Racist Practices in Virtual Democracy

In this chapter, I analyze discussions on the Facebook page Vergüenza Democrática [Democratic Shame] ¹ that occurred during the second round of the 2011 presidential elections in Peru. The page was created in response to a series of hateful comments against the followers of presidential candidate Ollanta Humala, which were posted by several Peruvians on their personal Facebook pages. Through a process of entextualization and recontextualization of these posts, the administrators of Vergüenza Democrática constructed a new racialized subject—the ppkausa—as an openly racist Other/Them that viciously attacked Humala’s followers. However, during this discussion the page’s participants also reproduced racist practices, albeit in inverse, less explicit ways, through the use of educational, economic, and social status criteria. In this way, the page’s participants and administrators aligned themselves by constructing a democratic, predominantly mixed-race We/Us in opposition to the European-origin ppkausa, who was also constructed as inferior.