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Well, the abstract of this thread is set as "inter-taciality (sic) and accidental exclusion", so...
First up , I would suggest that exclusion of non-white - what - ideas? persprectives? self-expressions? voices? - from Barbelith could be argued not to be accidental in the sense of a piece of pure coincidence. One could however construct a case for barbelith as exclusionary space through the channels it follows, which is "accidental" insofar as it only follows rather than constructs discriminatory models.
So, for example, one of the immediate things that define Barbelith is that it is pretty much entirely in English, the first language of nations largely owned and run by white people (see the paragraph below for Anglophone post-imperial nations). Now, there are a fair few Portugese speakers on Barbelith, for starters, who choose to communicate in English as a concession to the fact that most of their respondents will expect to be able to do so in English. What happens if the Portugese-speaking contingent decide to start threads in Portugese? Is this exclusionary, or a necessary balancing act and a reproach to the linguistic imperialism of the main board?
Plus, Barbelith is an Internet board. This in itself counts out a fairly large chunk of the population of the globe, who do not have access to an Internet connection *at all*, and then again penalises people who have access to the Internet but whose access is problematised - for example, a squatter who one one level is living the Barbelith dream but as a result of this has to depend on either friends or commercial outlets for access. It is one on level an "accident" that most of the parts of the world without Internet proliferation happen not to have majority white populations. On many other levels, it is not "accidental" at all. As it happens, I believe at present it also means that the readership is more likely to be male than female as well, and more likely to be employed than unemployed, kai ta loipa.
And, of course, Alas is absolutely right that it is much easier to say "I don't care if peopel are white or black or sky-blue pink" if one is not getting followed around by storeowners. What impact this has on Barbelith, where judgements based on skin colour are at least complicated, is open to discussion.
Note that I say "complicated" rather than "impossible" there. Because, just as in the "real" world, there are levels of ambiguity - see the Oscars thread debating whether Haille Berry is "black enough" to be counted as a "black Oscar winner" (for. fuck's. sake). Certainly at least one Barbeloid has spoken of the experience of being of ambiguous appearance.
Applying that to Barbelith, one can perhaps start to identify textual codes based along lines of ethnicity, whether that ethinicity is a purely textual response or one "reaching through the screen" and making decisions about the ethnicity and tus the behaviour of a member.
F'r example, a poster (and please correct me if I misquote) commented after Lyra had dismnissed Belle and Sebastien that it was amazing that he could hear any music over the sound of "the enormous axe you are constantly grinding against Whitey". The point being that Lyra's championing of disco and hip-hop (historically "black" forms), and dismmissiveness of indie (historically "white" form, although all of these categorisations are in themselves highly questionable), identified hir for that poster as "black", either textually or genetically. A judgement was made on the grounds of what "black people" do or do not like listening to, and that choice of music politicised (Lyra being acused of not giving "white" musical forms a fair crack of the whip, in effect).
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