User would go to download a game demo or something, receive pieces from several different places, and knit them together? Wish I could recall the company's name.
the network is called usenet and the company was just broken up by the government.
Under their modernization efforts the plan is to convert *all* apps to linux. Most of the flagship software, used for day to day ops is running on linux already. Unfortunately the desktops are still Win98 using xwin clients, or just straight X window terminals at the desk (at the Silver Spring,MD office anyway).
I am working on something called the NDFD (national digital forecast database) and that is being developed purely on linux.
The race thing drove me into a 5 threshold and cured me of my/. addiction. Big ups Taco, I commend your candidness and honesty.
Here's something that I found to be very interesting. It is an article by a caucasian professor of journalism at UT.
WHITE PRIVILEGE SHAPES THE U.S.
Robert Jensen
Department of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
work: (512) 471-1990
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Robert William Jensen 1998
first appeared in the Baltimore Sun, July 19, 1998
by Robert Jensen
Here's what white privilege sounds like:
I am sitting in my University of Texas office, talking to a very bright and very conservative white student about affirmative action in college admissions, which he opposes and I support.
The student says he wants a level playing field with no unearned advantages for anyone. I ask him whether he thinks that in the United States being white has advantages. Have either of us, I ask, ever benefited from being white in a world run mostly by white people? Yes, he concedes, there is something real and tangible we could call white privilege.
So, if we live in a world of white privilege--unearned white privilege--how does that affect your notion of a level playing field? I ask.
He paused for a moment and said, "That really doesn't matter."
That statement, I suggested to him, reveals the ultimate white privilege: the privilege to acknowledge you have unearned privilege but ignore what it means.
That exchange led me to rethink the way I talk about race and racism with students. It drove home to me the importance of confronting the dirty secret that we white people carry around with us everyday: In a world of white privilege, some of what we have is unearned. I think much of both the fear and anger that comes up around discussions of affirmative action has its roots in that secret. So these days, my goal is to talk openly and honestly about white supremacy and white privilege.
White privilege, like any social phenomenon, is complex. In a white supremacist culture, all white people have privilege, whether or not they are overtly racist themselves. There are general patterns, but such privilege plays out differently depending on context and other aspects of one's identity (in my case, being male gives me other kinds of privilege). Rather than try to tell others how white privilege has played out in their lives, I talk about how it has affected me.
I am as white as white gets in this country. I am of northern European heritage and I was raised in North Dakota, one of the whitest states in the country. I grew up in a virtually all-white world surrounded by racism, both personal and institutional. Because I didn't live near a reservation, I didn't even have exposure to the state's only numerically significant non-white population, American Indians.
I have struggled to resist that racist training and the ongoing racism of my culture. I like to think I have changed, even though I routinely trip over the lingering effects of that internalized racism and the institutional racism around me. But no matter how much I "fix" myself, one thing never changes--I walk through the world with white privilege.
What does that mean? Perhaps most importantly, when I seek admission to a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an apartment, I don't look threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating me for those things look like me--they are white. They see in me a reflection of themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I am white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice critical opinions, I am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.
My flaws also are more easily forgiven because I am white. Some complain that affirmative action has meant the university is saddled with mediocre minority professors. I have no doubt there are minority faculty who are mediocre, though I don't know very many. As Henry Louis Gates Jr. once pointed out, if affirmative action policies were in place for the next hundred years, it's possible that at the end of that time the university could have as many mediocre minority professors as it has mediocre white professors. That isn't meant as an insult to anyone, but is a simple observation that white privilege has meant that scores of second-rate white professors have slid through the system because their flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on race, as well as on gender, class and ideology.
Some people resist the assertions that the United States is still a bitterly racist society and that the racism has real effects on real people. But white folks have long cut other white folks a break. I know, because I am one of them.
I am not a genius--as I like to say, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I have been teaching full-time for six years, and I've published a reasonable amount of scholarship. Some of it is the unexceptional stuff one churns out to get tenure, and some of it, I would argue, actually is worth reading. I work hard, and I like to think that I'm a fairly decent teacher. Every once in awhile, I leave my office at the end of the day feeling like I really accomplished something. When I cash my paycheck, I don't feel guilty.
But, all that said, I know I did not get where I am by merit alone. I benefited from, among other things, white privilege. That doesn't mean that I don't deserve my job, or that if I weren't white I would never have gotten the job. It means simply that all through my life, I have soaked up benefits for being white. I grew up in fertile farm country taken by force from non-white indigenous people. I was educated in a well-funded, virtually all-white public school system in which I learned that white people like me made this country great. There I also was taught a variety of skills, including how to take standardized tests written by and for white people.
All my life I have been hired for jobs by white people. I was accepted for graduate school by white people. And I was hired for a teaching position at the predominantly white University of Texas, which had a white president, in a college headed by a white dean and in a department with a white chairman that at the time had one non-white tenured professor.
There certainly is individual variation in experience. Some white people have had it easier than me, probably because they came from wealthy families that gave them even more privilege. Some white people have had it tougher than me because they came from poorer families. White women face discrimination I will never know. But, in the end, white people all have drawn on white privilege somewhere in their lives.
Like anyone, I have overcome certain hardships in my life. I have worked hard to get where I am, and I work hard to stay there. But to feel good about myself and my work, I do not have to believe that "merit," as defined by white people in a white country, alone got me here. I can acknowledge that in addition to all that hard work, I got a significant boost from white privilege, which continues to protect me every day of my life from certain hardships.
At one time in my life, I would not have been able to say that, because I needed to believe that my success in life was due solely to my individual talent and effort. I saw myself as the heroic American, the rugged individualist. I was so deeply seduced by the culture's mythology that I couldn't see the fear that was binding me to those myths. Like all white Americans, I was living with the fear that maybe I didn't really deserve my success, that maybe luck and privilege had more to do with it than brains and hard work. I was afraid I wasn't heroic or rugged, that I wasn't special.
