Is a Black Web Browser Racist?: BET x Kevin Kelly x Blackbird

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Earlier this week I mentioned to my friend S.bot
that I was going to write about the fact that
many people thought that the Black web browser,
Blackbird, was racist.

A little background. Blackbird is a web browser,
created and
operated by 40A, Inc., a company founded by three
African American entrepreneurs, Arnold Brown II,
Frank Washington, and H. Edward Young, Jr.

On Tech Crunch, Robin Wauters describes it saying,

The browser displays a pre-set news ticker on top, pulls in news content from Google News that might be of interest to African-Americans, and features a section with video content from online TV sites like UptownLiveTV, NSNewsTV, DigitalSoulTV and ComedyBanksTV. Other than that, there?s a lot of integration with the most popular social networks, a ?Black Search?, preset ?Black Bookmarks?, etc. There?s also a ?Give Back? program that streamlines donations to a number of non-profit organizations (Blackbird intends to donate 10% of its 2009 revenue to these partners as well).

Here is the Blackbird pitch,

Because we know the 20 million African Americans online need tools to build and foster community now more than ever.

Because we know that 85% of African Americans prefer online news and information from the Black perspective.*

Because we know that you are twice as likely to be among the first to discover new trends and use advanced technology compared to the general population.*

*Source: PEW Internet and American Life Project 2004

By trade, my friend S.bot is an Information Architect,
so she is far more comfortable with trafficking in data
than I am. I like data too, but more for sociological purposes,
but this discussion show me that she is the rare breed that is a
high level aerial thinker that understands technology, business,
user experience.

While I initially was going to just focus on whether Black Bird was
racist, the more I spoke to her, the more I became interested
in the convergence of race, data and capitalism on
the internet.

She likened a Black web browser to someone deciding
which library she could go to. I responded saying that
there are Black libraries, and that Black libraries
have more Black stuff then regular libraries, so what is the
difference?

She said the internet is different. The issue is about
data and searching. Her question, was who is search
whom and for what purpose? I didn’t get it because I was thinking
about it on a one to one search level. What she was referring to
was who is searching whom in a more institutional sense.

On the blog Open Anthropology, Maximilian Forte, clarified two things
about Blackbird. The first issue that he addressed is around
unexamined racial assumption’s about other web browsers
such as Google, Firefox and Explorer. The second
issue is about the assumed racial “neutrality” (if there is even
such a thing) of other web browsers.
Forte writes,

There is no claim here that any of the other browsers are inherently ?white.? What seems obvious is the desire to create what is, in a sense, a pre-loaded portal that immediately directs users to African American content online, linking them with other users at the same time in some cases.

Perhaps the problem is that of invisibility generated by assumptions, that the very conception, selection, design and layout of elements on a browser come out of a North American, white, ?geek? cultural stratum, and that therefore to many white, middle class, North American users the cultural assumptions remain invisible, the browser appears normal, intuitive, self-evidently rational, etc. I have some sympathy for this argument (not that I think that Blackbird was designed to address this argument even remotely).

Once S.bot mentioned to me that it was about the data,
I immediately thought that the owner of a Black web browser
would be able to sell ad’s based on the number of presumably Black
people who have downloaded and use it.
It then appeared to me that there was a huge economic
incentive
to creating a Black Firefox.

Image courtesy of Praized Blog.

She went on to say that Google is trafficking in data,
not necessarily search. Then she offered that because the
future of the internet is about data linking to data, that I should
watch the Kevin Kelly Video.

On the Praized blog, Sebastian summarizes the Kevin Kelly video
nicely when he writes,

Phase 1 of the Internet was all about linking computers together and sharing packets. Phase 2 was about linking pages (when the Web came along) and sharing links. Phase 3, the next phase, will be about linking data. Linking to the information inside the page down to the elemental unit (what I often call ?atomization). This new semantic Web will understand the meaning of words. For example, ?Pacifica? (a small town near San Francisco) is a place with attributes.

I then asked what is an example of data linking? Her response.
Mashups, which are largely enabled by API technology. She went
on to say that API technology enables more data linking
because it allows programmers to create documents that have
universal extensions. For instance, a “.pdf” cannot talk
to a word “.doc”, and a “.gif” can’t talk to an “mp3.” API
technology makes this issue moot and will conceivably
allow all documents to talk to each other.

