they mean or
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their assertions may lack sufficient development, which could lead to miscommunication and
conflict.
2.3. Greater reliance on stereotypes and schemas
To help orient themselves toward new people they meet (online or ftf), people often employ
schemas, social categories, and stereotypes to fill in the gaps of what they know. Wallace (1999)
suggested that
barraged by sensory information and rushed for time, we take shortcuts and rely on just a
few cues. Once we have those, we think we have that person nailed and can move onto other
matters. . . The impression of a person’s warmth or coldness is one example. It dominates the
picture as soon as we know anything at all about it and our conclusions about other personal
characteristics flow from it. (pp. 19–20)
We therefore notice things that corroborate our initial understanding and ignore things that
contradict it. This phenomenon may be heightened in CMC since people have fewer social
cues to base their judgments upon (Wallace, 1999).
I can envision this aspect of CMC as becoming particularly dangerous for classes linked
across geographical and ethnic boundaries. If, for example, White students from a suburban
college go into the discussion board with the presupposition that they will be speaking to urban
Black people rather than with other people, many students will be likely to let racial schemas
shape their understandings of the other participants. They will filter out those postings that
don’t correspond to those schemas and will focus in on those that do.
2.4. Public embarrassment
The difficulty most people feel in admitting to rash statements heightens considerably with
the need to do so publicly. Similarly, participants’ awareness that slanderous or outrageous
statements are being broadcast to an entire class may also heighten the perception of injury.
What might have begun as a quickly written post to fulfill an assignment can be perceived as
a premeditated act of public excoriation. The attacker might also escalate the attack simply
because it’s difficult to retract the gauntlet once it has been so publicly thrown.
We, as faculty members, may also experience discomfort at the public nature of the forum
on occasion. As faculty members who have assigned journal writing would attest, students tend
to mutter about too much work when they are required to do significant amounts of informal
writing. When journals are assigned, the complaints are often lodged either in the journal itself
or in an informal discussion with the professor before or after class. When using electronic
discussion boards, however, the complaints are broadcast to the entire class. Private mutterings
transform into public events that can potentially impact the class dynamic.
2.5. Frustration with the technology
Likewise, sniping when the technology runs slowly or the server is down seeps into what
is supposed to be an academic discussion. It’s certainly understandable to feel annoyed when
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the computer deletes something you just wrote, but should voicing that anger be a part of an
academic forum? (Ko & Rossen, 2001).
2.6. Physical surroundings and conditions
The times and places students choose to write their postings may impact the tone of the
posting. Millard (1995) mentioned that most flagrantly rude postings often occur in the middle
of the night when the body is tired and inhibitions are at their lowest. We all know of students’
tendencies to work late at night. The environments in which students are writing may also not
be particularly conducive to learning (at 3 a.m. in an all-night computer lab, in a noisy dorm
room, in a computer kiosk between classes).
3. Why use electronic discussion boards in a class that addresses issues about race?
With all of these factors that may contribute to greater conflict on electronic discussion
boards, the question arises, why would anyone use such a tool for an emotionally charged
discussion, such as one centered on race? I proffer two key reasons: (a) the medium encourages
students to speak who might not otherwise do so, and (b) conflict can bring to light tensions
that are present but unvoiced in the classroom that can then be addressed.
3.1. Giving a voice to those who might otherwise remain silent
We all know of intellectually bright students who are quiet in class discussions and yet who
write brilliant papers. These types of students who are firmly comfortable with the written
word will often enter into electronic discussion boards even though they are hesitant to do so
in class discussions. Even for those students who are not more comfortable in the realm of
the written word, the tendency of the medium to disinhibit behaviors brings students into the
classroom dialogue who would otherwise remain silent. The facelessness of the medium may
therefore coax reluctant students to publicly speak about race, and in this way CMC provides
an important service.
Although a key problem of the twentieth century was most certainly the color line, as W.E.B.
DuBois foretold, students—both of color and White—often are hesitant to speak about race in
the classroom. Peter Frederick (1995) titled his article about the challenges of fostering diversity
discussions “Walking on Eggs” to signal the trepidation many students and faculty members
feel in such classroom discussions. As a person of color wryly remarked to him, “Everyone is
tip-toeing around the issues like they’re walking on eggs, and let me tell you, it’s hard being
the eggs” (p. 83). In addition, some students of color—particularly at a predominantly White
institution—may not want to draw attention to themselves in discussions about race, justly to
avoid being pegged as a representative of a particular race.
So, too, do White students often avoid entering into discussions about race even if they have
strongly held opinions on the subject. As Beverly Daniel Tatum (1992) suggested, such habits
stem from White parents training their children early and often that race is not something that
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is to be noticed or talked about. For instance, she cited the example of a young child loudly
asking, “Why is that boy Black?” and being hurriedly silenced by an embarrassed parent (p. 5).