I let go of some of that fear when I realized that, indeed, I wasn't special, but that I was still me. What I do well, I still can take pride in, even when I know that the rules under which I work in are stacked in my benefit. I believe that until we let go of the fiction that people have complete control over their fate--that we can will ourselves to be anything we choose--then we will live with that fear. Yes, we should all dream big and pursue our dreams and not let anyone or anything stop us. But we all are the product both of what we will ourselves to be and what the society in which we live lets us be.
White privilege is not something I get to decide whether or not I want to keep. Every time I walk into a store at the same time as a black man and the security guard follows him and leaves me alone to shop, I am benefiting from white privilege. There is not space here to list all the ways in which white privilege plays out in our daily lives, but it is clear that I will carry this privilege with me until the day white supremacy is erased from this society.
Frankly, I don't think I will live to see that day; I am realistic about the scope of the task. However, I continue to have hope, to believe in the creative power of human beings to engage the world honestly and act morally. A first step for white people, I think, is to not be afraid to admit that we have benefited from white privilege. It doesn't mean we are frauds who have no claim to our success. It means we face a choice about what we do with our success.
Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism in the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
That is something that I have often heard uttered out of the mouths of some people that I consider very wise.
After reading the essay, and then the highly moderated responses, that saying came to mind.
Katz made a decent observation. Some people got offended so they in turn tried or have offended him, in spades no less.
I think he only meant to generate or provoke thought on the subject matter. He may not meet the standards of all in viewing distance of his piece, but he sure did get your attention, slashboxes and all!
Anything you are capable of is a God given right.
Take it light.
I have only one quesiton for this guy...
on
Salon on the XBox
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· Score: 1
So should we give up on virtual reality, or any other graphics intensive UI?
I can only presume that the testing and analysis groups will draw two conclusions:
1 - More reliable equipment/software is needed.
2 - Only one soldier per unit should be outfitted as such (ie; radio operator) unless it is a pure intelligence gathering mission (Of course you can still commit overkill here too).
If they do not draw these concluions one can then only presume than any able minded commnader will trash this shit if they are ever commanding real troops in a "real" battle.
You have IMHO gone to the crux of the matter. I applaud you. But to me the next question is so what?
Because of this, we face severe restrictions in our net freedom driven by the music and media companies.
On the surface this is logical but take a step back. This country was founded with a "thumbing your nose at the status quo" mentality. Although it may have not been a pure and unified movement it was illegal(at the time) and effective. Another foundation of this great land of ours is capitalism. There is one rule of capitalism that I think must be immutable: some one must lose. Why not some huge, uninspired, and hugely inflexible, companies?
An example may be companies who have practiced illegal hiring. They have effectively endangered(with govt. involvment) lots of other companies that are selective for what may arguably be "good" reasons. Society as viewed by me is uncaring. So it would not to appear to be about right or wrong. Apparently there are lots of people that like trading mp3s. Are they all pirates?
If the record companies lose money or go belly up, who cares. Would they care if I lost my job? Certainly not. Is it their problem? I doubt it.
So it is the record companies problem that people do not appreciate their services and if given an option they opt not to support them monetarily.
Intel got shafted in the memory war with the Japanese memory companies an had to reinvent themselves. Maybe the big five need to get another business model, reinvent themselves, and get over it.
I know this may seem radical but maintaining the status quo is a hazardous occupation. The other side has a star talent and it's called the universe. That's the thing about change, as we see it, it doesn't need us!
The question is simple but I am sure the answer is not: Now that you are in your latter years and you look back on what you and many others have accomplished do you think that any "real" progress was made as a species?
To qualify it I'll expand a bit. I have noticed that there are always gropus and individuals that don't agree when it comes to science, be they for or against, in or out. That is not what concerns me. I am none of these. I simply realize that language and actions bind individual lives and humanity as a whole to a "certain" number of tracks, so to speak(in a physical sense anyway). I have also come to realize that as people age they began to see things differently than when they were more "active" in worldly affairs, or at least think about different things more (I have a few newly formed "wind bag" uncles that were real pitbulls in their younger years). I am really interested in your response. I don't think you are a windbag *smile*.
Thank you for your time.
Genes v. Memes and the Ultimate Memeplex
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Planet Gattaca
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· Score: 1
I am going to play a bit of the devil's advocate here (no pun intended).
Religion is just about as old as man, maybe even the same age or older. Let me qualify this. We are all familiar w/the black box limitations as so eloqunently stated in the "God" joke, but religion has always compensated for this and thus will always be with us in some form or another (I can expand on this but I won't it would be an infinite digress;-)).
I think the thing that Katz might not understand, and I may be wrong about him, is that there are lots of people that "think" about religion a lot more than other people (myself included). Some of these people are very intelligent, smart, clever (or whatever you mental qualifier maybe) and have an uncanny habit of adapting their doctrine read memeplex to whatever "life" (I love this!) throws at it.
Genetic manipulation has only just begun while memetic manipulation has had quite a head start. So yes there will be some tough questions to be answered but most cutting edge theologists have already dealt with these issues and are up to the task of dealing with the "man creating life" scenario. Like anything else the sensationalists get most of the media attention in spite of the fact that there are going to be people that have a doctrine for the kid that has the recipe for life.
Now I am neither for or against religion it is a tool as are computers. It was here before I arrived and will be here when I am ->/dev/null. Nothing is good or bad until we get a hold of it and then history must make it's judgement.
Right now we can speculate about the good or evil of genetic manipulation but I think the actaul debate is over human nature and trust.
