I have long contended that technology, including the Internet, will not bring an end to racism, but can expand and accelerate it. Some very old ideas will get a boost in new technology.
Example: Need to stop spam? There is an email application that will send your unwanted email to a "Black Mail" folder. That same program will send your "safe" email to a "White Mail" folder.
Now comes word of some bad things in Facebook's ad program. If you search for a friend on Facebook and the name you want is close to the word "Race," watch out. Facebook may place an ad on the right side of your search, an ad for "Ni**er Jokes." And I am not joking.
Chris Rock was kicking back on a couch at the 2009 Sundance film fest in Utah in January when an interviewer asked him how hard he works--
"I work hard, but... it pales in comparison to real work... You do an interview, I do an interview, but somebody's gotta clean up this room tonight. That guy's really working."
CNN is so proud of itself, now that it has aired two big reports called "Black in America," one last year and one this year. Well, I won't get into the details of the shows here. But ever since the powerful network last year aired Black problems in public with Part 1, I have been asking: CNN, where is "White in America"? I bet you CNN will never commit the same amount of its budget, publicity and prestige to a parallel report laying out the problems of whites.
[Soledad O'Brien, host of the CNN show]
White drug use, white collar crime, white aggression against nations of color around the world, domestic abuse and child abuse among whites, stealing of Black land by white courts and land developers across the South, school shootings by white youth, cocaine laws that favor whites-- and especially the growth of NRA gun club membership and gun sales since Obama became President. And don't forget the recent refusal of a club to let Black youth swim in its pool, and don't forget Black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. getting arrested in his own home, and don't forget the-- let me stop.
The absence of a show called "White in America" for the past year illustrates this media law-- play down, ignore or excuse negative actions of whites, actions that would make headlines-- and CNN specials-- if done by Blacks.
In the meantime, see this video response by Jeremiah Camara--
You must go see the play "A Cool Drink A Water." Humor and hip-hop, drama and danger, hell and healing, the Spirit World, and not a little sex and love are all woven together in this Kinte cloth of a play. The audience was laughing, in tears, in shock, amazed and applauding throughout. No joke: I was on the edge of my seat. A worthy successor to "A Raisin In The Sun." How's that for a compliment? Don't sleep!!
