PBS hosts a wonderful but flawed attack on racism called "RACE - The Power of an Illusion."  This site provides scientific ideas that debunk racism such as the fact that any ethnic group contains 85% of human diversity.  This shows that each ethnic group genetically overlaps and that instead of human diversity being between races, it is actually contained within each race.  This site explores the history of racism and how it developed over time.  It is found that dividing people by their physical characteristics is a relatively new idea.  Finally, it is shown that colored people are still discriminated against, and because of this discrimination their opportunities and wealth is far inferior in general to that of people of European descent. 

This website shows the ineptitude of categorizing people into dichotomized racial groups because people exist along a spectrum of races and a good number of people are biracial.  This is the same message as that of the essay "Menu-Driven Identities" written by Lisa Nakamura.  She finds that the racial dichotomizing that exists in the real world has been transferred to the virtual world of the Internet in the form of online menus that makes the user pick a race (p. 104).  These menus dichotomize race.  Nakamura finds that identity should be based on culture rather than race (p. 130). 


The interactive PBS article vaguely agrees with this because it sees race as a recent innovation and should be done away with.  It is mentions that Indian tribes should not be based on race but on ancestry.  The article does mention that dichotomizing skin color is wrong but it never really mentions that culture should  replace race.  The PBS article does miss the point a little because their alternatives to the modern dichotomization is the multiracial and bi-racial model, and a model based on ancestry.  These ideas are related the the idea of culture, but are not the same.

The debate over race is as confusing and complex is it is sensitive.  We should make sure to create rational alternatives to our current baneful model of race and avoid replacing one form of racism with another.  If we continue to think of people and divide them by their skin color we will be creating identities which don't matter and can be used to further injustice. 

Even the multi-racial and bi-racial models of categorizing people is wrong because it still creates identity around skin color.  Ancestry is very much related to culture but is also not the same.  Some people may be related to a certain culture but may contain completely different cultural norms.  The cultural model of identity should be used because culture is what really defines what people are and how they act. 




Bibliography:

Adelman, Larry. "RACE - The Power of an Illusion | PBS." Weblog post. PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. PBS. Web. 28 Oct. 2010. <http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm>.

Nakamura, Lisa.  Cybertypes: Race,  Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet.  New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.

Fighting in the Exotic

Some people seem to think that the Internet is going to break down barriers between different races because race is much more obvious when communicating in person than in online chat.  I think the web will break down many barriers but it will not completely destroy racism and some types of racism will be safe to breed on the Internet.  Stereotypes of different races still exist online and so racism will live on.  Lisa Nakamura writer of the article "Cybertyping and the Work of Race in the Age of Digital Reproduction" calls online stereotypes cybertypes.  Cybertypes are ways that the web "propagates, disseminates, and commodities images of race and racism" (p. 3).  It is hoped that with the web, people will be able to visit and experience different cultures with their computers and gain a greater appreciation of them.  What is actually happening is that instead of being respected, different cultures are being reduced to online tourist attractions.

 

The game, Street Fighter 2, is a typical Internet game that demonstrates this online racism.  In this game a player can masquerade as different players and go to different place.  My favorite character is Dhalsim who is an Indian fighter.  He is extremely agile and can even float.  One notices that he has mystical powers and is very scary.  He is the scariest fighter in the game equipped with the ability to shoot mystical fireballs, wears skulls on his costume, is bald, and has no eyelids.  He portrays the mysticism of India as powerful and dangerous when India is actually a very peaceful place.  Places outside Europe and America are shown to be technologically primitive.  For example, in China, the fight takes place in a dirt road with Chinese people in traditional dress in their cheap shops.  There are only carts and no cars at all.  In America, you can see advanced technology including boats and cars. 

The cybertypes this game portrays is that colored people are technologically primitive and attached to their traditional ways and that Europeans are advanced and are culturally modern and progressive.  There is little trace of the amazing technological advances that the developing world has made.  Like a tourist, the user gets to fight in different areas in the world and explore older cultures.  This game perpetuates the stereotype of colored people being scary and primitive and constantly living the past.  This deceptive image of the developing world as primitive regardless of the fact that places like Japan and South Korea are about as rich as we are, and that nations such as Brazil, India and China are growing technologically and economically at a very fast pace.

Bibliography:

Nakamura, Lisa.  Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and

Identity on the internet.  New York Routledge,

 2002. Print.

 

Princess Peach: The Female Stereotype Fighter

Today, I spent a total of one hour of my life playing Super Mario 2.  This game is primitive and extremely difficult but it also lends a few statements on gender roles.  In this game there are several main characters a person can play named Princess Peach, Toad, Mario, and Luigi.  These characters attempt to avoid enemies and finish their quests.  Most of them have special abilities.  Mario is well rounded and does not seem to have any ability in particular, Luigi can jump very high right over impossible walls, Toad can move very fast, and Princess Peach can glide along while jumping.  Other than these specific differences each character is essentially the same in ability. 

I find that Princess Peach is the coolest character because of her awesome jumping ability and in this sense, this game does not discriminate against female characters.  She is similar to Lara Croft in that she is an able fighter.  She is what Anne-Marie Schleiner writer of the article "Does Lara Croft Wear Fake Polygons?  Gender and Gender-Role Subversion in Computer Adventure Games" would be considered a positive role model for women and girls.  This is how Scheiner sees Lara Croft stating that "Lara Croft is a positive role model for women and girls and a possible entry point for women into the male discourse domain of computer games" (Schleiner). 

Scheiner states that sometimes subjects in games gravitate to a certain position in relation to the user.  This is what she calls the "gender subject configuration" (Schleiner).  Unlike Croft, Princess Peach does not seem to play the role as a sex object because she is well clothed and the character is not displayed with enough resolution to have much fine detail.  She may actually roll back gender stereotypes because here is a princess who is just as strong as the guys.

The producers of Super Mario 2 seem to be quite enlightened except for the fact that most of the characters in the game are male and this may reduce the appeal of this game for females.  Princess Peach looks very young and weak, and wears pink which is stereotypically a girl color. On the contrary however, Princess Peach is an able character who conflicts with this stereotype of the princess being weak and in the end expresses exactly the opposite.  Princess Peach is an awesome character who is a stereotype fighter!

Bibligraphy:

Schleiner, Anne-Marie.  2001. “Does Lara Croft Wear Fake Polygons? Gender and Gender-Role Subversion in Computer Adventure Games.”  Leonardo.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576939