3.2. Negotiating conflict is a vital life skill
Many of our White students have not had extensive experience articulating their thoughts
about race and may have anxiety about doing so. Silent resentment might also develop since
right-wing rhetoric of the past two decades has encouraged White youth to consider Whites
the victims of multiculturalism and has denied the existence of White privilege (Kincheloe &
Steinberg, 2000, p. 186). Spurred by the likes of Allan Bloom and Dinesh D’Souza, higher
education has been portrayed in the popular press as a bastion of liberalism and one where
people of color are treated equitably. If anything, multiculturalism and affirmative action, so
the argument goes, are said to be assaulting the intellectual rigor of the university and creating
reverse racism (see Feagin, Hernan, & Nikitah’s [1996] extended summary of such rhetoric).
Those students who restrain their feedback for significant periods, particularly those steeped in
such rhetoric, may make particularly emotional statements when they do enter the discussion.
These early attempts at speaking, unfortunately, may come closer to shouting than communicating. Several composition theorists have noted that CMC can (unfortunately) be used by
students as a weapon to encourage conformity and traditional values (see, e.g., Castner, 1997;
Gruber, 1995; Howard, 1996; Regan, 1993; Warshauer, 1995). In her analysis of the gendered
overtones of conflict in electronic discussion boards, E. Laurie George (1990) cautioned that
the freedom provided by an electronic discussion board can be abused by students who do not
take seriously the power of their words:
students who have been culturally programmed and disempowered for so long have a great deal
of trouble knowing what to do with power once it is given to them. When they receive it, they do
not readily take it seriously, just as they do not readily take language seriously. The consequence,
however, is most serious—for without intervention from the teacher (and particularly from the
female teacher, who, no matter what else, is an emblem of cultural victimization) students
can and will go wilding on computerized networks. This behavior, in effect, destroys a basic
premise of even conventional pedagogy, which is to call into question behavior out there in the
world beyond the classroom. (n.p.)
Without faculty-member intervention (and even sometimes with it), such outbursts can contribute to the further marginalization of students of color. Intervention becomes a critical but
difficult task. Quashing such outbursts overtly will likely lead to further retrenchment and
backlash on the part of the White students. On the other hand, not responding would be unfair
to other students in the classroom. I discuss these issues more fully later in the article.
It would be a mistake to infer that the medium creates the tension, however. Just because
we do not normally witness visible hostility in the classroom does not mean it does not lurk in
students’ minds. Outbursts, after all, can be instructive, as the editors of Outbursts in Academe
(Dixon & Archibald, 1998) noted, because they bring to the surface latent conflicts. An outburst,
they suggested,
is a moment when the often latent conflicts among faculty and among students, between students and faculty, or within individuals bubble to the surface, erupting in class discussions,
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small-group work, office-hour conversations, conference presentations, evaluations of teachers, written assignments, academic publications, or e-mail conferencing. An outburst is a response to a conflict that expresses a person’s orientation to that conflict and to the social and
political conditions that underlie it. Frequently, the outburst is unexpected, and therefore, will
take an unexpected form—yet, upon reflection, we usually can identify its culturally inscribed
character. (p. xi)
Addressing the anger, fear, or guilt simmering beneath an academic discussion, whether in
a classroom debate or in an electronic discussion board, is a difficult but important component
of a course that focuses on race. If we can acknowledge that anger and work with the students
to work through that anger, we can provide students tools for empowerment and growth. As
Luis Sfeir-Younis (1993) suggested in his discussion of conflict in courses in multiculturalism, conflict can provide an occasion for life-altering learning: “One of the most important
aspects of multicultural teaching is to help make covert conflicts overt so that they can be
used constructively, in ways that bring about more learning, more awareness of others and
greater opportunities for unity among groups and personal development for students” (p. 74).
I’ll discuss several strategies for handling such conflicts at the end of this article.
4. Merging the personal and the political, the intellectual and the emotional: Two
stories
English faculty members well understand the power of narrative to intermingle intellectual
and emotional worlds in a complex manner. For that reason, I’m going to include two stories
from my classroom experiences that touch on many of the intellectual issues I’m discussing
here while imbibing the emotional element that we as academics too often ignore.
Both stories sprung from the same contentious course: an introductory course focused on persuasive communication that used texts on the protest movements of the 1960s as a springboard
for broader discussions about race, citizenship, and civil disobedience. Allegheny College’s
three-semester course sequence in writing and speaking (the first-year/sophomore [FS] program) grounds itself in the belief that writing and speaking are at the bedrock of a solid liberal
arts education and of citizenship. Each course in the FS sequence is centered around a topic
so that students understand that what a person says and how he or she says it are intimately
connected. Like many faculty members, I want students to consider themselves active agents in
the various communities they inhabit. I want to entice them to practice using their voice and to
take steps to better their community. An electronic discussion board did much to further course
goals in that it served as both a semi-private and semi-public foray into writing persuasively
in a community. Students could write when and where it suited them, within the safe space of
a course, and yet their thoughts faced potential scrutiny on the semi-public arena of the course
discussion board. (The board was password protected, closing it off from the rest of the Web,
but the two sections of the course were linked.)
4.1. Story 1: Viscerally learning a lesson in race through an experience about gender
Early in the semester a White male student, Tim, who was well aware of his own intelligence
and loved to challenge others’ ideas in class discussions, posted an attempt at humor aimed
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at me on the opening page of the class discussion board (the section reserved for professorial
announcements of scheduling changes). In class I had said that de facto segregation still exists
in the United States, prompting Tim to call me a racist in his post. He claimed, with bravado,
that I was not using the term segregation correctly:
Food for thought, gently crammed down your throat by the Rev. Tim (2:44 a.m.): Some of
you will wonder why I am posting something on this infernal machine-network when I am
not forced to do so. Perhaps you will say, “I dare say, this chap’s gone off the rocker,” or
something of similar effect. However, I promise that I’ve got the whole team playing. On
January 31, what was undoubtedly intended as a short question-response session erupted into
a full class brawl, with definitions and moral standpoints being chucked out left and right. Ok,
I exaggerate. (9–9:50 class, if you don’t remember this, don’t be surprised: you’re not in the
same period.) However, Prof. Bomberger did, in my unesteemed opinion, stretch the definition
of “segregation” a little too far, including locales of disproportionate racial population in her
definition. Now then, I wanted to make the following point at the end of class, but, sadly, we
ran out of what is popularly called “time.” Therefore, I state my opinion loudly here in the
famed e-room for all to see and later berate me for. As long as we’re modifying definitions to
suit our arguments, I propose that Prof. Bomberger is a racist. Don’t get all huffy. Not a racist
in the traditional sense of the word, but in the sense that she teaches Political Movements of
the 1960s at Allegheny College. To make myself more clear, I state that Adolf Hitler was a
humanitarian, not, of course, in the accepted definition, but in the fact that he ruthlessly killed
millions of people. In essence, I am modifying the definitions of these words to suit myself,
dictionaries be damned. And yes, I have taken this too far, thank you very much for your
concern. Not an incredibly important point, but one I felt I might as well make. If you have
enlightened arguments, do not hesitate to post them here. However, if you just want to inform
me that my head is quite far up my ass, my email address is <xxxx@allegheny.edu>. Your
time is appreciated.
—Rev. Tim
The post is rich in its suggestions as to what sparked this change in tone. Tim revels in a “freedom from social restraint that is heady, exhilarating” in his hyperbolic persona of “The Rev.”
(Millard, 1995, n.p.). He’s enjoying the drama of a playful, though aggressive, public tirade.
Clearly disinhibited behavior is being demonstrated here, perhaps in part due to the location
from which the student is writing, but certainly affected by the time of posting (2:44 a.m.).
Suggestions of annoyance at technology (“this infernal machine network”) and educational
rules (in the way he assumed I only wanted a “short question and answer session” rather than
a more lengthy debate) also are present.
I knew Tim was overstating his case purposefully, yet I found myself getting quite angry.
Although being called a racist annoyed me, I particularly resented the way he was suggesting
in front of the entire class that I didn’t know the meaning of a basic term. The medium of the
discussion board clearly influenced the degree to which I took offense. Had he said these same
comments to my face—whether in class discussion or individual conference—I don’t think I
would have reacted as strongly because I knew his charges weren’t valid and knew Tim enjoyed
hyperbole. I also would have been able to reply immediately to explain my position further.
Had I received it via a private email, I probably would have smiled at his chutzpah and just
extended the discussion. Perhaps even if I were tenured or male I wouldn’t have gotten upset
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by the inflammatory posting, even in a public venue, since I sensed the posting was based on
a sincere desire to extend the class discussion further. But I was well aware of two sections of
the same class looking on as he challenged my authority. My untenured status and sense that
he would not have done such a thing to a male professor further contributed to my sense of the
injustice.
Gender clearly informed both his posting and my reaction, lurking as a subtext of the whole
episode although remaining unvoiced by either of us. Some male theorists have considered
flaming a part of intellectual muscle flexing that ultimately causes little harm (see, e.g., Millard,
1995). I certainly also responded through my cultural conditioning as a woman in that I was
reacting to his breach in tone much more than to what he actually said. Women—particularly
White, middle-class women—are trained in the importance of courtesy. From an early age,
girls, through game playing and adult supervision, are trained to “be nice” and “to appease
others,” while boys’ games teach “direct confrontation” and competition (Sheldon as cited in
Herring, 1996, p. 486).5 I was not amused by the public competition between us that he was
trying to instigate.
For women teaching in student-centered classrooms, the issue of authority is a difficult
one, as critics such as George (1990) have noted. On the one hand, we want to encourage
students to speak their minds, take an active role in the class and to even challenge authority at
times. On the other hand, even in a decentered classroom, faculty members do hold a certain
amount of authority that is necessary to use to create the climate where all students feel able to
speak. Students are carefully attuned to reactions of the professor and fellow students, making
judgments about whether or not (or how) to enter into a discussion based on what behavior
they witness from others.
I was angry. Yet I was also very willfully suppressing that anger because I was the professor,
the adult, who should not be affected by such outbursts. Ironically, in suppressing the anger I
was probably exacerbating it. I did what many faculty members do in such situations, I put on
a face of calm while I expressed my anger through the manner in which I spoke. I called the
student into my office and lectured him on the importance of keeping a civil tone when replying
in eRoom (a web-based, asynchronous discussion board). I tried to encourage his willingness to
challenge ideas while dissuading him from personally attacking people, particularly pointing
out the damage that would have been done had he attacked a student. I also contemplated
bringing up the gendered subtext of his posting, but given my mood, I was rightly concerned
that it would come out in lecture mode and would thus be counterproductive.
