Racism is ugly to confront, and, like most people, I’ve got plenty of personal stories. My grandmother, bless her heart, was a wonderful grandmother, but like many Jewish people of her generation, she was incredibly racist, afraid of black people she didn’t know. This fear caused her anxiety when she got the urge to go to a favorite restaurant. She loved the food, but, as she would derisively say, so did the schvartze (Yiddish slur for a black person). What if she didn’t have to see the black people at all? This possibility is what worries me about our augmented-reality future, which is (mostly) anticipated with optimism. If grandma had lived to see ubiquitous augmented reality, I suspect she’d put it to dehumanizing use, leaving for the restaurant with her goggles on (a less obtrusive artifact than the Coke bottle glasses she actually wore), programming them to make all dark skinned people look like variations of Larry David and Rhea Pearlman. As Brian Wassom — who regularly writes on augmented reality — notes, if apps can “recognize a particular shade of melanin, and replace it with another,” racists could one day “live in their own version of…utopia.”
Grandma might have even been able to get the desired results without making any effort. Perhaps the algorithms running her software would automatically personalize the viewing experience — say, keeping an ongoing record of whom she looked away from, as well as other biological features that register discomfort, such as an accelerated heart rate. Biofeedback could safely cocoon us in an amped up version of the filter bubble.
Disturbing as this scenario is, it barely scratches the surface of what could come to pass. Augmented reality users could do much more than ignore minorities — they could track them. If minorities are dangerous, they’d reason, you want to know where they are at all times. Otherwise, you’re vulnerable. Science-fiction author Tim Maughan has envisioned horrendous possibilities, expressed to me in private correspondence: augmented reality warnings, like a “big floating arrows” that identify people to be avoided from miles away, or a navigation app that steers users away from racially undesirable neighborhoods and establishments.(via Augmented-Reality Racism - Evan Selinger - The Atlantic)
The Guardian has an article about the D&G show. (via tesseralharmonics)
D&G has responded in an indirect form at their website Swide,
You might have seen them in some villa or restaurant or hotel in Sicily, dominating the table: colourful head-shaped ceramic vases filled with beautiful flowers. But like many things in Italy, they are more than what they seem.
The head is inspired by Moorish features. Moorish is a term used to define many peoples throughout history. Medieval and early modern Europeans applied the name to the Berbers, Arabs, Muslim Iberians and West Africans, although it has to be said that the term ‘Moorish’ has no real ethnological value. In Sicily’s case it defines the conquerors of Sicily. The first Muslim conquest of southern Italy lasted 75 years, from 827 to 902 AD.
Read the rest at the link.
Some interesting/ infuriating info at the Wiki page for blackamoors. It may be a part of your history but better judgement should have been exercised.
It’s also terrible because while this is considered high fashion and luxury, actual black people in Italy (particularly refugees) are segregated and “abandoned to a life of poverty and isolation.”
D&G is still awful.
(via racialicious)
Racist confession on PostSecret.
Satoshi Kanazawa. Some of you may recognize that name. He’s an evolutionary psychologist known for making arguments such as “black women are ugly … according to science” and “Africans are dumb … according to science.”
He’s at it again, this time at Big Think, declaring that his blindfolded bobbing-for-apples dip into the “data” has shown him that black women and Asian men are less attractive … you know, “scientifically”.
It’s a gross, insulting misuse of research data. I only post it here for two reasons:
- So everyone can see an example of the importance of thinking critically, and not believing things just because a science-y person says them.
- And so you’ll get a chance to go read P.Z. Myers’ evisceration of Kanazawa’s “science”
A few thoughts with no conclusion.
Science is a lot of different things to a lot of different people, it varies from culture to culture and even within the European-American tradition nations (i.e Wissenschaft vs Science.) Simply stated, or at least one of my preferred definitions, science is “the production of convincing knowledge in modern society.”
Marks, J. 2009. Why I Am Not A Scientist. Berkeley: UC Press.
The bolded words are just the beginning of the discussion. From my understanding, science is NOT a passive experience, it is produced via some process. Along this line of thought, science is susceptible to all manner of social processes and not just discovery or fact production. Furthermore, science is firmly rooted in the ideas, values and social practices of “dead white males” by way of the Enlightenment. That’s all I wanted to say about science.
Be very careful with Science.
OOoOoh, the fucking irony. Stop getting periods over your (or more correctly, my) skin tone and focus on yourself as a person instead of a caricature. Read a fucking Ayn Rand book or something. Or do you think that typing in ALL CAPS to some “privileged whiteys” is going to do anything constructive towards racism besides convince us that you’re no fucking better?”
You demand “well-thought and perhaps persuasive” responses, but then you tell people to read the works of someone, Ayn Rand, who is non-persuasive and a very poor thinker? Hahahaha.
I was watching the RNC on MSNBC and I saw this AMAZING anti-immigration ad. This kid has mad skills.
Listen, he has a point. I am sick and tired of these damn illegal aliens coming over by the billions to take away all of the good investment banking/ neurosurgeon (combo) jobs! It’s about time that white folks stood up for themselves, no longer let themselves be trampled by these illegal aliens! Who watches the Watchmen? So say we all!
Note: This is all sarcasm so don’t message me because you can’t read.
Brewer’s order issued Wednesday says she’s reaffirming the intent of current Arizona law denying taxpayer-funded public benefits and state identification to [undocumented] immigrants.”
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer blocks IDs and benefits. [ABC]
I hate you.
-James Watson (via opinionatedwiley)
This is the dumbest quote of all-time for a lot of reasons but let me just clarify that some of the first great minds within genetics, for example Nobel Prize winner Muller & free loving Calvin Bridges, were hardcore communists/Marxists. Calvin Bridges opted to practice what he preached by sleeping with everyone in NYC. Furthermore genetics doesn’t imply any of that and in instances where it may, fail is a very stupid way of qualifying it.
The final sentence is just terrible. I think a part of me died after reading it.
(via factualwiley)
