[Commlist] IMPORTANT - suspension of commlist for one week

Dear commlist subscribers,

Yesterday, I was -as commlist mailing list manager- accused of racism 
and agism, for not posting the announcement about a new book from an 
Indian researcher, who I shall not name. Moreover, I was threatened with 
having my alleged racism exposed to "international communities of media 
and communication studies".

The reason why his last posting request was not posted was that the 
posting request (as the previous ones) did not comply with the commlist 
guidelines. In particular, in the last case, it used html formatting, 
which doesn't work on the commlist. Eventually, I ended up re-editing 
the post myself so that it could be posted.

My invitation to repost, after carefully study the guidelines, combined 
with the message that could not provide further support (after his third 
attempt) triggered the following response:

"I will not send you another post regarding this book or my future 
publications to your Commlist in the future, understanding that the 
handling of original research in this academic list is not based on 
equality but racially biased (there are no other explanation). And I 
will communicate this experience to international communities of media 
and communication studies so that people get to know the kind of 
resistances young and non-White scholars still faces in 2020, when there 
is a global movement, but this movement didn't perhaps enter your 
privileged and white-washed academic corridor. Your rejection of the 
post sent a bad precedence to the media studies community."

I consider these accusation unacceptable.

As scholars, we need to be extremely careful not to unconsciously engage 
in racism or agism. It is something to permanently have on our radar, 
and we need to continuously evaluate our behaviour in this respect. 
Moreover, we have a strong ethical responsibility to fight racism, agism 
(and some other -isms, sexism comes to mind) in academia and beyond, and 
we still have a long way to go.

In this case, I'm really not too sure whether my decision had much to do 
with with race, age and whiteness, though. It might have had more to do 
with an author not respecting the guidelines of a mailing list. For the 
record: In my communication, there was no reference to poster's race or 
age, as this is (obviously) irrelevant.

I believe that we need to be careful with the terms that we use when 
expressing frustration (a frustration, btw, that I understand).  Some 
words (racial bias, age discrimination, ...) need to be weighed 
carefully, before spoken, as their inappropriate weakens them.

We also need to protect the civility of our academic community, and we 
should all work hard to prevent transgressions into rudeness. Finally, 
some empathy might be needed, when dealing with mailing list managers 
and the (free) time that they can invest in individual communication, 
especially when there are over 8000 subscribers.

I have decided that there is a need for a strong signal, in response to 
these accusations.

I perfectly understand that this is only once voice, in the midst of so 
many kind voices. But it was a voice that cut deep because of its 
unfairness, and that simply requires a response. Moreover, we should all 
-I humbly think- reflect about these instances, so that we can work to 
prevent them.

I believe that a one-week commlist strike is an appropriate signal.

There will thus be no commlist postings for one week, starting now. 
Postings will resume on Tuesday 29 September. Posting requests will not 
be processed during this week, and will have to be resent on/after 29 
September.

I do apologize for any inconvenience caused, but, as I would like to 
argue, this cannot pass without response.

Yours sincerely,
Nico Carpentier
commlist mailing list manager (and doing some other things as well)



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Nico Carpentier
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Web: http://nicocarpentier.net/
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New MA program on Media and Area Studies
http://marsmaster.cz/
https://vimeo.com/383173852
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New special issue:
Rescuing Participation
https://revistacomsoc.pt/issue/view/103
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New article:
Communicating Academic Knowledge Beyond the Written Academic Text
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/13438
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Charles University in Prague
Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism
Smetanovo nábřeží 6, 110 01 Praha 1, Czech Republic
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) - Free University of Brussels
& Uppsala University
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SQRIDGE ngo
An intersection of academia and arts
http://www.sqridge.org/
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The Commlist
http://commlist.org/
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International Association for Media and Communication Research
Participatory Communication Research Section
http://iamcr.org/s-wg/section/pcr
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E-mail (CharlesU): (nico.carpentier /at/ fsv.cuni.cz)
E-mail (UUppsala): (nico.carpentier /at/ im.uu.se)
E-mail (VUBrussels): (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Room (CharlesU): Hollar building Room 105
Phone (CharlesU): +420 222 112 134
Web: http://nicocarpentier.net/
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To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
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