Publicly, I did not address the issue of his tone, but focused the class’s attention on the core
of what he was saying (that de facto segregation is not a problem and is not even segregation).
I encouraged students to continue the discussion in a newly created section on the topic of
segregation and responded at length, in an academic tone, explaining the differences between
legal and de facto segregation. Thus, the other students remained unaware that I had called the
student on his tone and, therefore, a precedent was likely established in their minds that flaming
in an academic context was acceptable. By talking to Tim privately, I had concentrated on the
private nature of the medium, paying less attention to the impact of the tenor of the discussion
on other people witnessing the event. It’s likely that by being so directly confrontational,
Tim’s tone may have particularly affected the women in the class. Susan Herring’s (1996)
studies of listservs found that women react much more strongly to “an adversarial tone” in
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the discussion, causing some to want to leave the listserv she studied and making others feel
extremely uncomfortable (pp. 485–486).
Shortly thereafter a female student attacked Tim in a midnight missive posted to the discussion board (calling him “dearie” and pointing out the lack of diversity in his hometown). He
responded vituperatively at 1 a.m in a long rant against her filled with many personal attacks
(“your self-masturbatory claims about your diverse group of friends borders the hilarious”).
Part of this attack was obviously aimed at her, but there were also suggestions that he was purposefully defying my authority by writing the note in the first place. He alluded to our private
conference, suggesting he was well aware that he was doing precisely what I had asked him
not to do in attacking another student. Tim also clearly felt the sting of public embarrassment,
given his statements urging any further discussion be conducted off stage. (“If you want to
say bad things about my mother, PLEASE email your introspective comments. In the end, no
one really will care but me, and there’s a great chance that I won’t care either. Don’t take up
valuable space and time posting personal attacks.”) Once again I handled the issue in private
and the electronic discussion board simmered down, for a time.
This conflict with Tim, and my subsequent analysis of it while writing this article, became
central in helping me understand the emotional undercurrents that can spring from such a public
conflict in an unfamiliar medium. We do ourselves a disservice if we do not acknowledge the
personal and natural responses we and our students face when confronted by conflict.
4.2. Story 2: Ranting about race
This scuffle, then, among Tim, another student, and me set the stage for the flame war
that I alluded to at the start of this essay. Through the outbursts I’ve described here, students had understood the implicit message that civility was not as important in eRoom than
it was in a traditional classroom. The electronic discussions proceeded in a fairly civil tone
until midsemester when Joe, a quiet, White, conservative student, decided to compare African
Americans to midgets and women. David, a liberal, Latino student who participated frequently
in class discussions, responded aggressively to his posting with the email at the beginning of
this article and continued with this statement:
And, by the way, other groups have resorted to such tactics in the past. I am assuming you have
never heard of the FALN, a Puerto Rican terrorist group which fought for independence from
the United Sates. There is also the long-standing animosity between the Hutus and the Tutsis in
Rwanda, which resulted in the civil war there in 1996, a war which still has repercussions today.
Have you ever heard of the French Revolution? Although I was not there to experience it first
hand, I understand that it was quite violent. Perhaps you’ve heard of the IRA? Ireland has been
oppressed by the British for centuries. I suspect you have never seen the film Braveheart. If you
have, then you would never have written what you did. A bit closer to home is the annihilation
of the American Indians. From my readings of that period in history, I would have to say that
the Indians fought back quite brutally. There are also numerous guerilla resistance groups in
South and Central America. I believe I have made my point quite clearly.
I was concerned that students were beginning to think of eRoom as the world wide wrestling
version of an academic discussion. The deep hostility that permeated both Joe and David’s
postings disturbed me greatly. I realized that by treating tone solely as a private issue rather
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than a public one, I had made a mistake. Tone had to be addressed directly in class or the
conflict would likely escalate further.
I let about a week pass in order to allow the chance for tempers to cool and then informed Joe and David ahead of time that we were going to talk about the Black power controversy in class. Because the class was focused on persuasion, I intertwined our analysis
of this eRoom interaction with discussions of rhetorical choices made in persuasive writing. I framed the discussion in terms of which elements rhetorically worked and which were
rhetorically weak in the two students’ postings. The postings became examples of informal
draft writing that now could be converted into more polished, developed, formal writing.
We talked about the need to consider audience in persuasive writing, to supply evidence,
to think about tone, and so on. From there students rewrote parts of the essay to make it
more persuasive, and the lesson appeared to be a success. The students got the message that
persuading and savaging people were two different things and that the latter was not acceptable in a classroom. They also identified strengths in David’s original posting that could be
developed to shore up his argument. After this discussion, Joe became more vocal in class discussion and participated even more in eRoom, and restrained himself from making further flip
comments.