First of all the article calls Rational software a "tools rival." Hhmmm.... I wonder how you can be a rival and a be in a strategic alliance at the same time? This allaince was started back in 1996 and renewed July of this year.
My take: They have a vested in interest in Microsoft surviving its probelms intact. Rational's website tauts MS as a "powerhouse" in the industry and refers to this as a "Good Thing" TM. Rational Software will be able to develop J++ along the same lines as Microsoft but w/o all the "restarints." Back to square one Sun.
The Allied forces were indeed ingenious in many ways when it came to the WWII intel struggles but I think the Germans were equally adept. The special and some of the comments touched on the deciding factor: the ineptness of the enigma operators. The one reason given that struck me as extremely interesting was that there was an overall "mythical" belief that the Germans themselves believed and propagated that they were so advanced that the enigma couldn't be broken even if they did stupid things. It was a war! Paranoia I think may have been just a bit appropriate in this case. Not clinging to standard modes of thinking may have helped too. The guy that used the beginning of his name and his girlfriends name as the three character set reminds me of so many people that I just had to chuckle.
But again the irony is if it weren't for their "mental laziness" then enigma may actually have not been broken. Every time the Germans shifted protocols the Allies of Bletchley Park were left in the "dark," until another of human natuers follies crept back into the forefront of someone's conciousness.
If the Germans had realized their failings, they definitely would have turned things around.
For all of you that have read "All Tomorrow's Parties?" (It's William Gibson's new novel.) Does this remind you it just a bit?
When I read that Bill Gates respectfully disagreed with the court It immedaitely made me think of Cody Harwood. Anyone else think Harwood was a spoof of Gates? B ->C & G ->H. Hhmmm.
If Gibson did have Gates in mind that would be a riot and visionary to say the least. Nothing lasts forever.
I think Roblimo is well intentioned and even made his speculations out to be lighthearted which is admirable. It's not that I don't agree with him, I just think it is a pretty myopic view of the world. I have found this to be pretty prevalent on/..
I don't think only/.ers or net geeks, etc. are the only perpetrators of this folly of elitism. Any time you get a group of people together that share something in common (and it could be really mundane and basic like nice clothes in high school.) and then you add someone or some people that don't "go along" w/what is viewed as the way to be and the latter are ostracized. Of course there are exceptions to the rules but from what I have experienced it's pretty common. It's funny how so many people have treating each other like shit in common because they are different! Weird huh?
I have seen it in religion, scholarly pursuits, occupation, financial standing, race, gender... I think you all get the point.
So it's not a matter of who's smart and who's dumb. Nothing excels in every environment. I may be a genius in the here and now but in some other time or place I may get my throat slit for being a complete dumbass!
I know my post is late but it was a media blackout weekend. For those of you that don't do it you should maybe think about trying it sometime.
Oh and for those of you that don't get my dry humor, the subject is *sarcasm* at it's worst. My apologies.
Judging from some of the comments (no I didn't read every single one but the ones that were moderated up were pretty ridiculous) no one has anything intelligent to say.
First of all has any of you ever been to the Library of Congress? Last time I checked they get every book that is published in the world within hours of its publishing. That alone would make DC the information capital of the country if not the world. If you include the embassies and museums a pattern starts to form. Being wired would only be an extension of that.
Contrary to popular milita rhetoric "real people" do live in DC. And guess what most of then are from somwhere else originally or at least one or two generations removed.
We have lots of jokes about you guys (the tourists) that make the tech jokes against newbies seem docile.
And to be a little more informative DC is really considered the Metropolitan Area including Northern VA and parts of MD. So then that would mean that the majority of the backbone providers actually exist in relative close proximity to DC. Hmmm... wonder why DC is the most wired city?
Of course you all send your scummiest state residents here to represent you and then you rag on are our city because we have to live with your unwanted. What's the point?
Not to mention the fact that we are taxed and yet have no vote in congress. Damn, I thought that was taxation w/o repersentation? No it's not says your reps, "DC can't be self-suffecient it's our playground!" That sucks. I know I am rambling and ranting but this shit is ridiculous anytime someone or something gets props that doesn't fit the tech status quo they/it gets raked over the coals on/. But then I read all these posts about how high the average intelligence on/. is. I beg to differ. I bet it looks just like a plain old bell curve.
If you can't tell I have been totally Offended (once again).
Maybe it's because I just finished reading Ubik by Philip K. Dick and Natural Law by Robert A. Wilson, but this article struck me as bing tailored for a "certain" audience. Which is leading me somewhere that we don't need to really go. The one thing that made it cool was the percieved intent and the Freud thing at the end.
ANYway. I have a question. I have noticed that lots of people derive their "pride" and/or "confidence" from ego tripping which usually leads to bashing people that are not like them. Ism skisms I believe is the term.
The question? Oh yeah right. Why do so many people have to feel like they are right?
Is that a condition (yeah I know two questions, jail me!)?
I need not argue or try to convince you of anything. Yelling that you know something to be true and it actually being true is the slight point that many miss in life. The world sociopolitical situation is more complex than the world economy. Armchair sociologists/economists/psychologists such as yourselves should actually cringe at what you don't know. "I have black friends." "I know this one black person that..." Please, spare us all the gross show of your stupidity. It's not just about the internet it is about information and knowledge and these can be withheld. It is wisdom that comes freely from the individual and I think many/.ers need to start getting their fair share.
I'll probably regret even bothering but here goes...
I once read an interview of Larry Wall in which he talked about "glue people"." Well I am definitely one of those people in the worst way. Never fear I enjoy it. I will not place a string of qualifications either. You are just going to have to trust me.;-)
When I saw the the title to this article I immediately tensed. Would/. piss me off once again with the "I know it all because I have a clue about 'puters attitude?" Well needless to say in the most predictable fashion I was not disappointed.
