I’ll Take My Stand in Dixie-Net

In “I’ll Take My Stand in Dixie-Net” Tara McPherson details a new form of group identity over the internet. The main idea behind McPherson's article is that cyberspace often blurs the role race plays in identity formation
McPherson introduces us to neo-Confederates. Neo-Confederates are individuals and groups who seek to reconstruct the Confederacy in cyberspace. McPherson uses the example to illustrate how an individual in cyberspace can transcend race, gender, income, geography, and most other characteristics that determine what Johnson referred to as privilege. On page 123 McPherson makes a point that groups like the neo-Confederates do not use specific descriptions of race and tend to stay away from discussions of racism. She states on the bottom of the page that groups like the neo-Confederates are covertly racists rather than overtly racist. The group is not represented in any one given website but rather in a group of websites that each has a different focus. They all have some of the same iconography such as Confederate flags and music steams of Dixie. Some also have geographical maps delineating the 11 states of the Confederacy. McPherson gets away from specifics and asks what our online identity is. In her summary conclusions McPherson calls peoples participation in cyberspace as “non-traumatic multiplicity.”

By avoiding debate over issues of race those in cyberspace can avoid the negative connotations associated with groups like the Klu Klux Klan. In fact many less than tolerant groups like the neo-Confederates masquerade as benign organizations and even put anti-Klan icons on their websites. Essentially these sites attempt to white-wash history and only dwell in the elements of the “proper southerner” that they deem to be important, and overlooking the part about racism. They take the opposite side of the issue and defend against the degradation of white masculinity, as opposed to blackness. In the context of cyberspace the evasiveness detailed is quite effective when the source’s gender and race are not as readily apparent.

I found McPherson’s article interesting as I had never heard of neo-Confederates. I always thought that sinister groups could exist on the net, but I never paid any real attention to them. I think that they are sinister because they don’t come right out and say who they are and what they are all about, and they are definitely trying to advance an agenda. I also found the concepts of transcending or uprooting (pg 127) race to be quite interesting. I look forward to trying it some time in the future. I wish McPherson would have created a piece that was easy to understand. I thought that she was overly wordy and she spent way too much time quoting others and referencing what she assumed was commonly disseminated popular culture. It seems difficult to gage what shapes racism and tolerance will take on the internet, but I am now looking out for it more after reading this article.