![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerin![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
karnythia recently linked to a news article about people studying the effects of television on racial biases. There was an old bit on SNL's Weekend Update when I was growing up, where Norm Macdonald would read a headline about a recent medical study and then announce that it and other news could be read in the pages of the medical journal "DUH!". As others observed on her post, there have been studies about this sort of thing for as long as there has been television... while more attention given to it is not a bad thing, the thought behind this research (as presented in the article, anyway) seems somewhat naive.
To quote:
The psychologists wondered how such biases could persist in a society in which racism is socially unacceptable and indeed publicly denounced.
I would submit that there is and always has been a difference between "this thing is not done in our society" and "this thing is not admitted to in our society". What is socially unacceptable is to be openly and overtly racist, to admit to racism... this is what makes talking about racism so difficult. If a person or group is doing something in a way that seriously disadvantages or negatively impacts minorities, attempts to discuss the very real problem they present frequently break down into protracted discussions of their motivations and their feelings.
Of course, people who shout "I HATE [epithet]S!" from the rooftops seriously suck. Seriously. But their ability to affect people on a day to day basis is severely limited because they are denounced so quickly and people are so quick to distance themselves from such overt racism. Such overt bigots can assault people, can injure and hurt them, but do not usually have the power to oppress all by their lonesome.
(This isn't to say we shouldn't denounce them. If we don't make it clear that such things are intolerable, then they won't stay lonesome and they will get power. "Society" is a shoutocracy: loudest voice frequently wins.)
Oppression is a systemic problem. It comes from institutional racism.
Example: when a company sells only products that are primarily useful for or attractive to white folks or markets them in a way that makes it seem like they're only meant for white folks, it might be described as a pure number-crunching exercise. They might describe their target audience not as white (or hetero, or able-bodied, or cis, or English speaking) but as "mainstream". And many people wouldn't argue with that.
But doing this is not only a response to our society where certain people and their perceived tastes are "mainstream" and thus more worth catering to, it perpetuates that perception, rebuilds it and makes it stronger all the time.
Take a look at this video:
Now, because some things are going to be raised as objections any time something like this is posted in an open forum:
1. Yes, the lighting conditions are not optimal and probably not in line with the manufacturer's recommendations or set-up instructions. It's certainly possible that with enough jiggering and a bit of poking, the man in the video could get the camera to recognize and track his face.
2. No, the HP engineers did not invent the laws of physics as they apply to optics.
3. No, no one is saying that Hugh L. Packard, president of HP, said "FUCK THE BLACKS. MAKE IT ONLY WORK ON WHITE PEOPLE."
The fact is that a major consumer electronics manufacturer released, shipped, and sold a device that at the very least works best for white people, works under a wider range of conditions for white people, and requires less fiddling around with your room's set-up out of the box for white people. That's charitably assuming it would work in a reasonable fashion for the gentleman doing the demonstration, if he dimmed the backlighting and put a light source in front, as some commenters on the video suggested.
"That's not racist, that's just how lighting and cameras work."... except... can anybody imagine this being considered a viable commercial technology if it worked the other way around? If the technology for using facial tracking on white folk was such that it would require a level of finicky fiddling about with ambient lighting that the old ROB robot that was bundled with the NES in the 1980s did, would a computer manufacturer actually bundle it with a computer webcam package on the cusp of 2010? Or would they be going "It's an interesting concept, but the technology is not really 'there' yet. Let's keep trying to improve it."
Some people will probably look at that and wonder if I'm suggesting that nobody should be able to buy this webcam product unless it works perfectly for everyone. I'm not. I'm suggesting we wouldn't be able to buy it... at least not as a feature with an HP media center computer rather than a quirky toy for techno-hobbyists who don't mind the fiddling around... if it didn't work well for white people. Because it does, it has "mainstream commercial appeal".
This is systemic racism, institutional racism in action. I'm sure some people are going to roll their eyes and say things like "Oh, life is so hard for people who can't get a webcam to follow their movements. It must be nice if that's the only problem they have to complain about." To which I say: yes, I'm sure it would be nice if that were the only thing that someone had to complain about. But this is not some weird random example of something that goes against the common trend. The "mainstreaming" of whiteness is pervasive and so are its effects.