If you think of a network running all types of hardware and software connecting all manners of people doing all manners of things you realize a subtle complexity there that has been utilized by way of protocols. I think that many on/. lack social protocols and thus have no clue.
I need not argue or try to convince you of anything. Yelling that you know something to be true and it actually being true is the slight point that many miss in life.
The sociopolitical situation is more complex than the U.S. economy. Armchair sociologists such as yourselves should actually cringe at what you don't know. "I have black friends." "I know this one black person that..." Please, spare us all the gross show of your stupidity.
I am not sure who, but someone once said that our language aids in the dehumanization of people. Those Jews. Rednecks always... Blacks need to... Gross generalizations that only make the user more ignorant to what is going on around them.
Race, economics, gender, personality, those other people. What many/. readers are failing to realize is that the same things that disgust them about people and computers, read ignorance, is the exact same thing that they are guilty of. Sure not all of you are closet racists, or insensitive (yes insensitive, if you are a tough ass then go be tough and don't complain when the universe sh!ts on you!) morons, but there are quite a few or many they are the most vocal. See it's always hard to tell with these things. But they don't really concern me. It's the intelligent people that I know are out there that say nothing. Yes it is easy to ignore something if it doesn't affect you. But this will.
Here's a clue: Ask yourself how far you have gone out of your way to get someone to try Linux or to help them start using it. Now tell me the difference between that and helping someone become more technically savvy? Who was this person you helped? A friend, a girl you were interested in, a family member, or a complete stranger? What makes them different from some browned skinned person residing in America that was always interested in tech but did not know where to start?
It's not just about the internet it is about information and knowledge and these can be withheld. It is wisdom that comes freely from the individual and I think many/.ers need to start getting their fair share.
Too much of anything is not a Good Thing(TM). In retrospect of the Internet Addiction piece, who is willing to have the internet illegalized or moderated for them? Anytime I hear people justifying reasons to save people from themselves it gives me the shivers. Think. What else can we ban? Breathing kills you so let's all hold our breath. Whoops, still dying. Damn. Shit oxygen is bad for you for fscks sake. See anti-oxidants. So it is not about bad or good or what's more worse than what. Live and let live. Anything you are capable of is a God given right. This is a metaphor, but it serves it's purpose. Think about it.
Okay correct me if am wrong (well that goes w/o saying), but I always thought UNIX was the operating system and Unix/unix/*nix was a philosophy of taking a lot of small, useful, stable, configurable software tools and making them inter-useable (sp? or is it even a word?). Thereby empowering the user, developer, sysadmin,...
Now besides that I think that the argument is one of semantics and personal outlook. In other words people will say what they want. Linux and DOS are not even comparable, but definitions can be so subjective and tentative that it doesn't matter. Some argue that DOS is not even an OS but a collection of interrupts.
I can understand (given some of the personalities on this site) why some misunderstandings may cause as much confusion as they do, but people will derive what they want and assimilate it accordingly. Now I must stop before I digress into information theory (hhmmm..something to think about).
I will reply here since most of the replires seem to be pointed towards me.
Fisrt of all I said "minorities" and I was purposefully non-specific. Then I gave a scenario in which I was black (am I?).
Most of your arguments have all been heard before but I challenge you to deal w/the problem. Privilege causes tension in any social context. You may very well enjoy your privilege but then you create a very angry and very motivated "underclass." Militias come to mind for some odd reason (this is not about money it is about minorities). Anyway, In order to alleviate certain behaviors (ie; rebellion, ethnic cleansing, etc.) the haves "give" something to the have nadas. Well this may seem like a solution but it is not. I use the example of the middle class/.er whos parents can barely afford college but are considered middle class. That is unfortunate. Blind unsophisticated blanket solutions are indeed not a good idea. But fanning the flames is not either.
Most of you probably have not experienced violence in the extremes in your lives but it is avery real threat when you have hordes of have nadas. This may seem extreme but it is not in the countries where it is happening as we speak. Those peoples lives are not movies they die and suffer.
My point. Come up with better arguments other than regurgitating what has been handed down to you from the ill informed. As for the I don't want to see color folks; well neither do I, but that doesn't account for the rest of the in the closet (cowed by political correctness)racial sympathizers.
So no I agree it is not all about race it could be anything. It could be people who know how to code get better treatment than the rest of the world. Or people who excel at math that get treated poorly and are taken advantage of because they only make up a certain amount of the population. The sypmtoms of the problem are just that. If you think you have the answer I want to know what the fsck was the question?
I have purposely not quoted anyone and have tried to refrain from using rhetoric (you be the judge), but I will say that one day you may find yourself behind the 8ball. Would you want someone to care? Hasta...
Race does matter. A lot of people are screaming reverse racism but I say their logic is as flawed as racial profiling.
Firstly there is a preconceived notion that affirmative action's purpose is to favor minorities. Now let's take a look at that. I say it is a mechanism put in place to dilute the blatant disdain, misrepresentation, or just poor treatment of minorities. The fact that someone sees this as "favoring" shows me that they favor their "kind" (whatever they perceive that to be). Of course since most people who read/. are geniuses you all knew this anyway.
It would be careless of me to not discuss profiling in this context as well. If it is okay to pull me over because I am most likely to be a ditributor of narcotics, then by the same logic all white males between a certain age should be randomly given psyhiciatric analysis for serial and mass murdering tendencies.
Encouragement I think is more appropriate. I think that the people who don't have PCs now, will really love the idea of FREE SOFTWARE! Imagine that. I am willing to bet money that there are lots of little hackers out there just waiting for the chance to write FREE SOFTWARE.
If you don't want to encourage others to empower themsleves then at least shut up discouraging them.
Or is it you just love being l33t? 8-). Nothing excels in every environment.
