Ending The White Wash When Most Blacks Think the Computer and The Internet is The White Mans Toy!!!
Ending the white-wash
Feeling 'blinded by the white' on the Internet? African Americans are, and they are working to create a more diversified cyberworld. Get ready to chuck those shades.
By Erin English August 2, 1996
Growing up, Elton Ghee heard it all the time: if you want to hide something from a black person, put it in a book.
Today the co-founder of Black Pioneers of the Net still hears it -- substitute "the Net" for "book" and you'll get the idea.
African Americans and other minorities see computers and the Internet as "a white man's toy," Ghee says. And they're not surfing. The statistics are grim: worldwide, a scant 1.3 percent of Internet users are African
The problem? "If you are a minority and you don't care about the information superhighway, you will be waiting around for the Sunday paper classifieds and [everyone else] will be online," Ghee says. "You're already behind."
But it may take some time. Ghee, for one, says African Americans would discover the Internet faster if only Michael Jordan would promote it instead of tennis shoes.
The problem is a complex one: part money, part lack of interest, part a misunderstanding of the benefits. Money is certainly an issue, particularly in inner-city schools who often lack the funds to even buy new no.2 pencils. But some African American's s
Black, white or otherwise, people are not jumping on the Internet unless they really understand how it can make their life better. Living and breathing in Silicon Valley for most of my life, I knew I would buy a computer, or two, someday. But for an Afri
And some of those who do surf the net do it for the wrong reasons, like escaping racism. A case in point: AutoWeb Interactive, a virtual storefront where consumers haggle to their hearts content and set a purchase price before going in person to pick up
So much for equality.
If the demographics doesn't even out, what we will have is a situation of "haves and have-nots," Ghee says. A kid who pulls information from CD-ROMs and the Internet for a research paper most likely will attain a better grade than someone who trudges to
Taking a glass is half full approach, I have to hope the Internet will soon be the worst place to hide anything. For all of our sakes.
Ending The White Wash When Most Blacks Think the Computer and The Internet is The White Mans Toy!!!
