From what i have read and experienced on this and other sites racial signifiers in cyberspace are highly inconsistent, and unstable. I believe it is this instability and inability to produce an authoritative answer/sign that makes 'race' a question in the first place. It also produces the numerous strategies employed to decipher the racial signs of other anonymous users. Thus i dont think you will come up with an answer only strategies and methods of interpretation.

If you have time it may be interesting to attempt to codify the various strategies(language, user name) and compare how race is produced on another site. What i suspect is that it is the site itself(black planet, stormfront) that weighs heavily upon the way these identities play themselves out.


native son