I’m less sure that the experience turned out to be a positive one for David, and that concern
spurred this article. In my original analysis of the situation I considered the two students on
equal footing. However, we should not forget that, unfortunately, students of color often receive
many implicit and explicit messages of hostility at predominantly White institutions, and that is
unjust. Students of color are often treated as second-class citizens, as Renato Resaldo remarked
in an extended interview on what it means to be a student of color at a White university: “On
a personal level. . . it means not being heard, not taken seriously, and constantly having one’s
group ‘reinterpreted’ to the culture at large” (cited in Lesage, Ferber, Storrs, & Wong, 2002,
p. 5). I knew David was a strong, outspoken, bright student, and I did not think at the time about
the ways this discussion might have added to his sense of estrangement from the predominantly
White campus. He, too, had been flamed; yet that flaming remained unacknowledged.
Flaming, as Heidi McKee rightly contended (2002), is not always immediately obvious;
it’s quite possible to insult and estrange others online while being polite. Therefore, the context surrounding a posting needs to be considered carefully when trying to identify flaming.
By engaging in “White talk” (p. 418)—talk that considers racism an issue of individual behavior rather than as a systemic problem—Joe used fighting words without realizing it, just
as the White students in McKee’s article did. David had a right to be angry. Joe’s posting,
although more moderately phrased than David’s, was just as much of an attack as David’s
was (and was less thought out). The recurrent references to Latinos in several of David’s
follow-up posts and his tone clearly conveyed that David was taking this debate personally,
which was an understandable response. David Hogsette (1995), writing about a homophobic comment on an electronic discussion board, posed a provocative question: “We must
ask ourselves as teachers to what extent do we allow marginalized students to endure hatespeak in the class by forcing them to be responsible for confrontation and intervention?”
Although Joe’s comments weren’t hatespeak, they were deeply insensitive, and the democratic space of the discussion board left students with the responsibility of calling him on his
insensitivity.
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Joe needed to hear David’s anger and work through it. Audre Lorde (1984), in an essay on
Black women’s anger toward White women, noted,
my anger is a response to racist attitudes and to the actions and presumptions that arise out
of those attitudes. If your dealings with other women reflect those attitudes, then my anger
and your attendant fears are spotlights that can be used for growth in the same way I have
used learning to express anger for my growth. But for corrective surgery, not guilt. Guilt and
defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we all flounder; they serve none of our futures.
(p. 124)
Acknowledging the pain and anger and working through it as a class would have been challenging, but would also have been powerful. Allowing more class time for the group to unpack
the midget analogy and to discuss the emotions surrounding the debate could also have been an
opportunity for life-altering learning for all the students involved. By framing the discussion in
terms of rhetorical choices, I abstracted the debate out of its contentious context. Although that
discussion of writing choices had merit and forwarded the aims of the class, it circumvented
a more painful and more necessary discussion. It also overlooked the ways that David’s post
was rhetorically very powerful already, not in the tradition of the academic essay to which I
was comparing it, but in the tradition of invective, a hyperbolic, dramatic monologue aimed at
cutting down an opponent.6
A more lengthy private conversation with David before the class discussed the posts—
although not a cure-all—would have gone a long way toward improving the situation by
giving him more of an opportunity to express his perspective in a less public domain by
showing respect for the difficult situation he was placed in and admiring his courage to
address it.
In its early years the Internet was frequently heralded as the great equalizer, a site where
individuals could be raceless, genderless beings; now, of course, we know it’s not so simple.
A growing awareness of the digital divide, the still present (although narrowing) gender gap,
the cultural beliefs and assumptions people bring with them online, and the way people read
socio-cultural linguistic cues brings to light the complexities of the issue. While online, people
are both embodied and disembodied, in private and in public, part of a race and raceless. A
discussion about race is not an abstract debate for everyone, or perhaps anyone. People both
think and feel.
5. Avoiding unnecessary conflict
Those who have used CMC and other nontraditional modes of instruction know that “experimentation is risky. We rarely know in advance what will give us life and what will sap life
away. But if we want to deepen our understanding of our integrity, experiment we must—and
then be willing to make choices as we view the experimental results” (Palmer, 1998, p. 16).
A certain amount of experimentation with teaching techniques is needed on a case-by-case
basis. What works for one teaching style does not necessarily work for another teaching style.
Experimentation is also a vital part of the recalibration of teaching styles that those interested
in genuine student learning undergo from time to time.
A.M. Bomberger / Computers and Composition 21 (2004) 197–216
209
However, that’s not to suggest that the experimentation of others can provide no guidance.
In this section, I’ll summarize some of the literature on shaping discussion boards as well as
add some from my own experience. First, it’s important to differentiate between conflict that’s
solely a distraction and unnecessary from conflict that stems from a valid disagreement. When
students concentrate on fulfilling an assignment, particularly one they consider busy work or
disassociate themselves from the people who are reading the posts, they are more likely to
engage in unnecessary conflict. On other occasions, conflict may arise based on real, important
frustrations, and those kinds of conflicts should not be avoided but addressed head on.
