Today I logged onto my Facebook and the above interaction greeted me. My friend, Trent, wonders why he is unable to jailbreak his iPod Touch. His friend Alex's response is that it is because Trent is black. I know Trent well, and he is completely Caucasian. Clearly the comment is meant as a joke, but what does it say about how we view other races?
Looking back on our discussion on Friday about stereotypes of African Americans in the media, I see that we are very much influenced by what we see and hear. Alex's comment shows that he views African Americans as less intelligent people, which is a common portrayal of African Americans even today, though it's not true. How can we change this stereotype? Or will we never be able to fully forget our racist past?
I do not remember what class I heard this (though I am about 99% sure it was in college!) but when black's and white's are given a test, and the blacks are not told that they are being compared to whites, they do the same as the white people did. When they are told that they are being compared to the whites, they stress out so much knowing that they are of equal intelligence, and want to prove it. Because they are stressing out about this, they do poorly on the tests!!
ReplyDeleteJust thought you would find this interesting :)
Hmmm... It seems to me like the comment is possibly saying that the software is racist in some way and doesn't want Trent to be able to do what he wants with it. Either way, it seems like African Americans are less than another racial group. It is very sad to think that this is so. I have seen videos on YouTube of all different people from different racial groups doing things with their technology that I could only dream of. Clearly this is incorrect. But what can we do about it? Confront them? Educate them? Or we could celebrate differences? Or pretend that they don't exist?
ReplyDeleteI saw this on facebook too and i agree. Trent is compleeeetly white. This didnt makes sense to me at all which is probably why i remembered this. Apparently if your black your better at jailbreaking stuff? Thats not even an insult (which I think was the intent) cause it jst means they are tech savvy :P
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