I have always wondered about this when it came to science fiction: Is it art imitating life or life imitating art?
Do we do technical things because they are aesthetically pleasing or do these guys (Stephenson, Gibson, Sterling) have a certain way of percieveing things about society?
Slashdot Mirror
User would go to download a game demo or something, receive pieces from several different places, and knit them together? Wish I could recall the company's name.
the network is called usenet and the company was just broken up by the government.
Under their modernization efforts the plan is to convert *all* apps to linux. Most of the flagship software, used for day to day ops is running on linux already. Unfortunately the desktops are still Win98 using xwin clients, or just straight X window terminals at the desk (at the Silver Spring,MD office anyway).
I am working on something called the NDFD (national digital forecast database) and that is being developed purely on linux.
This stuff is beginning to tire me out.
*sigh*
The race thing drove me into a 5 threshold and cured me of my /. addiction. Big ups Taco, I commend your candidness and honesty.
Here's something that I found to be very interesting. It is an article by a caucasian professor of journalism at UT.
WHITE PRIVILEGE SHAPES THE U.S.
Robert Jensen
Department of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
work: (512) 471-1990
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Robert William Jensen 1998
first appeared in the Baltimore Sun, July 19, 1998
by Robert Jensen
Here's what white privilege sounds like:
I am sitting in my University of Texas office, talking to a very bright and very conservative white student about affirmative action in college admissions, which he opposes and I support.
The student says he wants a level playing field with no unearned advantages for anyone. I ask him whether he thinks that in the United States being white has advantages. Have either of us, I ask, ever benefited from being white in a world run mostly by white people? Yes, he concedes, there is something real and tangible we could call white privilege.
So, if we live in a world of white privilege--unearned white privilege--how does that affect your notion of a level playing field? I ask.
He paused for a moment and said, "That really doesn't matter."
That statement, I suggested to him, reveals the ultimate white privilege: the privilege to acknowledge you have unearned privilege but ignore what it means.
That exchange led me to rethink the way I talk about race and racism with students. It drove home to me the importance of confronting the dirty secret that we white people carry around with us everyday: In a world of white privilege, some of what we have is unearned. I think much of both the fear and anger that comes up around discussions of affirmative action has its roots in that secret. So these days, my goal is to talk openly and honestly about white supremacy and white privilege.
White privilege, like any social phenomenon, is complex. In a white supremacist culture, all white people have privilege, whether or not they are overtly racist themselves. There are general patterns, but such privilege plays out differently depending on context and other aspects of one's identity (in my case, being male gives me other kinds of privilege). Rather than try to tell others how white privilege has played out in their lives, I talk about how it has affected me.
I am as white as white gets in this country. I am of northern European heritage and I was raised in North Dakota, one of the whitest states in the country. I grew up in a virtually all-white world surrounded by racism, both personal and institutional. Because I didn't live near a reservation, I didn't even have exposure to the state's only numerically significant non-white population, American Indians.
I have struggled to resist that racist training and the ongoing racism of my culture. I like to think I have changed, even though I routinely trip over the lingering effects of that internalized racism and the institutional racism around me. But no matter how much I "fix" myself, one thing never changes--I walk through the world with white privilege.
What does that mean? Perhaps most importantly, when I seek admission to a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an apartment, I don't look threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating me for those things look like me--they are white. They see in me a reflection of themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I am white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice critical opinions, I am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.
My flaws also are more easily forgiven because I am white. Some complain that affirmative action has meant the university is saddled with mediocre minority professors. I have no doubt there are minority faculty who are mediocre, though I don't know very many. As Henry Louis Gates Jr. once pointed out, if affirmative action policies were in place for the next hundred years, it's possible that at the end of that time the university could have as many mediocre minority professors as it has mediocre white professors. That isn't meant as an insult to anyone, but is a simple observation that white privilege has meant that scores of second-rate white professors have slid through the system because their flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on race, as well as on gender, class and ideology.
Some people resist the assertions that the United States is still a bitterly racist society and that the racism has real effects on real people. But white folks have long cut other white folks a break. I know, because I am one of them.
I am not a genius--as I like to say, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I have been teaching full-time for six years, and I've published a reasonable amount of scholarship. Some of it is the unexceptional stuff one churns out to get tenure, and some of it, I would argue, actually is worth reading. I work hard, and I like to think that I'm a fairly decent teacher. Every once in awhile, I leave my office at the end of the day feeling like I really accomplished something. When I cash my paycheck, I don't feel guilty.
But, all that said, I know I did not get where I am by merit alone. I benefited from, among other things, white privilege. That doesn't mean that I don't deserve my job, or that if I weren't white I would never have gotten the job. It means simply that all through my life, I have soaked up benefits for being white. I grew up in fertile farm country taken by force from non-white indigenous people. I was educated in a well-funded, virtually all-white public school system in which I learned that white people like me made this country great. There I also was taught a variety of skills, including how to take standardized tests written by and for white people.
All my life I have been hired for jobs by white people. I was accepted for graduate school by white people. And I was hired for a teaching position at the predominantly white University of Texas, which had a white president, in a college headed by a white dean and in a department with a white chairman that at the time had one non-white tenured professor.
There certainly is individual variation in experience. Some white people have had it easier than me, probably because they came from wealthy families that gave them even more privilege. Some white people have had it tougher than me because they came from poorer families. White women face discrimination I will never know. But, in the end, white people all have drawn on white privilege somewhere in their lives.
Like anyone, I have overcome certain hardships in my life. I have worked hard to get where I am, and I work hard to stay there. But to feel good about myself and my work, I do not have to believe that "merit," as defined by white people in a white country, alone got me here. I can acknowledge that in addition to all that hard work, I got a significant boost from white privilege, which continues to protect me every day of my life from certain hardships.
