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In 1995, graduate students Thuy Linh Tu and Alondra Nelson began reading stories that hyped the Internet as a "raceless and genderless" mass medium.
This idea didn't sit well with either of them, because they didn't believe it possible to shed racial identities or escape racism just because people went online.
Then came the discussion of the digital divide, where people of color were being alienated because they did not have the same access to technology as whites.
Tu and Nelson – authors of Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life – believed a digital divide did in fact exist, but the discussions on the issue remained black and white, with generalizations resorting to, as they put it, "Asian American whiz-kids and Black and Latino technophobes."
They believe this oversimplification discouraged people of color to take an interest in technology, and with no role models for young minorities, the digital divide remained an academic debate.
Those and like topics will be the subject this weekend at "Race in Digital Space," a conference beginning Friday at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"You don't want to reach a fatalistic attitude," said Henry Jenkins, director of comparative media studies at MIT, and co-organize the conference. "You have to hope for a utopian world. Martin Luther King held up the dream we have to frame for the digital population of the United States.
"We need a diverse cyberspace. Not a race-blind cyberspace."
These discussions may be important, but they beg the question of strategy: Is it wise to highlight the successes minorities have had with technology when digital divide programs are under threat by the new Bush administration?
Nelson believes her work could be misinterpreted by conservatives who have dismissed the idea of a digital divide.
"It potentially could have politically detrimental effects," said Nelson, who is also speaking at the event. "Conservatives could put a nasty spin on it."
But she is adamant that her book and the conference are not meant to debunk the digital divide, but to change people's attitudes about the debate.
"I think there is a real digital divide," Tu said, "but always talking about a digital divide is a self-fulfilling prophesy. By showing how (minorities) have used it will be empowering."
Maybe. But the threat in Washington to slash race-based technology programs is a reality. On Feb. 6, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell commented on the digital divide by giving the comparison of owning a computer to owning a luxury car.
"I think there is a Mercedes divide," he said. "I would like to have one, but I can't afford one."
And according to the Commerce Department budget proposal for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, the Technology Opportunities Program may be cut by 65 percent.
In a recent study done by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the percentage of African American and Hispanic households with a computer and Internet access are far below those of Caucasian and Asian American and Pacific Islander households. In August of 2000, 56 percent of Caucasian households had computer and Internet access, compared to only 32 percent of African American households.
"So the issue is not, 'I don't have a Mercedes,'" said Cynthia Lanius, executive director for the Center for Excellence and Equity in Education at Rice University. "The issue is, 'I don't have a car.'"
Although the percentage of African American and Hispanic households with a computer and Internet access has increased since 1998, Lanius believes it's a larger problem. The country seems to be going backwards in terms of minorities going into the math and science fields, not forwards.
More people of color are going into these fields than ever before, but taking population growth into account, it's actually a smaller percentage of minorities than twenty years ago.
Lanius thinks having the MIT conference is a good idea, because always lamenting on failures is disheartening. But she did say it's vital to pay attention to what's happening in Washington.
"I'm sure that MIT doesn't intend to say, 'We've arrived, and we don't have to keep fighting,'" she said. "It's more a time to regroup and say, 'We've worked hard at this, and this is what we've accomplished so far. Now we can continue fighting.'"
The conference will try to "think beyond the screen and the mouse," according to a quote on the conference's website made by co-organizer Tara McPherson. "Digital spaces extend to a while range of 'tote-able' street technologies from cell phones and beepers to Gameboys, music equipment and more," she said. "We're interested in the way these forms constitute new publics."
The conference will feature a variety of speakers, from Nolan Bowie, at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University to Alex Rivera, a digital media artist and filmmaker. There will also be an art exhibition, a "digital salon" which features experimental film and video, Net art, CD-Roms and websites, and a dance performance.
"It's important because there's this assumption that people of color are somehow less involved with technology or not capable," said Vivek Bald, who is speaking at the conference and whose work is featured in Tu and Nelson's book.
"One of the important roles that a book and conference like this can play is to empower people within different communities to use or to continue to use technology fearlessly, and to continue to be innovators."
