Erasing @race

Kolko concludes in “Erasing @race” that race is left out of cyberspace and is not one of the categorizations used in cyberspace.

Technology allows us to communicate without ever needing direct contact (213). Therefore, people never need to see people face to face. Skin color is not represented in cyberspace, so it is not regarded. People construct identities through cyberspace, and can even create a false age, gender, and history of themselves in order to show people what is desired to show them. “The crafting of a virtual identity is important because your representation in cyberspace will guide others’ interactions with you.” If you falsify any information about yourself, then that is the person that others are going to communicate with and think you are. Race is not a classification used in cyberspace. A default race is just taken to be “white,” (216). Since there is no race defined in cyberspace, then all people are taken to be white, regardless of their actual race. To include race in cyberspace, it might be useful for communicating and knowing a true person. But, including race may result in more problems than there already are.

“Too frequently, people must adapt to technology rather than adapting it to their needs,” (220). Why are people adapting to technology? Technology seems necessary for people these days. Young adults and others cannot live without their cell phones, and computers and the internet are probably relied upon too much. What if all computers one day would crash? We would not know what to do. Believe it or not, people did not always have computers and cell phones. I know it is hard to imagine, but it’s true. If people wanted to display race on the internet they could. However, technology allows us to exclude certain personal details, which means race can be left out.

I do not think it would be a good idea to incorporate race into the internet. Because race exists as a problem already, there would not be good results that came from putting race into the internet. If the problem of race were somehow solved, then it would be appropriate to incorporate race into the internet. The problem would most likely escalate if race were to be incorporated in the internet though. I think it is also a major issue on the internet of true selves. Technology allows people to lie and create false selves. When communicating online we never know for sure whether we are talking to the person described, or someone else.