Skip to main content

Should You Racialize the Internet for Social Change and Community?

By Literacy 'n' Poverty Project
Mozilla has launched Blackbird, a web browser created for African-Americans. The browser filters searches, networks, and websites to bring African-American related content and acts as a network for African-Americans to connect and highlight African-American charities.

My gut reaction is that this browser is created to make money for advertisers. African-Americans are projected to have over $1 trillion in purchasing power by 2012 so anyone who can get this groups attention will certainly see profits. Additionally for the 85% of African-American web users who prefer African-American related content this browser does all of the filtering and searching that they may not have the time or savvy to do.

At the same time, if we recognize that the Internet has revolutionized how we learn and interact with the world around us there is something unsettling about limiting content to solely focus on an ethnic group. And who gets the privilege of selecting what exactly is African-American content? What if I am interested in something that doesn't have a high African-American following or focus, will that info not be shown?

The only aspect of this browser that stands out is its Give Back function (coming soon) which will provide greater visibility for African-American community based organizations. But couldn't that have been a website instead of a browser? And wouldn't it help to have the visibility of African-American charities grow among all groups of people?

The goal of building community and social change seem lost by having a separate browser since change is not possible in isolation.

What are your thoughts?

This post was written by Allison Jones, a development and communications professional in New York City and volunteer blogger with the Literacy 'n' Poverty Project. She is a writer, advocate, and educator focusing on empowering young people to change the world. Please leave your comments or email ajlovesya@gmail.com.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the Literacy Rate of the US?

By Literacy 'n' Poverty Project
The World Factbook , prepared by the CIA , states that the US literacy rate is around 99%. This means that around 3 million people in America are unable to functionally read and write . That is equivalent to the entire population of Mongolia! As if those numbers weren’t enough to make you sit up and think, there is some dispute about the 99% - the actual figure could be lower, depending on the various definitions of literacy used. Jonathan Kozol, in his book ‘Illiterate America’ states that the government based the 99% literacy rate on interviews and written responses to Census Bureau mailings from a small portion of the population. Of that portion, if the responders or interviewees had completed fifth grade they were considered literate. About 5% had not completed fifth grade , but 80% of those were subsequently considered literate, and so the Bureau reached a conclusion of a 99% literacy rate. In 1993 a new study was released . Over 5 years, and $14 million spent ( the largest lite
1 comment
Read more

We Stopped Blogging and Got Serious About Our Future

By Chanelle
It's been over four months since we last posted to this blog! While it breaks our heart to have been out of touch for so long, we had good reason. You see, our blog is run by volunteers of the Literacy 'n' Poverty Project. LnP is a social initiative I started that addresses multiple aspects of literacy - health, reading, writing and financial - to empower the poor and low-income adults to lift themselves up out of poverty . But, if you've been keeping up with our blog which we know you all have :), you can see that adult education has not been the focus. And rightfully so. How We Got Started Make Social Change A Reality was created as a venue to discuss various issues concerning the broader concept of social change from the environment to women's issues to healthcare to youth development . As a startup with goals of becoming an international social enterprise, we felt that y'all deserved a place of your own to learn, engage and share information and resources
4 comments
Read more

The Meaning of Social Change

By Literacy 'n' Poverty Project
All around us, there are changes happening; the calendar changed from 2008 to 2009, a new president was elected, and for many us, we have decided to do things differently and make changes in our diet, our lifestyles, or in our overall well being. Social change is something that I plan to be involved with this year in many different ways: volunteering , reading, attending events and sharing ideas. Social change means different things to different people. To me, social change means being involved in making things better for your community. Doing something instead of just saying something. Raising money instead of just donating to a cause. Working with others to make sure that the change we desire is attainable. I have been involved with a variety of organizations that make social change a focus of their organization. This is important to me because I am a firm believer that through social change and helping each other and supporting one another, we as a people can right all
Post a Comment
Read more