technological oppression and the black race?
Posted by learningleads on April 16, 2008
I found Martin Kevorkian’s Color Monitors: the black face of technology of america to be intriguing but somewhat skewed. His argument is grounded in the premise that movies and advertising depict black men as skilled workers of technology, thereby (inadvertently?) reinforcing their positions of weakness through enslavement to computers.
The first point I had difficulty reconciling was the idea that navigating computers with such skills is anything but progressive. And as one who works closely with developers to create the courseware that is helping to train our military, I found his delineation of roles in corporate America insulting.
I will admit that I had never considered or recognized the logic behind casting black figures as slaves to technology, and I found some of Kevorkian’s explanations contradictory. For example, in Die Hard, he describes the white man’s role as one of heroic action in contrast to the black man’s passivity, but later uses Independence Day to reinforce his argument. Despite the role of the black technician in this example, the prevailing images I have of this film’s characters entail Jeff Goldblum as the computer whiz and Wil Smith as the action hero. Yet this casting, however obviously contradictory, is not addressed.
I may be naive or simply lack perspective, but I don’t think attempts to display diversity are hidden agendas to advance white interest. Despite Kevorkian’s extensive discussion of a black man’s automated voice in AT&T, there are (to my understanding) more Caucasian recordings (today I called CVS pharmacy and the other day I called for my 401k, neither of which were black voices, and I can only say that I don’t recall a black automated voice recording, which reinforces the idea that such examples are selective) and despite this, the argument is not made that the Caucasion voice displays the white man’s loss of identity to the computer. I’m inclined to think diversity in any casting–whether it’s an automated voice system, a narrator in a simulation, or an advertisement–is an attempt at equality, not dehumanization.