Shows and movies (and books and magazines) centered around white actors/characters are marketed as the default. If a character with a different skin tone is cast white in an adaptation to broaden the appeal, it's a main character... characters who become minority in translation ostensibly for the same reason are almost always background characters or sidekicks (There are exceptions. They are played by Will Smith and Morgan Freeman. And Obama is president. And Sammy Davis, Jr. played at the Copacabana Club. The existence of minority superstars are one of the best examples of the hoary old chestnut about "the exception that proves the rule".) We judge the cleanliness and "professionalism" of people's hair based on the way white folks' hair looks when it's well-cared for. We have a similar rubric for judging the professionalism of people's names.
The number of people who can complain with a straight face on the "racism" of a channel called "Black Entertainment Television" when we spend our lives so immersed in things targeted directly at
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
No offense but...
on 2009-12-22 03:58 am (UTC)I don't work at HP but I have worked at places where that is essentially the testing model used. And considering how HP does a crappy job of testing in general, it is quite likely what happened. If that pair of people happened to include a black person (which would probably happen about ~25% of the time).
So, unless they are willing to pay more for testing (which cuts into their profit margin), it is unlikely to happen.
That makes the 'solution':
A) Stop using Capitalism which encourages this sort of behaviour as laying out an extra $Xk or so to test every possible combination of race cuts into a product's profit margin.
B) Boycott companies that do this sort of thing to encourage more complete testing methodologies in regards to race and encourage others to do so.
Also, I have bought a webcamera from HP (the one and only time I've ever bought anything from HP, and will never again) which can't focus on my white face and I have to do it manually. So I suspect HP's QA process really is this bad.
Re: No offense but...
on 2009-12-22 04:13 pm (UTC)It's not your math that I'm questioning, it's the assumption that 12.4% of the population means that any slice of our population will yield somewhere around that same representation. If that were a safe assumption, then I wouldn't have made this post in the first place. It would be a funny odd quirk of fate that this happenstance slipped through rather than a symptom of something bigger and more troubling.
Re: No offense but...
on 2009-12-22 06:19 pm (UTC)I note you skipped over the point of the post:
HP's QA process is really so bad that if they have two members of non-white folks in that pair, the camera might very well not work for white people. Hence my anecdotal evidence of the webcam that doesn't focus on my white face.
If you feel there isn't a fair representation of people in the workplace, that is an entirely different topic.
Re: No offense but...
on 2009-12-22 06:33 pm (UTC)I don't disagree! I also don't disagree that more rigorous QA would have caught this, without any change in the racial dynamics of the world or the distribution of race in the workforce or anything else.
But we live in a world where it's very very unlikely that they would have tested the product exclusively on non-white people, which is the point of my post. The circumstances simply would not have arose.
The world we live in predisposes things like this to fall more harshly and more often on non-whites. Hence, systemic racism.
And while a crappy webcamera is not the end of the world, this same phenomenon isn't limited to HP. I picked this as a representative example of how things can "just so happen" to have a racially biased outcome.
Re: No offense but...
on 2009-12-22 10:50 pm (UTC)65.4% of the country is white folks. Therefore, the odds make it highly probable one of them would happen to be in the testing pool.
So, if you take my example of 2 people, the odds of you picking two white people at random is 42.7%.
You are ascribing racism to probability and a poor QA process.
But we live in a world where it's very very unlikely that they would have tested the product exclusively on non-white people, which is the point of my post.
Incorrect. Less than a third of the population is white. Only in countries where the white people are in the majority, is that statement true. China and India alone (which make up a third of the world's population) are both likely to test products on purely non-whites. That is not counting the entire continent of Africa, the rest of Asia, or South America.
Re: No offense but...
on 2009-12-22 10:59 pm (UTC)'Racism' caused by probability and poor QA isn't a problem. It is not even 'racism'. Rather, it is simply the reality of being in the minority and buying products from a company with a QA process that is poor.
Re: No offense but...
on 2009-12-22 11:26 pm (UTC)You demonstrate your selective understanding by first citing the figure of white folk in this country, where HP is based, and then pointing out that whites are a global minority when it helps you defend your point.