At one time in my life, I would not have been able to say that, because I needed to believe that my success in life was due solely to my individual talent and effort. I saw myself as the heroic American, the rugged individualist. I was so deeply seduced by the culture's mythology that I couldn't see the fear that was binding me to those myths. Like all white Americans, I was living with the fear that maybe I didn't really deserve my success, that maybe luck and privilege had more to do with it than brains and hard work. I was afraid I wasn't heroic or rugged, that I wasn't special.
I let go of some of that fear when I realized that, indeed, I wasn't special, but that I was still me. What I do well, I still can take pride in, even when I know that the rules under which I work in are stacked in my benefit. I believe that until we let go of the fiction that people have complete control over their fate--that we can will ourselves to be anything we choose--then we will live with that fear. Yes, we should all dream big and pursue our dreams and not let anyone or anything stop us. But we all are the product both of what we will ourselves to be and what the society in which we live lets us be.
White privilege is not something I get to decide whether or not I want to keep. Every time I walk into a store at the same time as a black man and the security guard follows him and leaves me alone to shop, I am benefiting from white privilege. There is not space here to list all the ways in which white privilege plays out in our daily lives, but it is clear that I will carry this privilege with me until the day white supremacy is erased from this society.
Frankly, I don't think I will live to see that day; I am realistic about the scope of the task. However, I continue to have hope, to believe in the creative power of human beings to engage the world honestly and act morally. A first step for white people, I think, is to not be afraid to admit that we have benefited from white privilege. It doesn't mean we are frauds who have no claim to our success. It means we face a choice about what we do with our success.
Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism in the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
"With the results split between the EC and the people..."
Can someone please explain what the fsck this is suppose to mean?
"Hell is full of good intentions."
That is something that I have often heard uttered out of the mouths of some people that I consider very wise.
After reading the essay, and then the highly moderated responses, that saying came to mind.
Katz made a decent observation. Some people got offended so they in turn tried or have offended him, in spades no less.
I think he only meant to generate or provoke thought on the subject matter. He may not meet the standards of all in viewing distance of his piece, but he sure did get your attention, slashboxes and all!
Anything you are capable of is a God given right.
Take it light.
So should we give up on virtual reality, or any other graphics intensive UI?
Quantum::Superpositions
I can only presume that the testing and analysis groups will draw two conclusions:
1 - More reliable equipment/software is needed.
2 - Only one soldier per unit should be outfitted as such (ie; radio operator) unless it is a pure intelligence gathering mission (Of course you can still commit overkill here too).
If they do not draw these concluions one can then only presume than any able minded commnader will trash this shit if they are ever commanding real troops in a "real" battle.
You have IMHO gone to the crux of the matter. I applaud you. But to me the next question is so what?
Because of this, we face severe restrictions in our net freedom driven by the music and media companies.
On the surface this is logical but take a step back. This country was founded with a "thumbing your nose at the status quo" mentality. Although it may have not been a pure and unified movement it was illegal(at the time) and effective. Another foundation of this great land of ours is capitalism. There is one rule of capitalism that I think must be immutable: some one must lose. Why not some huge, uninspired, and hugely inflexible, companies?
An example may be companies who have practiced illegal hiring. They have effectively endangered(with govt. involvment) lots of other companies that are selective for what may arguably be "good" reasons. Society as viewed by me is uncaring. So it would not to appear to be about right or wrong. Apparently there are lots of people that like trading mp3s. Are they all pirates?
If the record companies lose money or go belly up, who cares. Would they care if I lost my job? Certainly not. Is it their problem? I doubt it.
So it is the record companies problem that people do not appreciate their services and if given an option they opt not to support them monetarily.
Intel got shafted in the memory war with the Japanese memory companies an had to reinvent themselves. Maybe the big five need to get another business model, reinvent themselves, and get over it.
I know this may seem radical but maintaining the status quo is a hazardous occupation. The other side has a star talent and it's called the universe. That's the thing about change, as we see it, it doesn't need us!
Such is life.
The question is simple but I am sure the answer is not:
Now that you are in your latter years and you look back on what you and many others have accomplished do you think that any "real" progress was made as a species?
To qualify it I'll expand a bit. I have noticed that there are always gropus and individuals that don't agree when it comes to science, be they for or against, in or out. That is not what concerns me. I am none of these. I simply realize that language and actions bind individual lives and humanity as a whole to a "certain" number of tracks, so to speak(in a physical sense anyway). I have also come to realize that as people age they began to see things differently than when they were more "active" in worldly affairs, or at least think about different things more (I have a few newly formed "wind bag" uncles that were real pitbulls in their younger years). I am really interested in your response. I don't think you are a windbag *smile*.
Thank you for your time.
I am going to play a bit of the devil's advocate here (no pun intended).
Religion is just about as old as man, maybe even the same age or older. Let me qualify this. We are all familiar w/the black box limitations as so eloqunently stated in the "God" joke, but religion has always compensated for this and thus will always be with us in some form or another (I can expand on this but I won't it would be an infinite digress;-)).
I think the thing that Katz might not understand, and I may be wrong about him, is that there are lots of people that "think" about religion a lot more than other people (myself included). Some of these people are very intelligent, smart, clever (or whatever you mental qualifier maybe) and have an uncanny habit of adapting their doctrine read memeplex to whatever "life" (I love this!) throws at it.
Genetic manipulation has only just begun while memetic manipulation has had quite a head start. So yes there will be some tough questions to be answered but most cutting edge theologists have already dealt with these issues and are up to the task of dealing with the "man creating life" scenario. Like anything else the sensationalists get most of the media attention in spite of the fact that there are going to be people that have a doctrine for the kid that has the recipe for life.
Now I am neither for or against religion it is a tool as are computers. It was here before I arrived and will be here when I am ->/dev/null. Nothing is good or bad until we get a hold of it and then history must make it's judgement.
