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Changes between Version 3 and Version 4 of techies_of_color

Timestamp:: Aug 17, 2010, 6:37:18 PM (15 years ago)
Author:: alfredo
Comment:: --

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techies_of_color

-              v3
+              v4
 No other program of this type exists in this country.
+The Importance of the Internet
 The converging crises in the major capitalist economies, the precarious state of the world environment, the political crisis in government in so many of the world's countries and the usurpation of government authority by international banks and committess have brought humanity to a point of urgency and increasing certainty that something must be done to save humanity.
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 The Problem
 There is one weakness in this promising picture: techies, the Internet's leaders, are mainly white men. This means that, while people of color can do a lot on the Internet, the backbone (and the power to control and maintain the technology) is in the hands of white people.
+There is one serious flaw in this promising picture, particularly in the United States: techies, the Internet's leaders, are mainly white men. This means that, while people of color can do a lot on the Internet, the machines that serve the Internet, the software that runs it and the power and ability to control and maintain the technology is in the hands of white people.
 The problems this creates threaten the movement's successful use of technology and the marrying of technology with the movement's organizing work.
+This general problem is inherited by the progressive movement and, while progressive techies frequently lament the situation, not very much is being done about it.
 To characterize and under the dimensions of the problem:
+The problems emerging threaten the movement's successful use of technology and the marrying of technology with the movement's organizing work: the movement's two political priorities in dealing with the Internet.
+-- This lack of representation is actually a lack of empowerment and since white people control the technology, the important contributions people of color make in combatting racism, raising issues that are hidden by color, diversifying the "recipient" population and so much else simply doesn't get to the Internet's techie population.
+To characterize and understand the dimensions of the problem:
+-- Software development is never geared to people of color and techies do the software development
+-- This lack of representation is actually a lack of empowerment. Since white people control the technology at the operative and managerial level, the important contributions people of color make in combatting racism, raising issues that are hidden by color, diversifying the "recipient" population and so much else simply doesn't "get" to the Internet's techies and users as it could and should.
 -- Far too little effort is made among techies in this country to combat technology barriers that keep people of color off-line, a situation that would definitely improve if there were more techies of color.
+-- Software development is never geared to people of color. Since techies do the software development, that software frequently does not incorporate of the true needs, culture, generalized perceptions and stages of development that exist within communities of color. This is true at the planning stages up to the testing stages which is also frequently done mainly by white people.
+-- The necessary and politically powerful collaborations among techies from various countries and parts of the world are crippled by the lack of background diversity among US-based techies. It's difficult to truly develop a collaboration when the US techies are all white and, what's more, any collaboration devbeloped is crippled because, in the end, white culture is not the entire US culture.
+-- Far too little effort is made among techies in this country to combat technology barriers that keep people of color off-line (what was once called "the digital divide"), a situation that would definitely improve if there were more techies of color. While it is true that many young people of color now use the Internet in this country, that use has not crossed generational lines as it has with the majority communities.
+-- The Internet is, of course, a world phenomenon and one of its greatest contributions is uniting the world through its communication. The necessary and politically powerful collaborations among techies from various countries and parts of the world are crippled by the lack of background diversity among US-based techies. It's difficult to truly develop a collaboration when the US techies are all white and not reflective of the entire US culture.
+What Do We Do?
 The simple solution is to bring techies of color into the progressive movement's techie activities and that would be eminently possible if there were techies of color. But that is the second part of the problem.
 Internet activists of color are traditionally mired in a disempowering situation when it comes to technology. Most activists who use the Internet are dependent on proprietary "social networking" software and websites built for them that they know how to use but don't know how to fix or expand. The activists whose skills go beyond that are sometimes familiar with "content creation" software like web creation packages (e.g. WordPress) but are completely ignorant of the software and processes that actually run a server.
+Internet activists of color are traditionally mired in a disempowering situation when it comes to technology. Most activists who use the Internet are dependent on proprietary "social networking" software and websites built for them that they know how to use but don't know how to fix or expand. The activists whose skills go beyond that are sometimes familiar with "content creation" software like web creation packages (e.g. WordPress) but are usually completely ignorant of the software and processes that actually run a server.
 In that state, organizations of color (and individual activists of color) are universally beholden to white technnologists to run their servers and other infra-structure and, while it's not immediately apparently, this puts the communications of all movements of color in the hands of people who are white. In the long term, this is extremely harmful to everyone, to all movements and to the ability of our movements to work with the Internet and with each other using its technology.
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 -- People of color are not given the same opportunities and access as white people. Since the technology is in white hands, it serves to reason that it will remain there as techies share tasks with people they know and trust.
 -- We don't get training. Because no techie training program exists specifically for people of color.
+-- We don't get training. Because no techie training program exists specifically for people of color and training programs reflect a predictable bias in their development and conceptualization. And they are intimidating since most white trainees start with many advantages.
 -- The Internet has, in fact, been slower in introduction into Third World communities and this "digital divide" (as it was once called) is systemically linked to the absence of techies of color since the presence of the technology in his or her community is a techie's first encounter with it.
 -- The "techie Culture" that has grown around technologists' functioning and interactions with each other.  The technology and the Internet community itself reflects white culture in almost every way and because these interactions are so intense the cultural imprint is that much sharper and vivid. Techies of color would find self-introduction in that culture very difficult and intimidating.
+-- The "techie Culture" that has grown around technologists' functioning and interactions with each other reflects white culture in virtually every way.  Because interactions among techies are so intense the cultural imprint is that much sharper and vivid. Techies of color would find self-introduction in that culture very difficult and intimidating.
+-- The focus of political techie work is out of step with the usage patterns and identified needs of activists of color. For instance, the techie movement's stress on vfree and open source software contradicts the dependency by most activists of color on such social networking tools as Face Book. Such dependencies are, in fact, extremely damanging and dangerous and techies have been able to argue that successfully within much of the mass white movement. But the divide between techies and the movements are color make that argument must more difficult and even viewed with suspicion.
+-- The focus of political techie work is out of step with the usage patterns and identified needs of activists of color. For instance, the techie movement's stress on free and open source software contradicts the dependency by most activists of color on such social networking tools as Face Book. Such dependencies are, in fact, extremely damanging and dangerous and techies have been able to argue that successfully within much of the mass white movement. But the divide between techies and the movements are color make that argument must more difficult and even viewed with suspicion.
+A note of major importance here: for the most part, progressive techies who are white are not oblivious to this point. In fact, as the recent United States Techie Congress outcomes demonstrate, progressive techies consider the struggle against racism in technology to be an absolute priority. They are allies of this struggle; not the targets.
 Goals
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 After a one year program of intense on the job training with constant support from a fully qualified "mentor", the trainee will be proficient enough to actually run Linux servers, perform installations, diagnostics and upgrades, maintain the server system and
 The trainee will also have benefitted from a full year of intense discussion and reflection on the political significance of his/her work, the issues a progressive techie confronts and the problem of relating to ot5her ac5tivists and how to deal with those problems.
+The trainee will also have benefited from a full year of intense discussion and reflection on the political significance of his/her work, the issues a progressive techie confronts and the problem of relating to ot5her ac5tivists and how to deal with those problems.