Is the Internet really color blind?
I read a quote that a friend showed me the other week a quote from rapper and famous Public Enemy frontman, Chuck D: " The internet is color blind!"
Is that so?
Another friend was telling me about this article that he read in Playboy about race-bending. The subject had to do with a white boy going onto the internet to a room for the up and coming rap community. It was interesting to see and read, after looking at the article itself (Playboy really does have good articles) that the people in the chatroom he was in immediately assumed after some heated discussion that he was white.
I suppose that in a chatroom where you are supposed to be hardcore up and coming rappers, that the invasion of the white boys is not acceptable, but what if the man in the article was NOT white?
As it turns out, the 34 year old computer salesman IS indeed white, but embraces rap and hip hop like so many of the non-african persuasion. In a world where we are supposed to be tolerating each other, to find out that people still play the race card is a trifle disturbing.
Not that there hasn't been anything like that in the past. In the last fifteen years, we have seen affirmative action in all areas of life, especially in the work place. Being white is not the ticket in that it used to be. Is it time for a step back and the white person come under fire?
Maybe they should.
The world around us has specifically zoned areas to keep the peace, at least that is what I believe. Since this article happens to be about a chatroom for hip hop, I'll use that for a example.
Eminem. Love him or hate him, he has become a symbol in a few ways. In the agressive, once a week market of rap stars, he has managed to break into a roll that had only been held (barely) by the Beastie Boys. He has not only been a success, but a mega success where white people have only failed, Snow and Vanillia Ice to name two off the top of my head. The success of Marshall Mathers has done one thing, and that is to give hope to other white kids that want to break into rap. It was like how Basketball slowly became a African American area of expertise.
Eminem had a rough growing up, as I understand it, and maybe that was a little more to the likings of others in his choosen profession. So when I read that people in this chatroom were immediately assuming someone that was on their site was white, I was interested. After all, shouldn't it not matter by this day and age? With all sides preaching acceptance, it bothers me that there are still little pockets of areas such as the website. ( well, not little, there are over 200,000 people registered with this website and still growing).
According to some experts on these types of subjects, race bending is popular on the interent, almost as popular as gender bending. The reasons are all up to the individuals, but these experts (quoted on in the article) was a need to be accepted in a category that they could never belong to because of the color of their skin. The high life of some of the sports leaders and music artists creates a ideal of wealth, and they want to be apart of that. But, waht does that have to do with color and the internet?
Everything. The whole premise of the 21st century internet is a communications tool, like anything else. We can be who we want to be on the net. Most people, at least those I know, except that fact and move on when they meet people. But until now, I never really thought about the people that I chat with. Color and gender never became a issue until now. Am I being judged by someone else's mental picture? Am I being disliked by the way I type and communicate. It shouldn't seem like a big idea until you sit down and read something about it.
So I went to a couple of chatrooms that cater to the hip hop communities all over he greater North America. What did I find? Anything remotely offense, the people there were labeled white and kicked. No questions asked. Is that happening elsewhere? I have always lived in mixed communities and never actually looked at racism in the face, unless it was on tv. I was saddened to see that, underneath the blanket of 'understanding' and 'tolerance', we are still a long ways from what are perception of what those are.