Right now we can speculate about the good or evil of genetic manipulation but I think the actaul debate is over human nature and trust.
First of all the article calls Rational software a "tools rival." Hhmmm.... I wonder how you can be a rival and a be in a strategic alliance at the same time? This allaince was started back in 1996 and renewed July of this year.
My take: They have a vested in interest in Microsoft surviving its probelms intact. Rational's website tauts MS as a "powerhouse" in the industry and refers to this as a "Good Thing" TM. Rational Software will be able to develop J++ along the same lines as Microsoft but w/o all the "restarints." Back to square one Sun.
Check for yourself:
Proof
Corporate intrigue...
But again the irony is if it weren't for their "mental laziness" then enigma may actually have not been broken. Every time the Germans shifted protocols the Allies of Bletchley Park were left in the "dark," until another of human natuers follies crept back into the forefront of someone's conciousness.
If the Germans had realized their failings, they definitely would have turned things around.
Fail at anything lately?
For all of you that have read "All Tomorrow's Parties?" (It's William Gibson's new novel.) Does this remind you it just a bit?
When I read that Bill Gates respectfully disagreed with the court It immedaitely made me think of Cody Harwood. Anyone else think Harwood was a spoof of Gates? B ->C & G ->H. Hhmmm.
If Gibson did have Gates in mind that would be a riot and visionary to say the least. Nothing lasts forever.
Who is Laney I wonder?
I think Roblimo is well intentioned and even made his speculations out to be lighthearted which is admirable. It's not that I don't agree with him, I just think it is a pretty myopic view of the world. I have found this to be pretty prevalent on /..
/.ers or net geeks, etc. are the only perpetrators of this folly of elitism. Any time you get a group of people together that share something in common (and it could be really mundane and basic like nice clothes in high school.) and then you add someone or some people that don't "go along" w/what is viewed as the way to be and the latter are ostracized. Of course there are exceptions to the rules but from what I have experienced it's pretty common. It's funny how so many people have treating each other like shit in common because they are different! Weird huh?
I don't think only
I have seen it in religion, scholarly pursuits, occupation, financial standing, race, gender... I think you all get the point.
So it's not a matter of who's smart and who's dumb. Nothing excels in every environment. I may be a genius in the here and now but in some other time or place I may get my throat slit for being a complete dumbass!
I know my post is late but it was a media blackout weekend. For those of you that don't do it you should maybe think about trying it sometime.
Oh and for those of you that don't get my dry humor, the subject is *sarcasm* at it's worst. My apologies.
Judging from some of the comments (no I didn't read every single one but the ones that were moderated up were pretty ridiculous) no one has anything intelligent to say.
/. But then I read all these posts about how high the average intelligence on /. is. I beg to differ. I bet it looks just like a plain old bell curve.
First of all has any of you ever been to the Library of Congress? Last time I checked they get every book that is published in the world within hours of its publishing. That alone would make DC the information capital of the country if not the world. If you include the embassies and museums a pattern starts to form. Being wired would only be an extension of that.
Contrary to popular milita rhetoric "real people" do live in DC. And guess what most of then are from somwhere else originally or at least one or two generations removed.
We have lots of jokes about you guys (the tourists) that make the tech jokes against newbies seem docile.
And to be a little more informative DC is really considered the Metropolitan Area including Northern VA and parts of MD. So then that would mean that the majority of the backbone providers actually exist in relative close proximity to DC. Hmmm... wonder why DC is the most wired city?
Of course you all send your scummiest state residents here to represent you and then you rag on are our city because we have to live with your unwanted. What's the point?
Not to mention the fact that we are taxed and yet have no vote in congress. Damn, I thought that was taxation w/o repersentation? No it's not says your reps, "DC can't be self-suffecient it's our playground!" That sucks. I know I am rambling and ranting but this shit is ridiculous anytime someone or something gets props that doesn't fit the tech status quo they/it gets raked over the coals on
If you can't tell I have been totally Offended
(once again).
Maybe it's because I just finished reading Ubik by Philip K. Dick and Natural Law by Robert A. Wilson, but this article struck me as bing tailored for a "certain" audience. Which is leading me somewhere that we don't need to really go. The one thing that made it cool was the percieved intent and the Freud thing at the end.
ANYway. I have a question. I have noticed that lots of people derive their "pride" and/or "confidence" from ego tripping which usually leads to bashing people that are not like them. Ism skisms I believe is the term.
The question? Oh yeah right. Why do so many people have to feel like they are right?
Is that a condition (yeah I know two questions, jail me!)?
Maybe we can call it being human.
I need not argue or try to convince you of anything. Yelling that you know something to be true and it actually being true is the slight point that many miss in life. The world sociopolitical situation is more complex than the world economy. Armchair sociologists/economists/psychologists such as yourselves should actually cringe at what you don't know. "I have black friends." "I know this one black person that..." Please, spare us all the gross show of your stupidity. It's not just about the internet it is about information and knowledge and these can be withheld. It is wisdom that comes freely from the individual and I think many /.ers need to start getting their fair share.
I'll probably regret even bothering but here goes...
;-)
/. piss me off once again with the "I know it all because I have a clue about 'puters attitude?" Well needless to say in the most predictable fashion I was not disappointed.
/. lack social protocols and thus have no clue.
/. readers are failing to realize is that the same things that disgust them about people and computers, read ignorance, is the exact same thing that they are guilty of. Sure not all of you are closet racists, or insensitive (yes insensitive, if you are a tough ass then go be tough and don't complain when the universe sh!ts on you!) morons, but there are quite a few or many they are the most vocal. See it's always hard to tell with these things. But they don't really concern me. It's the intelligent people that I know are out there that say nothing. Yes it is easy to ignore something if it doesn't affect you. But this will.
