At the beginning of my
presentation during our last formal class meeting, I initiated my discussion with
a YouTube comment that presented a necessity to transform these intensive theoretical
discussions we have, within the confines of academia, into practice. Several
weeks ago, in our reading entitled “The Virtual Barrio @ The Global Frontier,”
Guillermo Gómez-Peña beautifully interrogated how the web has been represented
in a seamless utopian fashion at some academic conferences, despite the degrading,
traumatic experiences oppressed groups have undergone within the medium and in
the making of new technologies (as detailed by Lisa Nakamura).[1]
In this trajectory of my favorite readings during the past few weeks, Safiya
Umoja Noble’s chapter, “Searching for Black Girls” expands on how oppressed groups
(specifically Black women and girls) have been demeaned by Google’s algorithm. Noble
further describes how representatives of Google fail to assume accountability
despite removing immediate offensive images, mainly during times in which critical
tweets have gone viral (damage control?).[2]
Additionally, Noble describes how Tanya
Golash Boza argues that “critical race scholarship should expand the boundaries
of simply marking where racialization and injustice occur but also must press
the boundaries of public policy,” emphasizing the necessity to translate extensive
discussions into practice.[3]
In my discussion on how some Black queer web series forums may serve as an
example of a queer operating system in practice, I primarily focused on how these
critical concepts may be materialized outside of our space of discussion. Specifically
focusing on the space of discourse, I find it interesting that many of our discussions
(in this class and others) focus on structural issues related to oppressed
groups; however, the ambitions of this emphasis do not translate into
significant changes within SCA. Perhaps one of the most recurring noteworthy cases
surrounds the undergraduate course “Introduction to Cinema”. Although recent
discourse around the John Wayne exhibit and its endorsement of White supremacy
that maligns innumerable oppressed groups has recently gained some level of
institutional recognition, it’s interesting how the large Intro to Cinema class,
which functions as the face of the Department among many inquisitive freshmen,
has consistently embodied Wayne’s philosophy. For example, during a recent lecture,
D.W. Griffith was described as a “good man” and was applauded for his
contributions without any interrogation of his harmful representation that
literally stimulated the three-fold rise of the Ku Klux Klan and murder of many
Black citizens. There are infinite examples in this course and beyond (some cases are
far worse...can save for the comments). How in the world can we discuss changing institutions beyond the realm of
academia if a significant change cannot even be made within our own Department (over several decades)?
--Kam
[1] Guillermo Gómez-Peña, “The Virtual Barrio
@ The Other Frontier,” in Electronic Media and Technoculture, ed. J
Caldwell (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008); Lisa Nakamura, “Indigenous
Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic Manufacture,” American
Quarterly 66, no. 4 (2014): 919–41.
[2] Safiya Umoja Noble, Algorithms of
Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (New York, NY: NYU Press,
2018).
[3] Noble, 80; Tanya Golash-Boza, “A Critical
and Comprehensive Sociological Theory of Race and Racism,” Sociology of Race
and Ethnicity 2, no. 2 (2016): 129–41.
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