Banks: The Digital Divide

The first part of the reading that stuck out to me was the idea of a cultural divide that is keeping parts of the country from literacy (including digital access and literacy).

Banks states that there is a "long stating theoretical blind spot" that is "especially pronounced in a field like English studies, where race, technolog, and questions of access are all addressed... but where the connections between them are almost never explored."

I found this thought to be very interesting. Exactly what connections is he referring to?

*Claims that although engineers, science professionals, and even some mainstream policymakers have long understood the importance of equal access to these technologies, writing and communication teachers of all races have been mostly silent on the subject.
***but if the most important characteristic of computers and the internet is their role as communication technologies, and if these tools have begun a revolution in communication the results for African Americans will be catastrophic (because they have consistently and often systematical been denied access to these technologies).

following the "silence over the decade" as it echoes through journals and books published in composition and technical communication, as well as following African American rhetoric.
**in the past ten years since the digital age divide and broader technology access issues emerged in the nation has a single article addressing race and technological limitations been published in the top three technical communication journals.
** composition as well has published very few articles on technology access and writing instruction.
** there have been several works that call to attention the importance of access; by such authors as James Porter and Cynthia Selfe
*** there are systemic exclusions as well as involvement in political power and literacy.
*** companies will always try to sell expensive "new" software to school, but at times less expensive "lowe-end tools" may be enough


overall I have to say I didn't really understand the article, or chapter rather. I though the author's sentence structure was confusing. Many of the examples were also confusing. throughout the chapter I kept looking for specific evidence of African American (or any minority) that explicitly lacked the opportunity or access to digital technology.

Also, it dawned on me while writing this that there is no visible cultural diversity in our class

Then again,despite the fact that I am middle-class white, I did not have home internet access or even a computer until I was in college. The only regular computers I was exposed to, were in my school, but this access was extremely limited. Although we did have training in PowerPoint and regular access to smartboard, creating a certain paradox.

This reading leaves me baffled.

For a fun experiment though I'm going to show a music video by African American, visibly homemade, and a video by a presumably middle class White kid.
the first video, by an African American artist seems to corrigenda with Banks ideas that races other than White are lacking in digital literacy.
1- It's So Cold in the D by Tbaby
2- Under Cover Penis Lover by Nuglah on youtube.

but of course. I also have an example of a video well made by an African American man.
3- Beyonce spoof video by Alphacat