5.1. Defining emotional topics at an appropriate level
In our eagerness to challenge students to develop even greater sophistication with language
and with reasoning, we may inadvertently be setting the stage for unproductive debate. How a
topic is defined, for instance, can do much to set the tone of the thread. McKee (2002) studied
an outcropping of hostility between White and African American students on the broad topic
of affirmative action and followed up that analysis with student interviews.7 The Intercollegiate
E-Democracy Project, of which McKee’s class was a part, is a web-based network of classes;
students logging in from different parts of the country discuss a variety of topics online,
some more controversial than others. Students participate on topics that interest them (e.g.,
some forums are labeled “The Environment” and “Guns and Violence,” while others are left
completely open) to allow students the freedom to explore the topics as they see fit. Yet I
wonder if such broad topics are wise to use with first-year students. Left to their own devices,
students sometimes will run toward the most exciting topics to them, even if they know little
about the subject. In turn, their lack of knowledge could lead to them to say grossly insensitive
things, and unproductive conflict will ensue.
Katrina Shields’ (1994) adaptation of the transactional analysis theory proves helpful here.
Shields constructed a pyramid chart (see Figure 1) to schematize how people deny reality and
how that denial affects their understandings of issues. If a person is blocked at a lower level,
according to this theory, he or she will not believe or take into account any of the points higher
on the pyramid.
DENIAL OF:
Personal ability to act
on solutions
Personal ability to choose
viable solutions
Solvability of problem, possibility of change
Existence or viability of options
Existence or significance of problems
Existence of information
Level 6:
Personal
Ability
Level 5:
Personal
Ability
Level 4:
Change
Level 3:
Options
Level 2:
Problems
Level 1:
Information
Fig. 1. Shields (1994) pyramid chart of denial.
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When we apply racism to Shield’s pyramid, we can see some of the difficulties that arise
when faculty members of first-year White students try to pitch the level of discussion about
race high on the pyramid. In the thread I discuss in this article, I was asking first-year students
to contemplate the root causes of race riots; McKee was asking students in her class to reflect
upon whether affirmative action is an appropriate solution to the problem of racism. Both topics
are likely way too ambitious for students in a first-year writing course. They are certainly too
ambitious for the first question posed about race in such a class. (I do not know whether this
was the starting point for McKee’s class’s discussion of race.) Both are questions geared at
getting students to discuss the issue at about a Level 3 or Level 4 stage. However, many White
students in their first year of college are more likely to be at the first stage (where they are not
aware of the current existence of racism) or the second stage (where they don’t worry about
it, if they are aware of it). Students of color participating in such discussions would likely be
amazed and offended by the White students’ ignorance on the subject, as they were in McKee’s
study.
Yet McKee (2002) raised an important point when she asked, “if students are never exposed
to interracial discussions about race and racism, then how will they ever learn to engage in
them?” (p. 428). I am by no means advocating the abolition of discussions about race from a
composition class. Some topics lend themselves to more personal, less agonistic discussions
and would be a helpful starting point for discussions about race. For instance, I don’t think it’s
a coincidence that the thread that proved most productive in McKee’s study revolved around
interracial dating. A White student opened the thread by asking for advice on how to deal with
her father’s anger at her dating a Black man. Students for the most part can empathize with other
students’ battles with their parents. These moments of empathy and concern through personal
narrative help students feel like they are part of a community, whether online or offline.
5.2. Developing a sense of community
As writing instructors, we are quite aware of the need to ease students into the peer-review
process by helping them forge communities of writers, and we can apply those lessons to
the virtual communities we inhabit. Although community building exercises are easier to do
ftf than online, they shouldn’t be skipped simply because the community is a virtual one.
Janet Eldred and Gail Hawisher (1995) “venture to speculate that the degree to which students
identify themselves as a member of a class, a campus, or a culture with certain values or goals
might influence their behavior in CMC writing group activities” (p. 341). If the participants
consider themselves as part of a meaningful virtual community rather than as combatants, their
prose will more likely reflect a sense of respect.
5.3. Promoting active, respectful listening
Disrespectful interchange is modeled for students every day by the likes of Judge Judy
and Rush Limbaugh; therefore, without guidance, many students are likely to fall into such
community-destructive patterns. Explicitly teaching active listening skills before going online
can be useful when trying to establish a respectful community. The web site for the Center
for Learning, Teaching, Communication and Research at Berea College (2003) offered tips for
A.M. Bomberger / Computers and Composition 21 (2004) 197–216
211
becoming a respectful, active listener. A few highlights include asking listeners to paraphrase
what the speaker said in a way that the speaker believes is accurate, making statements that
suggest interest and a willingness to listen, and “identifying emotional trigger words.” By
establishing from the beginning that careful listening is a difficult, important task, faculty
members help students focus on cultivating that skill.
5.4. Community-generated guidelines
In the same vein, CMC literature frequently emphasizes the importance of guidelines of
behavior for discussion boards. Although some scholarship (see, e.g., Knowlton, Knowlton, &
Davis, 2000; Yagelski & Grabill, 1998) recommended distributing evaluation criteria to a class
before beginning an electronic discussion board, I’ve found it more productive to have the
class generate a list of how the electronic discussion board can be meaningful and a positive
influence on the class. The excitement about the possibilities of the discussion board as well
as the buy in gained from the collaborative nature of the list does much to establish an online
community based in camaraderie and mutual respect. At times, I’ve even taken a lesson from
other experiential learning projects by bringing in a sense of play in the materials on which
we write the ground rules.8 For instance, a colored piece of oak tag (cardstock-type paper)
emblazoned with “How can we make the electronic discussion board in this course a really
useful, thought-provoking tool?” can be a great conversation starter. Students call out the
behavior they’d like to see (e.g., using a courteous tone, not being made to feel stupid, etc.),
and we discuss each idea as a class. I ask follow-up questions in a friendly manner such as
how we might react if we disagree with what someone’s said. If we agree as a class to the
behavior, someone writes it on a small piece of oak tag and we tape it to the large oak tag.
