From black inventors to one laptop per child

1. From black inventors to one laptop per child Rayvon fouché

2. What, exactly, does this paper consider? • It considers “the relationships between race and technology and discusses how technological changes influence our perceptions of racial and cultural relations” (66). • In this digital age, where “buckets of technology” (63) have been “cast down across the United States (63), is it the responsibility of the individual to achieve the American Dream, regardless of racial history? • NO! We must consider “the ways African American lives have been affected by science and technology” (68). • Technology, such as guns, slave ships, shackles, and whips, were “developed to control black bodies” (68).

3. Theme of Paper • It is a dangerous and flawed way of thinking––being under the impression that individuals from groups that have been systematically oppressed and enslaved can be successful if only they possess the proclivity to work hard and “pull oneself up by his or her bootstraps” (64). • “African American difficulties within this digital age are no longer viewed as an affect of a historically racist society but a byproduct of not pulling hard enough on one’s bootstraps” (66). • To pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps is to improve one’s own situation or to become successful through one’s own efforts, without the help of others.

4. Theme of Paper Continued • The digital divide––”potentially large groups of people were incapable of keeping up with the digital revolution” (74), therefore they had been isolated from a knowledge that allows for power. • The goal of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) was positive. To keep underprivileged children as well as children in the developing countries in the digital loop. • However, African Americans were represented as “technological infants” (74).

5. Questions to ask about OLPC • “To what degree did the children in the locations contribute to the design of the technology that would supposedly bring them into the twenty-first century?” (78). • Was the interface clear and recognizable? • Were the children offered knowledge on the complexities of the technology? • You can give an individual a life-changing technology but if the technology is completely foreign, it is then inconvenient and the usability is low.

6. Technological Artifact • LifeStraw––https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/health/27straw.html • Positives: “The personal version works like a chunky drinking straw and can filter about 1,000 liters, enough to keep a person hydrated for a year”. • Critical Thinking: But what about the water? Why isn’t the water clean? Why isn’t anyone confronting the absence of clean water? • Similar to OLPC… • Positives: Poor children are given digital access. • Negatives: But what about education? Isn’t that a core issue? You can give a man a fish or you can teach him how to fish.

7. Questions for class • 1.) Do you think that this technological philanthropy is enough––that just the act of supplying these individuals with these resources is enough? Or do we have to scrutinize the power/privilege differential? • 2.) What are some ways in which the individuals receiving laptops from OLPC could have been involved in the production and design of these devices?