/.ers need to start getting their fair share.
I once read an interview of Larry Wall in which he talked about "glue people"." Well I am definitely one of those people in the worst way. Never fear I enjoy it. I will not place a string of qualifications either. You are just going to have to trust me.
When I saw the the title to this article I immediately tensed. Would
If you think of a network running all types of hardware and software connecting all manners of people doing all manners of things you realize a subtle complexity there that has been utilized by way of protocols. I think that many on
I need not argue or try to convince you of anything. Yelling that you know something to be true and it actually being true is the slight point that many miss in life.
The sociopolitical situation is more complex than the U.S. economy. Armchair sociologists such as yourselves should actually cringe at what you don't know. "I have black friends." "I know this one black person that..." Please, spare us all the gross show of your stupidity.
I am not sure who, but someone once said that our language aids in the dehumanization of people. Those Jews. Rednecks always... Blacks need to... Gross generalizations that only make the user more ignorant to what is going on around them.
Race, economics, gender, personality, those other people. What many
Here's a clue: Ask yourself how far you have gone out of your way to get someone to try Linux or to help them start using it. Now tell me the difference between that and helping someone become more technically savvy? Who was this person you helped? A friend, a girl you were interested in, a family member, or a complete stranger? What makes them different from some browned skinned person residing in America that was always interested in tech but did not know where to start?
It's not just about the internet it is about information and knowledge and these can be withheld. It is wisdom that comes freely from the individual and I think many
Too much of anything is not a Good Thing(TM). In retrospect of the Internet Addiction piece, who is willing to have the internet illegalized or moderated for them? Anytime I hear people justifying reasons to save people from themselves it gives me the shivers. Think. What else can we ban? Breathing kills you so let's all hold our breath. Whoops, still dying. Damn. Shit oxygen is bad for you for fscks sake. See anti-oxidants. So it is not about bad or good or what's more worse than what. Live and let live. Anything you are capable of is a God given right. This is a metaphor, but it serves it's purpose. Think about it.
Okay correct me if am wrong (well that goes w/o saying), but I always thought UNIX was the operating system and Unix/unix/*nix was a philosophy of taking a lot of small, useful, stable, configurable software tools and making them inter-useable (sp? or is it even a word?). Thereby empowering the user, developer, sysadmin,...
Now besides that I think that the argument is one of semantics and personal outlook. In other words people will say what they want. Linux and DOS are not even comparable, but definitions can be so subjective and tentative that it doesn't matter. Some argue that DOS is not even an OS but a collection of interrupts.
I can understand (given some of the personalities on this site) why some misunderstandings may cause as much confusion as they do, but people will derive what they want and assimilate it accordingly. Now I must stop before I digress into information theory (hhmmm..something to think about).
I will reply here since most of the replires seem to be pointed towards me.
/.er whos parents can barely afford college but are considered middle class. That is unfortunate. Blind unsophisticated blanket solutions are indeed not a good idea. But fanning the flames is not either.
Fisrt of all I said "minorities" and I was purposefully non-specific. Then I gave a scenario in which I was black (am I?).
Most of your arguments have all been heard before but I challenge you to deal w/the problem. Privilege causes tension in any social context. You may very well enjoy your privilege but then you create a very angry and very motivated "underclass." Militias come to mind for some odd reason (this is not about money it is about minorities). Anyway, In order to alleviate certain behaviors (ie; rebellion, ethnic cleansing, etc.) the haves "give" something to the have nadas. Well this may seem like a solution but it is not. I use the example of the middle class
Most of you probably have not experienced violence in the extremes in your lives but it is avery real threat when you have hordes of have nadas. This may seem extreme but it is not in the countries where it is happening as we speak. Those peoples lives are not movies they die and suffer.
My point. Come up with better arguments other than regurgitating what has been handed down to you from the ill informed. As for the I don't want to see color folks; well neither do I, but that doesn't account for the rest of the in the closet (cowed by political correctness)racial sympathizers.
So no I agree it is not all about race it could be anything. It could be people who know how to code get better treatment than the rest of the world. Or people who excel at math that get treated poorly and are taken advantage of because they only make up a certain amount of the population. The sypmtoms of the problem are just that. If you think you have the answer I want to know what the fsck was the question?
I have purposely not quoted anyone and have tried to refrain from using rhetoric (you be the judge), but I will say that one day you may find yourself behind the 8ball. Would you want someone to care? Hasta...
Race does matter. A lot of people are screaming reverse racism but I say their logic is as flawed as racial profiling.
/. are geniuses you all knew this anyway.
Firstly there is a preconceived notion that affirmative action's purpose is to favor minorities. Now let's take a look at that. I say it is a mechanism put in place to dilute the blatant disdain, misrepresentation, or just poor treatment of minorities. The fact that someone sees this as "favoring" shows me that they favor their "kind" (whatever they perceive that to be). Of course since most people who read
It would be careless of me to not discuss profiling in this context as well. If it is okay to pull me over because I am most likely to be a ditributor of narcotics, then by the same logic all white males between a certain age should be randomly given psyhiciatric analysis for serial and mass murdering tendencies.
Encouragement I think is more appropriate. I think that the people who don't have PCs now, will really love the idea of FREE SOFTWARE! Imagine that. I am willing to bet money that there are lots of little hackers out there just waiting for the chance to write FREE SOFTWARE.
If you don't want to encourage others to empower themsleves then at least shut up discouraging them.
Or is it you just love being l33t? 8-). Nothing excels in every environment.
I have always wondered about this when it came to science fiction: Is it art imitating life or life imitating art?
Do we do technical things because they are aesthetically pleasing or do these guys (Stephenson, Gibson, Sterling) have a certain way of percieveing things about society?