At the end of the session, each person signs his or her name on the sheet. I then hang that
document up in my office, take digital pictures of it, and publish it in the electronic discussion
area. Not all of us are oak-tag professors, but this kind of activity can just as easily be done on
a chalkboard and written on paper or electronically afterwards. The idea behind the exercise is
to generate enthusiasm for the discussion board as a resource, while bringing to the fore issues
of mutual respect. Incidentally, this exercise also helps students understand why the discussion
board is being used and cuts down on repetition of other peoples’ posts, as well as minimizing
other behaviors that can make electronic discussion boards a waste of time in the eyes of
students. It also can be a way to discuss, as a class, whether 3 a.m. postings are acceptable.
In my experiences, for some classes they are, and others not; the important point is that it is
clear that if there are postings at 3 a.m., they’ll need to be just as well thought out as 3 p.m.
postings.
5.5. Modeling appropriate posts
Following up such guidelines with models of strong postings by fellow students (particularly
students normally quiet in class discussions) can also affect the quality of the discussion board
and can help tie the discussion going on outside of the class with the discussion going on inside
of it. Because the research of Postmes, Spears, & Lea (2000) suggested that as time passes, individuals in online groups are more likely to adopt the communication norms established by that
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particular group, early shaping of the tone of the discussion becomes key. Robert Yagelski and
Jeffrey Grabill (1998), who studied closely the use of discussion boards in two courses, asserted
that “how the instructors set up, assigned, and managed the [discussion board] components of
their courses seems to have played a key role in shaping students’ online participation” (p. 32).
This is a teaching tool, just as much as small group work or collaborative projects are, and like
those forms, discussion boards aren’t likely to work if students aren’t given some guidance.
5.6. Using personal narrative
Peter Frederick’s (1995) use of personal narrative as a bridging device to help students see
the humanity in one another could certainly be done online. He recommended that early in
the semester teachers ask students to share stories of personal experiences about race (e.g.,
he asked “students to write a story about an incident where race mattered, perhaps the first
time they were aware of differences of race, and how they felt about it” [p. 87]). These stories
allow students to learn more about the perspectives their fellow students are coming from in
a nonconfrontational way. Because most North American students have strong beliefs in the
power of the individual, these stories can be used as a bridge to help students begin to see
systemic forces at work.
5.7. Anticipating and addressing White people’s defensiveness
As many readers have likely witnessed, White people raise their hackles when the topics of
Whiteness, White privilege, or racism come up. After all, they didn’t own any slaves, the saying
goes. Until some of that defensiveness can be put on hold, any cross-racial dialogue isn’t likely
to prove fruitful. I’ve successfully used excerpts from Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the
Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria (1999) and Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege
and Male Privilege” (1988), two readable, frequently-anthologized pieces. Tatum (1999) used
smog as a metaphor to explain the effect of racism on individuals. Racism permeates society,
much as smog permeates the air. Although few of us would define ourselves as smog-breathers,
we, nonetheless, are smog-breathers if we live in a smoggy place. Similarly, we’ve all breathed
in racism and have been influenced by it, even if we don’t see it as a defining part of our
personalities. This metaphor has frequently been helpful to students because it takes away the
blame from the problem of racism while still emphasizing its need to be removed from the air,
so to speak, and why it is everyone’s responsibility to remove it. McIntosh’s (1998) essay listed
specific examples of how she receives White privilege, even without asking for it. This essay
can be quite eye-opening to students who are oblivious to the benefits they have been given.
Again, the essay’s concrete and common kinds of privilege are more likely to help students see
how they are entwined in a racist society, even if they’re not consciously trying to be racist.
6. Conflict that brings growth
Although it is possible to anticipate and deter some forms of conflict, it’s impossible, and
not necessarily even desirable, to forestall all conflict. People of color have the right to be angry
A.M. Bomberger / Computers and Composition 21 (2004) 197–216
213
about racism and they have the right to take such discussions personally. Shaping conflicts over
race (or any emotionally charged issue for that matter) so that they bring about life-altering
learning rather than resentment and further entrenchment is certainly more of a challenge than
setting up course guidelines are. Doing so becomes even more difficult when a controversial
discussion is taking place not face-to-face with the mediating presence of a faculty member,
but on a course discussion board.
Course discussion boards are like ghosts lurking in a classroom. Some people see them
and others don’t. Sometimes, unbidden, they jump out and give us a fright. Other times they
more closely resemble Casper the Friendly Ghost and bring people together. Discussion boards
can, therefore, affect course dynamics in that many people from the course (although not all)
are reading the exchanges and paying close attention to how others are being treated by their
peers.