She also went on to add that the API technology
has an additional impact. First it allows for folks to build on
an already existing technology, such as Blackbird how is built on
Firefox. She used the example of how the original source code for
Firefox is like the English alphabet and each time a coder
adds something new to a program, it is the equivalent of
adding more letters to the alphabet.

It then began to make sense that is about the data.
At that point I started looking for a notebook to start scribbling
ideas for this post.

She went on to say that she couldn’t clearly see how a Black browser
could add any value.

Her rationale was that the data indexed on a Black Browser
may be of interest to someone who is researching

Black people for presumably Black data. I agreed. I immediately
thought,
this could be for good or for bad.

I then asked, what is the difference between BET and Blackbird?
She pointed out that BET is a push media, it creates content whereas
search engines and browsers, are pull media, they pull content.

She then expressed that she wanted the broadest net possible
when pulling, and doing her search. And that by using a browser that was
self identified as
Black, that she may be limiting herself to the number
sites that
the browser indexed. She also said that by appearing in a Black
browser, a website runs the risk of being treated like a “Black Website”,
segregated from the rest of the world. This of course presumes that
if you are indexed
by Blackbird, that you will not be indexed
by Google, which
doesn’t make sense.

I responded saying that being Black offline is being Black
online as well (with the exception of people who impersonate
other races/ethnicity’s online)
and that this reminds me of our
tendency to think that the internet
will serve as some
digital race cleanser.

The internet is created and used by human beings,
human beings that may or may not suffer from the ism’s.
Racism. Sexism. Ageism.

This does not disappear once you log on.

Then I began to think, is a browser for women sexist?
If not, then why is a Black browser racist? I thought back to
S.bot’s statement that she didn’t want a Black browser because
it would limit her “library.” I immediately thought of two things.

The first is that information has always been political tool in African
American history.

Second, we come from a people who were punished for
learning how to read. We live in a country that once deemed it illegal
to teach us how to read.

Thirdly, we live in a country that was once so staunchly segregated that
the only way to get Black news was by creating Black newspapers,
because “regular” newspapers did not hire Black folks.

In fact, it would be amazing to see Blackbird index Black publications
prior to integration. But I digress.

Many of the comments made about Blackbird being racist
reminded me that when thinking abut technology, we operate from
the assumption that there is a racial clean slate, which
can’t be further from the truth. The biases and assumptions
that we have offline, are siting there on the keyboard with us
online.

Only when we acknowledge that, can we have an honest discussion
about race, data and technology.

Is a Black web browser, racist?

Why were white people so offended by a Black
Web Browser?

Why is there a need to NOT be segregated on the internet?

Would you use Blackbird?

‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist: From a Production Economy to a Finance Economy

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While we once had a robust economy, with factory
and production jobs supported by strong unions,
this is no longer the case
and it must be understood
in order for us to make any meaningful, sustainable
changes
in our lives and in our economy.

How did we get here? We went from a nation of people who
made
things to a nation where a relatively small number of people
made a lot of money moving money around, selling money
and
trading money.

The next time someone tells me that Obama’s a Socialist I
am going to tell them, “‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist.”

The Shift from a Production Based Economy to a
Consumption Economy.

It is important to understand that we were a nation
of farmers,
then a nation of producers, in factories,
and now we have become
a nation largely of
consumers, service workers and finance workers.

In the book Bad Money, Kevin Phillips, the former
Republican Party strategist turned
harsh critic of the Republican
Party
,
outlines the shift made from being a production based
economy to a finance
centered economy. Phillips writes,

The financial services sector in the 1990’s became the largest sector
of the U.S. private economy. By 2004-2006 financial services represented
20-21 percent of the GDP , manufacturing represented just 12 or 13 %.

….continued in the next post.

‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist: From Production to Consumption
‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist: Reagan and Bush, “The Banks Will
Never Be Allowed to Fail”

‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist: Podcast

The ‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist Podcast is a conversation
that Filthy and I recorded last September. We discuss
:
American Consumption, Racism, WWII, Adult Onset Poverty,
Why More Schooling Isn’t the main Solution, Lenin, Fordism
The Soviet Union
, Why Products Don’t Last Anymore, Germany.

Thoughts? Do you agree? Disagree? Need more info?
All your money is in Euro’s so it doesn’t matter?

‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist Series: Put the Bank Executives in Jail with Maddof?

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The Criminal Nature: Are Tax Payers Corporate
Shareholders Now? Should some bank executives
be
put in jail cells next to Bernie Maddoff?
Maureen O’ Dowd describes the conflicts that arise with
giving tax payer, the money that you pay to the government
every April 15th to
institutions who made money off of money
instead of products.
She writes,

At least the old robber barons made great products. When you make money out of money, unmoored from morality and regulators, it must unhinge you. How else to explain corporate welfare queens partridge hunting in England, buying French jets and shopping for Lamborghini’s?

O’Dowd has arguably been the only public voice in a
mainstream publication
that admitted that the executives
who are enhanced their bottom lines
at the tax payer expense
should be treated like the criminals they are.
She states,

More than a disappointed parent, they need a special prosecutor or three. Spare the rod, spoil the jackal. Anyone who gave bonuses after accepting federal aid should be fired, and that money should be disgorged to the Treasury.

O’Dowd ends her piece with the statement,

The president needs to think like Andrew Cuomo. ? ?Performance bonus? for many of the C.E.O.?s is an oxymoron,? he said. ?I would tell them, a) you don?t deserve a bonus, b) where are you going to go? and c) if you want to go, go.

Maureen O’Dowd has been, arguably one of the only people
in mainstream media to say publicly that that the executives
who took tax payer money and gave their employees bonuses
should be prosecuted and sent to jail for what they have done.

I think that there is an unwillingness to criticize because
at the end of the day, many of us, want to be
rich one day,
so we are reluctant to criticize the people
that are. What this
misguided thinking fails to take
into consideration is that,
given the nature of this
finance centered economy you are
are likely to spend your
life toiling in the service economy
as a waitress, retail sales person,
or as a nurse, than you
are to wind up affluent.

Something very similar happened in Hip Hop. There was a
time
when rap artist criticized drug dealers. Now they rarely
criticize them
because they want to be like and or live like them.

I will argue that there is a connection between this
shift and
the current depression that we are now experiencing.

‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist: From Production to Consumption
‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist: Reagan and Bush, “The Banks Will
Never Be Allowed to Fail”

‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist: Podcast

The ‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist Podcast is a conversation
that Filthy and I recorded last September. We discuss
:
American Consumption, Racism, WWII, Adult Onset Poverty,
Why More Schooling Isn’t the main Solution, Lenin, Fordism
The Soviet Union
, Why Products Don’t Last Anymore, Germany.

Yo Momma’s Socialist: Reagan & Bush, "The Banks Will Never Be Allowed to Fail"



Ronald Reagan & Bush: “The Banks will Never Be Allowed to Fail”

Nationalizing banks isn’t new, the modern American capitalist
economic system
presumes that the financial sector will be bailed
on on
a regular cyclical basis.

In Bad Money, Phillips also discusses the shift from a production economy
to a service and finance economy. This idea supports the assertion that
current
bail outs are a current and necessary feature
of modern American Capitalism.
He writes,

In the late 1980’s the government decided that finance,
not manufacturing or even high tech, had to be the sector on
which they would place its strategic chips- would “pick as a winner…
farms and factories were expendable, but certain business and
financial institutions would not be allowed to fail.

Would not be allowed to fail.
Would not be allowed to fail
.
Would not be allowed to fail
. Phillips goes on to write about the specific kinds of
assistance offered
to banks.

Since the 1980’s there have been three kinds of
assistance that
have been sought from (and generally provided):
government
bailouts when pivotal institutions, loans, profit
methodologies got
themselves in trouble services in trouble;
Liquidity for the Fed
required to keep the wealth escalator
going;
benign regulation and law making. Favoritism is what
it use to be called.

