Description

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This timely, comprehensive study examines how racism manifests online and highlights the antiracist tactics rising to oppose it
 
From cell phone footage of police killing unarmed Black people to leaked racist messages and even comments from friends and family on social media, online communication exposes how racism operates in a world that pretends to be colorblind. In When the Hood Comes Off, Rob Eschmann blends rigorous research and engaging personal narrative to examine the effects of online racism on communities of color and society, and the unexpected ways that digital technologies enable innovative everyday tools of antiracist resistance.
 
Drawing on a wealth of data, including interviews with students of Color around the country and analyses of millions of social media posts over the past decade, Eschmann investigates the influence of online communication on face-to-face interactions. When the Hood Comes Off highlights the power of the internet as an organizing tool, and shows that online racism can be a profound wake-up call. How will we respond?

About the Author

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Rob Eschmann is a writer, scholar, filmmaker, and educator from Chicago. He is Associate Professor of Social Work and a member of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University, as well as Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

Praise For…

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"There’s a lot not to like about social media, some of which Eschmann explores in a discussion of a Facebook page that invites anonymous postings about race, among other topics, that seems to be a magnet for hate. . . . [Yet] Eschmann’s book reveals that there are opportunities for social media to be beneficial to people experiencing marginalization."
— Everyday Sociology

"The book makes a timely and relevant contribution both to the study of the societal impacts of masked racist ideologies widely fostered on social media and ways to resist this worrisome social phenomenon."
— Ethnic and Racial Studies

"The Deportation Express strikes that rare balance between thoughtful, well-researched scholarship and smooth readability. . . . [it is]  a story about each of us, as participants in an ongoing national experiment, and our collective work to shape our discourse, values, and identity as a United States community."
— Southern California Quarterly