For my graduate course, Writing for Electronic Communities, I had to read Color Monitors:The Black Face of Technology in America by Martin Kevorkian (Cornell University Press, 2002). After I read the first page, I made sure to make no marks in the book because I want the maximum amount of credit from Powells when I sell it back.
Kevorkian sees the black man behind the computer screen in movies as a negative image. Kevorkian states:
My research has uncovered a peculiar pattern: race comes into sharp relief when computer use is depicted as difficult labor requiring special experrtise. Time and again, in such scenarios, the helpful person of color is there to take the call — to provide technical support, to deal with the machines. In interpreting such images, Color Monitors analyzes the computer-fearing strain in American whiteness, an aspect of white identity that defines itself against information technology and the racial other imagined to love it and excel at it. The computer expert most disproportionately projected by this cyberphobic whiteness is the black male. I argue that fears about the dehumanizing, disembodying effects of information technology and fears of the black male body work as mutually reinforcing impulses behind popular depictions of black males as computer experts. In this equation, cyberphobic whiteness — fearing technology’s capacity to disembody humanity, to take bodies out of the circuit of action — unconsciously projects technology onto the one set of bodies that it most fears. The iomage of the obliging black man behind the monitor reassures viewers that the displayed body is safely occupied, both contained by and containing the threat of the computer. (2)
Kevorkian then goes on to examine roles in multiple movies, such as Die Hard and The Matrix.
The piece that is immediately missing for me is about the other roles in the movies. What are the other roles in the movies played by black men? Kevorkian uses Independence Day and talks about the black man who helps Jeff Goldblum (David) come up with an answer to how to stop the impending alien invasion. What about Will Smith (Steve) who saves the day? Will Smith is one of the action heroes along with Bill Pullman (the President) and Jeff Goldblum?
I came of age during the early 70’s. Black males in films were at first non-existent, then they were Superfly and Shaft. What I see now is more of a balance in the character roles — the hero, the computer nerd, the villain. I see educated black males because the computer techs did not get their positions because they looked good. they had to know something to get thier jobs. So the image I see is one that has the black male as part of the legitimate working world as opposed to a drug dealer or gang banger or the like.
Kevorkian talks about the tech person as a computer geek, computer nerd, or a child/adolescent. He equates the black male with these uninfluential, unintimidating, uncommanding, unauthoritative people. The view of the black man behind the computer screen is a step up froma black man as field worker or uneducated or troublemaker or lawbreaker. The tech person has access to information, no matter to whom he gives it. The tech person is a problem-solver, someone others have to rely upon to solve problems that make it possible for others to work.
And, of course, I wonder why Kevorkian only looked at the roles of black males and did not also look at black women, but that is a question for another day.
I could not read this book in its entirety. What was I supposed to get from it? I wonder, as I often do, why my professor included this book in Writing for Electronic Communities. Am I (the sole black person in this class) supposed to question my relationship with the computer? However, I’m a woman so Kevorkian wasn’t talking to me. But I am a mother of three sons. Should I worry that my sons will be viewed as safe, non-threatening men by the white world if they take computer jobs or should I encourage them to make use of every means at their disposal, especially the computer, to gain access to the larger world and all of its available information? The bottomlinefor me is do I want my sons to worry about what the white world thinks of them or do I teach them to shirk that burden of having the outside world watching them (teach them paranoia?) and to strive for excellence in any and every field of endeavor?
Finally, I wonder at Kevorkian’s actual stance on this issue. In his acknowledgements at the beginning of the book, he thanks his computer. Is Kevorkian only concerned with public portrayals as shown in the movies and private roles are something different? Isn’t that hypocritical?
I believe that if you look hard enough for a problem, you will find it. And you can manipulate data, like statistics, to prove both sides of the same issue or prove anything you want.