In an interview in N+1 Magazine, Geography Professor, David
Harvey explains why the modern American Capitalist economy
assumes that bailouts will occur on a regular basis.
He explains,

Instead of saying there is a systemic problem, which
periodical erupts,
in the history of capitalism, we tend to
look at this peculiar incident of the
present. But the property
market crises have played a crucial role historically

in triggering major downturns past economies

…The global downturn of 1973, everybody says it was oil. But
the actual recession started six months before the oil
embargo….with a global crash in the property markets. If you look

at what brought the Japan economy down at the end of the
1980’s it was speculation
in the land and property markets. If you
look at the recession in this country during the savings
and loan
crisis …something like a thousand banks were on the watch list- it was

as property market thing.

Harvey uses plain language to describe why this mortgage
crisis has affected us differently than the crises of the past.
He writes,

This is not unique to the history of capitalism. What is different
this time around is the extent of it, and the degree to which finance
changed its manner: For instance when the property market crashed
in 1973, it was mainly local banks that got caught out, because if you
had a mortgage, you had it with a local bank, so the mortgage market
was localized. During the 1980’s, the mortgage market became
securitized , and they started to put together all these mortgages
and push them onto organizations like Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, or they would get package onto collateralized debt obligations
and sliced up and sold to a pension fund in Florida or a bank
that had excess liquidity in Germany.

Harvey also had some really interesting things to say about
how risk was managed through out the globalization of
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The mortgage market became really global. This was
suppose to spread
the risk. Which to some degree it did.
But as it spread risk, it built more risk. People at financial
institutions thought that if you spread risk, you eliminate
risk, which of course you haven’t done.

Harvey then goes on to discuss how we should all equally shoulder
the burden of the failure of the banks. He explains that,

Technically everybody should, but we have a structure
of state power which is dedicated to protecting the integrity of the
financial system. So in the effect what happens in that
state uses it power to bail out the financial institutions.

..If you look at cities like Cleveland and Baltimore, the
foreclosures wave has been like a series of financial Katrina’s.

After reading this, I would imagine that it is easier
to see how the current cycle of bailouts has very little to do
with subprime markets or middle and low income
Black and Latino home owners buying more house
than they could afford, per se.

Harvey concludes with the statement that the Capitalist
economy has been about growth and that we need to prepare
our selves to live in a society where there will be no growth.
He mentions
that every economy needs a surplus, some
extra cushion
just in case things go bad. He suggests that
we think
about our surplus being held by the government
but controlled by the American people. While the tone
was
somber and it was encouraging as well,

“What we see the system beginning to get rockier and rockier,
and it is time that people started to say, “look, this system cannot
continue in this way.” So the best case scenario is the growth
of a political movement.

I will discuss my thoughts about this idea in an upcoming
post
on local, green, artistic & sustainable economies.

‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist: From Production to Consumption
‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist: Reagan and Bush, “The Banks Will
Never Be Allowed to Fail”

‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist: Podcast

The ‘Yo Momma’s a Socialist Podcast is a conversation
that Filthy and I recorded last September. We discuss
:
American Consumption, Racism, WWII, Adult Onset Poverty,
Why More Schooling Isn’t the main Solution, Lenin, Fordism
The Soviet Union
, Why Products Don’t Last Anymore, Germany.

Thoughts? I know you have some.
Is it too much to grasp?
Or does your bank account tell you that you
don’t have a choice BUT to try and understand it?

Boston Dynamic Big Dogs: The New World Order Lives

I was on the phone with my homie S.bot earlier.
She is all things geeky. An Information Architect,
she hangs out at MIT taking free workshops on nerdy
stuff and she likes to take notes on our conversations.

When she talks, I listen.

Today, we were talking about the new Facebook design
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Yes. A HARD DRIVE FOR THE PLANET.

Then she told me to Google Boost Dynamics.

I saw this robot and it gave me the creeps.

Scarier then 10 Freddy Kreugers.


I immediately knew that it was a military robot.

I also immediately thought, what defense would the American
public have against one hundred thousand of these being leashed
on us?

The Big Dog is funded by The Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, which is under the Department of Defense.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, your tax dollars at work.

What do you think of the Big Dog?