Boystown: Gay Neighborhoods, Social Media, and the (Re)production of Racism

Zachary Blair analyzes how digital social networking—a medium that has been regarded as a vehicle to build community and advance social justice —also functions as a vehicle for segregation and a means of reproducing homonormativity. In his examination of the responses to a rash of violent neighborhood muggings allegedly committed by black queer youth in Boystown, a “gayborhood” on Chicago’s North Side, Blair interrogates the discourses that emerged on a Facebook page created to increase communication and organization among neighborhood residents and the Chicago police. In doing so, Blair highlights how digital engagements through social networks and sociospatial practices “on the ground” are mutually constituted. Blair argues that both these practices are a dialectic that shapes the meaning and experience of urban space and thus offers insight as to why gay ghettos continue to be white.