The Digital CultureSHIFT: Moving from Scale to Power to Achieve Racial Justice

Area 1:

Big article, lots to process. Here's what I noticed:

Rashad Robinson makes a point about how a voice and visibility must not be confused with actual power, especially if marginalized folks are not in control of the platform. The power to tell an authentic story is critical.  

Robinson comments about platform ownership and filter algorithms suppressing the voices of marginalized folks and the need of holding those platforms accountable.

He talks about a study of the news and noted a 30-70% distortion rate "in terms of over-showing Black crime and under-reporting white crime."  And something like this will change peoples' perception of their communities and how suspiciously they view other people by race. Robinson also mentions how institutions do not give us the tools we need to be "good citizens in our democracy."

Area 2: 

Rashad Robinson's point about visibility vs power resounds with me. For example, I just got my new Outside magazine in the mail. I noticed a Black woman, L. Renee Blount, on the cover. It was jarring, because I realized I couldn't recall ever seeing a Black person on the cover before. When I opened the magazine, the first ad was a Black family in an RV ad. I read forward about the cover & the photographer (same person) to find out what was behind this noticeable (in retrospect) and very past due change. As a pitch, Blount had sent photoshopped covers of many of the major outdoor magazines to those same outdoor magazines with Black athletes replacing white athletes, with the phrase "what if you didn't have to imagine?" And I realized that my initial reaction to noticing Blount on the cover wouldn't be an isolated experience; any observant person would notice that she was a rarity, but hopefully not for long. Of course, the magazine is still in control, but Blount said she would hold them accountable for publishing more work by and about black and brown writers, photographers, and athletes.

I wonder if there are folks looking at the platform algorithms and how they suppress the voices of, marginalized people. If those folks aren't already working for those platforms, how do we get them heard, so we can better understand and fix the inequity? Business case, for example. An example from class was how the success of Black Panther followed years of studio execs saying that a Black superhero movie wouldn't do well at the box office. Is there a way to 'bake-in' accountability to a firm from the get-go? Maybe with ethical venture capital? Cayden Mak alludes to this.

From today's news:

• "The 5 people who have the most influence over book publishing are all white" (Axios)
• "The people who edit the 10 most-read magazines are all white" (Axios).

A few observations about Negroponte and One Laptop Per Child

One thing I'll say: Negroponte is absolutely sure of himself and his story. I think, though, that he generalizes his story and his life lessons to everyone, and that what he thinks is best for everyone is best for everyone. He is really talking about himself nearly the entire time, and I think that speaks to possibly a big ego and perhaps an inability to really put himself in others' shoes. Yes, for me as a kid, having a computer to learn the basics of programming was likely key to where I am today, but I can hardly generalize that to all kids.

I think he has a flawed observation that we can't teach thinking about thinking without computer programming. Certainly that might be one way to approach it, but it is certainly not the only way.

Negroponte is very focused on getting computers into schools and getting kids into programming, but to what end? This reminds me of an earlier reading which mentioned "a improved means to an unimproved end" (Thoreau?) What precisely is the point? I met an inmate at Clallam Bay prison a couple years ago, and he had written an entire programming IDE from scratch, in Notepad. Then, because he did not have any media or permission to transfer from one computer network to another, he printed the entire thing, and retyped it on other system. It was very impressive, and showed resilience, resourcefulness, and determination, but to what end? In looking back to my childhood, my computer experience was supported by an emerging infrastructure, industry, education, and employment opportunities.

Negroponte, in passing, mentions satellite dishes and generators for internet access. He glosses over these quickly without focusing on the fact that those are the biggest challenges, along with fuel and technical support and maintenance. In fact, connectivity is still a challenge for communities which have settled on phones for most of their computer needs.

Another things I noticed: I didn't hear how his OLPC program integrates with how folks in remote, poor areas currently do things.

A critique of OLPC I'm currently reading calls the idea a "one-size fits all American solution" for a wide-range of problems. Something at which it ultimately failed.