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Dear all,
During the last few days, the DH community has seen a crisis in the managing of Humanist, the ACH sponsored and ADHO supported discussion group. The list moderator published a message by Gabriel Egan that stated that an essay by Khalid Warsame was objectionable because of “...its casual anti-white racism” (you can find Egan’s original post here: https://dhhumanist.org/volume/34/220/).
There was an immediate reaction to Egan’s words and several scholars replied to the list. However, Humanist is a moderated list, meaning that all posts -- both Egan’s original post and any replies by others must be approved by the list moderator.
Bethan Tovey-Walsh was one of the first two people who wrote a reply to Egan’s post. But while Egan’s original post was published to the list, her reply -- and the replies of others were not. As she explains in a blog post she wrote about the issue (http://linguacelta.com/blog/2020/08/Humanist.html), this was the result of a decision by the list moderator that discussion of the post represented a “distraction” from the purpose of the list (Tovey-Walsh’s characterisation). The argument appears to be that matters of race, racism, and other similar issues which shape the lived experiences of all members are not relevant topics in the digital humanities.
This position is difficult to reconcile with the fact that discussions of equity and inclusion issues have been a part of mainstream Digital Humanities for many years. There have been collections of essays published on the matter; sessions at the ADHO conference Digital Humanities; and individual workshops for most of the last decade. It is more unusual to claim that such debate has no place in DH than to claim that it does. The fact that replies to a posting that invoked the trope of “anti-white” racism were censored while the original post was not would be disturbing at any time. It is especially troubling given the context of decolonial perspectives in the discipline. It implies a “who’s in, who’s out” dynamic that has been the particular subject of much recent discussion in the DH community.
Speaking as individuals and collectively, we believe that Humanist should be a community in which all voices can be heard and where individuals are not censored for standing up for equity and inclusion or for pointing out and criticising problematic arguments such as those made by Egan. We also believe that the ADHO code of conduct, which references the conference specifically, should apply to all ADHO spaces, whether virtual or in-real-life.
The voices of members of our community have been suppressed for too long. Denying them the opportunity to right a wrong or giving the impression that racist statements will go unchallenged on Humanist further silences voices that need to be heard and preserves a status quo that should have been dismantled years ago.
As leaders of GO::DH, we stand in support of the voices that challenge racism and any other kind of discrimination and we encourage a space in which engaged critical discourses gain more visibility in the fight against systemic oppression.
Barbara Bordalejo Brian Rosemblum James Yeku