Remembering the in-betweenness of the medium—that the discussion board is both in the
class and outside of it, that it is viewed by some as an intensely personal space and by others as
an extremely distant space—is vital to successfully addressing this conflict. Although it might
be tempting to handle such issues solely in private, I hope the examples I’ve described in this
article point to the way that discussion boards are public domains (at least public in terms of
the class) and that silent witnesses and class dynamic may be affected. Just as someone would
be affected by seeing a friend mugged, students will be impacted if one student verbally attacks
another. The issue needs to be discussed as a class, even if the syllabus did not anticipate the
need for that discussion. In addition, it’s important to address the issue privately, particularly
before any public discussion takes place. When people feel attacked or they want to attack
others, they’re often in vulnerable, emotional positions and might feel extremely disconcerted
by a public airing of the issue.
Until it’s a firm part of our culture and we all are adept at the subtleties of CMC, I believe
that the unpacking and reflecting upon a conflict that happened in CMC still needs to take place
ftf rather than online. Nuances of tone and body language can have a dramatic impact on such
a discussion.
In moments of conflict, listening becomes more important than ever and also more difficult than ever. An exercise in mirroring can be one strategy for getting students to slow
down and try harder to listen to one another. In mirroring, students from opposing sides
pair up. One person states her position while the other listens. The listener then says, “I
think I heard you say X [a paraphrase of what the speaker just said].” Then follow up with,
“Is that right?” The speaker either says yes or no and clarifies her position if need be. The
paraphrasing continues until the speaker agrees the statement has been paraphrased accurately. Then the roles switch and the exercise is repeated. People’s positions likely will not
change as a result of this exercise, but students will feel like they are at least being heard,
which should help them feel respected and should help them articulate their positions less
emotionally.
Remembering also that fear lurks behind many conflicts over race can be useful as well.9
Extremely aggressive behavior may at first seem to be the opposite of fear, but it is often fear’s
handmaiden. Acknowledging the fear, pain, and feelings of being overwhelmed rather than
trying to ignore them is key to getting an honest discussion going that will enable students
to work through these emotions. By doing so, students are once again pointed toward one
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another’s humanity and commonality. Perhaps even more difficult is for faculty members to
admit their lack of comfort or feelings of fear (to themselves and to students), as Frederick
suggested (1995). When they do so, they model courage and compassion in the face of fear
and provide alternative paths for students to the culture of disrespect on television every day.
None of this is easy.
When I’m feeling particularly challenged by the eggshell-walking going on in the classrooms
where I teach, I take a deep breath and remember the words of Parker Palmer (1998): “The
courage to teach is the courage to keep one’s heart open in those very moments when the heart
is asked to hold more than it is able so that teacher and students and subject can be woven into
the fabric of community that learning and living require” (p. 11).
Notes
1. All students quoted here have given their permission to be quoted, and I have changed
their names.
2. My course used asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC)—a format
where students can take as much time as they would like completing their responses
before they post them to a web page. Synchronous CMC, also known as a chat room,
takes place in real time. As a result the communication tends to be briefer and even more
volatile. Most of the empirical research about CMC studies synchronous CMC. For a
cogent overview of the literature on conflict in CMC and discussion of the suitability of
CMC for conflict management, see Bolanle A. Olaniran (2001).
3. For descriptions of other kinds of conflict and power struggles in CMC, see Tharon
Howard (1996) and Joseph Janangelo (1991).
4. A more detailed, nuanced overview of this social psychological research and its potential
impact on composition studies can be found in Janet Eldred and Gail Hawisher (1995).
5. For a more extensive discussion of women and technology in the classroom, see Kristine
Blair and Pamela Takayoshi (1999).
6. For a thought-provoking description linking Internet flaming to the centuries-old tradition
of invective, see Steven Vrooman’s (2002) essay.
7. I bring up McKee’s analysis of an Intercollegiate E-Democracy Project (<http://www.
trincoll.edu/prog/iedp/>) thread here because I, and I suspect many others, really admire
several of the project’s goals: to help students see the power and nuances of language
by practicing it in a context that matters, to promote cross-cultural reflection, and to
encourage students to participate in democratic debate. At the same time, I’m concerned
that some of the ways those goals are implemented may be more appropriate to upper-level
students than they are to first-semester students in a composition class.
8. My thanks to David Chambers, our college’s former outdoors program coordinator, for
sharing the following technique with me.
9. Although there are many strong books on multicultural education, I’ve found helpful
Beverly Daniel Tatum (1999), which has a chapter “Embracing a Cross-Racial Dialogue”
that details this fear and suggests ways to bring about dialogue; David Schoem, Linda
Frankel, Ximena Zúñiga, and Edith A. Lewis (1993); Marilyn Lutzker (1995); and Peter
Frederick (1995).
A.M. Bomberger / Computers and Composition 21 (2004) 197–216
215
Acknowledgments
A wonderful virtual and ftf community of writers helped shaped this piece, and I owe them
my thanks. I also extend my thanks to Sharon Wesoky, Soledad Caballero, Jennifer Hellwarth,
and Barbara Riess.
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Ann M. Bomberger is an assistant professor of English and the director of writing at
Allegheny College. She has published articles on cross-racial characterization in contemporary novels, feminism, and confrontation. She has also presented research on technology
and on service-learning at conferences. She’d welcome queries and responses to her piece
at <ann.bomberger@allegheny.edu>.