Covert Anti-Asian Racism on Social Media During the Pandemic: A case study of the Bryan Adams controversy on Twitter


Syed Harris Ali, York University

It has been argued that everyday racism currently takes on a more covert form compared to the less disguised forms of racism found in the pre-civil rights era in which institutionalized segregation and discriminatory practices were supported both formally and informally (Bonilla-Silva, 2021). In this paper, we explore how anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic was expressed in a more covert form over the social media platform Twitter. Our focus was on how different rhetoric contributes to the tensions and dynamics of racism and how the exchange of ideas pertains to anti-Asian messaging that emerged following a controversial tweet posted by Canadian rock star Bryan Adams during the pandemic on May 11, 2020. We employed discourse analysis to examine discussions surrounding the event collected through Twitters API. Our analysis revealed different rhetorical strategies through which “racism without racists” was expressed, including the adoption of rhetoric based on charges of “reverse racism,” rhetorical claims that deny racist intent, as well as forms of “cultural racism” where racist claims are not made explicitly and directly, but elliptically through reference to negative cultural attributes.

Non-presenting author: Muyang Li, York University

This paper will be presented at the following session: