Dr. Dennis Johnson just started a petition to Zoom Video Communications, Inc. to:

Create a solution to protect your users from racist cyber attacks!

Dear John,

I just started a petition entitled "Demand that Zoom immediately create a solution to protect its users from racist cyber attacks!"

I'm a Black, first-generation college graduate from the Southside of Chicago, who worked diligently to get to March 26th - the day I would finally get to defend my dissertation and earn my doctorate of education degree from California State University, Long Beach.

Due to the social distancing during the Coronavirus pandemic, the University uses Zoom Video Conferencing for these types of presentations. The chair of my committee made the introductions and I started presenting. I spent the first 10 minutes gliding through my presentation. It was truly a moment I felt ready for. As I moved into the section to discuss my research participants, I noticed a red mark on my computer.

For a brief second I thought someone else was sharing their screen at the same time as mine, but then more red marks appeared. Soon, more marks were made to create the shape of a penis. I stopped my presentation and asked my zoom facilitator if they could remove the marks. Seconds later, the letters N-I-G-G-E-R were written on the screen followed by pictures and videos of pornography. Like everyone else, I was shocked. My university’s technology personnel and college department members began to scramble. They were trying to figure out what was going on and how to take the cyberattacker out of the Zoom meeting.

Minutes later, I along with my committee members, began to apologize to the audience members for what has happened. I then continued with the presentation as if nothing had happened.

After I was done with my presentation and my committee said congratulations, "Dr. Dennis Johnson," I said thank you but I couldn’t enjoy the moment. Truth be told, no matter how much I brushed it off, my moment had been taken and there was nothing I could do about to get it back. On one of my most remarkable moments of my life, I was called a "nigger". My mother, grandmother, sister, spouse and many others were shown images of pornography.

On Zoom’s website, the only help offered is an article on "How to Keep the Party Crashers from Crashing Your Zoom Event". That is a slap in the face to me. I've never been to a party where I was called a Nigger. These are racist cyber attacks; not innocent party crashers just stopping by to say hey.

I never want anyone to experience what happened to me. Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened. Over the past few weeks, Black people have been targeted disproportionately on Zoom by trolls who have yelled “nigger” during children’s storytimes and professor’s open office hours. The University of Southern California even issued an email to professors warning them that Zoom classes had been disrupted by “racist and vile language.”

It’s time for Zoom to create a real solution to this problem!

Ruha Benjamin, an associate professor of African American studies at Princeton University, who has also experienced Zoombombing, has publicly called on Zoom to change its default setting to “off” for screen sharing to limit the potential for Zoombombing, which I support.

Sign my petition to demand that Zoom immediately finds a solution to prevent classrooms, organizations, POC, especially Black people from being attacked on its platform!

Thank you,

Dr. Dennis Johnson