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christaporm1 · 4 years

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Week 4 blog post

What did African Americans in the 90s have to look forward to on the internet considering it was and sometimes still is a powerful voice for racist ideas?

The internet gradually taking in more and more African American users throughout the 90s has been amazing because it has created a safe space for black ideas, voices, and experiences. The internet has been used as we have seen today in many grassroots movements such as “Black Lives Matter” and the “Me too” movement these have been prominent in our society. This occurrence of online grassroots movements has been a commonality since the 90s. The following excerpt from the Revolution will be digitized highlights my claim “ the democratizing potential of the Internet, especially given its demonstrably pivotal role in mobilizing a throng of grassroots activists in 1997 Million Woman March on Philadelphia (Everett 2002).” This passage shows that change is possible when viewing grassroots movements begin on the internet they can turn into physical action. As the internet has ‘welcomed’ African American users we have seen a gradual but the real change in awareness in our communities.

How do someone’s name and the algorithms program into everyday technology work to perpetuate racially discriminating stereotypes?

In today's day and age, much of our daily lives are dictated by algorithms and we don’t even know it YouTube Facebook Twitter and even airport security is powered by algorithms. Algorithms have the power to decide whether or not you receive government benefits, whether or not you get flagged on the next flight you’re going on because of your name. Many of the algorithms that we have power in our society today were built with racist ideologies built into the infrastructure of the program itself. The following excerpt from The New Jim code exemplifies how algorithms can be used to stereotype and harm people because of the way they look or where they’re from “Normal” names have power by virtue of their perceived They trigger stories about what kind of person is behind the name - their personality and potential, where they come from but also where they should go (Benjamin 2019).” This passage is a shiny example of how someone’s name can dictate the treatment they received from someone else this along with “Objective” Technology makes it easier for those with racist ideologies or discriminatory ideas to discriminate on those who look sound or are slightly different from them. It is important to view and give technology the same responsibility of being equal towards all people before giving it an objective status of neutrality.

I have been using the internet for my whole life why have I not seen any examples of the discrimination described?

I asked this question very purposefully because many of the people who deny claims of racism discrimination on the Internet citing that they haven’t seen any widespread examples of racism and discrimination, especially in large well regulated online spaces. I chose this question to highlight examples of systemic racism within the technology companies that we trust most like Google. The following passage from the power of algorithms highlights just how deeply ingrained some of these ideologies are within our day-to-day technological platforms “In 2015, U.S. News and world report reported that a “glitch” in Google algorithm led to several problems through auto-tagging and facial recognition software that was intended to help people search through images more successfully. The first problem for google was that its photo application had automatically tagged African Americans as apes and animals (Noble 2018)”…Another instance on April 7, 2016, when looking up the keyword “gorillas” an African American couple appears at the images. There is a long-standing racist stereotype that stereotypes African-Americans as subhuman this permeates within white supremacist culture and ideology and it’s not hidden away and it’s not hard to find the tooth samples above sure that these things don’t happen on a one-off they happen often and frequently every day to all kinds of people and these examples are just some that I recorded the Internet is a vast and wide expanse of knowledge it’s easy to imagine all the other things that have gone unnoticed.

What important role do the black operated press and internet forms have in giving a platform for black voices to speak?

African Americans have long been a discriminate group within the United States and I believe nowadays this is common knowledge. However, although there has as of recently been a lot more attention given to marginalized groups including African-Americans there has been no powerful. The black operated press and Internet forms that are African-American operated playing important role in dispersing African-American ideas feelings and culture it is and it is important to continue to give his voice is a platform for speech. The following excerpt from the revolution will be digitized highlights my point that African-American voices need to be heard that they can continue to create change and uplift the communities within and around them “Conceived from the outset as both a political and ideological weapon for the eradication of slavery and other antebellum atrocities, the earliest black political pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, and other forms of black writing established a tradition of protest literature that has been a prominent feature throughout the history of the press’s “uplift” mission or journalistic freedom fighting (Everett 2002).” As stated before this passage highlights how African-American journalistic freedom and platforms for these freedom fighting create a tradition that can help uplift and continue to bring African-Americans and if applicable to other cultures out of this sort of second class citizen status that has been put on them by the racist white counterparts.

Anna Everett; The Revolution Will Be Digitized: AFROCENTRICITY AND

THE DIGITAL PUBLIC SPHERE. Social Text 1 June 2002; 20 (2 (71)): 125–146.

Noble, S. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: NYU Press 36-38.

Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new Jim code. Cambridge: Polity pg 23.

#wgst

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callistawolf · 7 years

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20 Followers You Would Like To Get To Know Better

I was tagged by both @fogsblue and @develish1 and because I love them so and they are some of my earliest fandom friends, I will appease the meme gods and do this one.

Name: let’s just call me Calli (tho my real name isn’t really a secret...)

Nickname: callistawolf (everywhere and for years and years and years I’ve lost the ability to think up other screenames)

Gender: Female

Star Sign: Sagittarius

Sexual Orientation: Straight

Hogwarts House: Pottermore says it’s Gryffindor but I feel like I’m more Hufflepuff. Maybe I’m a combo?

Favorite Color: PURPLE

Favorite Animal: as a pet, cats, but I do love dogs too. I’m also fond of peacocks and foxes and wolves.

Time Right Now: 1:07pm

Average Hours of Sleep: 7. That’s rather boring (and healthy)

Cat or Dog Person: I think we established this already... I’m more a cat person.

Favorite Fictional Characters: Felicity Smoak, obvs. Oliver Queen but only on Arrow, the comics Ollie is a douche (sorry fans of comics Ollie!). Rose Tyler. Tenth Doctor. Anne Shirley. Princess/General Leia Organa,

Number of Blankets I Sleep With: this changes by the season, but right now 2, if you count a top sheet. 1 if you don’t. 0 if you don’t count down comforters.

Favorite Singer/Band: Hard... I really like Imagine Dragons and OneRepublic.

Dream Trip: I have a couple. I’d like to go to Europe, visit a lot of the sites from WWII (particularly those visited by Easy Company). I’d also like to go to New Zealand and do the whole LOTR thing there. Also: pretty much any cruise. I love cruising.

Dream Job: Writer. That should be obvious.

When was this blog created: April 29, 2012 (I believe this was my first post)

Current Number of Followers: i’m not saying (I don’t believe the # matters, tbh, but some do and I’d like to just... avoid that)

When did your blog reach its peak: I am awful at paying attention to such things. I think it ebbs and flows.

What made you decide to get tumblr: I was just discovering the mighty world of fandom, mostly through searching for fic of Doctor/Rose. Fanfic searches led me to Tumblr and I thought “huh, I should make a blog.” So I did. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#about me #20 person meme #except I didn't tag anyone #cuz I hate asking people to do things #my social anxiety goes NO

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