You're misusing statistics from start to finish. 12.4% of the population being one race does not equal a 12.4% chance of anybody in any walk of life being that race. 1 in 3 people being white worldwide does not equal a mere 1 in 3 chance that a given tester would have been white. Probabilities are often expressed as percentages, but that does not mean you can treat a percentage from one context as a probability in all contexts.
I mean, it's not as though there's an equal chance that a major consumer electronics product that will be sold on the North American market will be tested in America by Americans or in Africa by Africans... and yeah, major consumer electronics products will probably be increasingly made and tested in China and India but I guarantee that when that happens the people doing the testing will think about the importance of any differences in the North American market before selling here. They couldn't afford to not do so.
'Racism' caused by probability and poor QA isn't a problem. It is not even 'racism'.
It creates an outcome that favors whites, the majority race in the United States and one with a considerable amount of privilege, over a minority race. It arises out of those same circumstances. Hence, systemic racism.
As for whether or not it's a problem? Well, having a webcam feature that doesn't work for you is the very definition of a "first world problem", as nobody actually needs a webcam that does that... and I hope you'll note that nothing in this post indicts HP as a bunch of cross-burning bigots who need to be boycotted out of existence. I picked this as an example because the video happens to be going around right now and it's a perfect example of systemic racism.
The fact that so many people feel the need to defend this shit so vociferously actually makes me angry in a way that the specific issue highlighted in the video. The kneejerk dismissal of any charge of racism that's less overt and clear-cut than outright hate speech is troubling... it's like people are going, "If any one can be accused of racism, I could be accused of racism and that would be awful."
I refer back to the main point of my post: that it seems like admitting to racism has become the unforgivable sin in our society, and that this makes it difficult to have a discussion about racism that's anything more than everybody standing around condemning the KKK and Hitler for being obviously evil.
Re: No offense but...
on 2009-12-23 06:08 am (UTC)You are intentionally taking what I said and claiming something else to defend your point.
You claim I'm misusing statistics without any evidence besides misconstruing what I said as something other than what it is.
1) That statement was about India and China, primarily, and non-US products in general. HP is a global conglomerate. Part of why they are investigating this? So they can sell to India, China, and other places where white people are not the majority. It was also refuting your claim on the basis of a literal interpretation of what you wrote. It has nothing to do with anything else. Which, in context, it is valid.
2) You are missing the point of me pointing out numbers. Instead of attacking my point, you attack my choice of numbers. Which is further proof you are simply misconstruing it. The purpose of the numbers is to show that it is a coincidence brought about by the percentages of people in a population. It doesn't matter if it is 1% instead of 12.4% or 80%. Simply because an outcome 'favours white people', on the basis of probability alone, is not systemic racism. Rolling a dice and coming up with a result other than X%, is not racism. Neither is a poor QA process.
3) You are claiming major consumer electronics products are not are not tested and made in India and China. That shows gross ignorance of the facts.
Where do you think ASUS is based and operates? Taiwan, China, Mexico, and the Czech Republic. Where is their production? Taiwan. They produce a ton of computer products. Guess who tests them? I doubt there is enough Caucasians living in those countries to fill out ASUS's QA process, and similar companies. Let alone everything else. The only difference between them and HP is a better QA process and the location of their operations.
4) 'They couldn't afford to not do so' China and India, combined, would be the third largest economy in the world. They have entire companies which service only domestic markets.
5) Your angry? So what. It is not relevant. Your claims of a 'kneejerk' dismissal of any charge of racism is also unfounded. But rather an ad hominem attack made without any evidence beside the fact I don't agree with your example of systemic racism. If you really feel such generalised ad hominem attacks are valid, without any real evidence, that is your prerogative. However, it only weakens your argument.
6) The problem with the main point of your post is, your example does not support it. It looks more like an excuse to call 'systemic racism' to me in support of your pet theory. You even admit in your first post that they may not have set things up properly in the first place.
Show a pattern of behaviour. Write a well researched paper on the subject. Don't go and post crap like this and then make personal attacks on people who don't agree with your example.
Re: No offense but...
on 2009-12-23 06:18 am (UTC)http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2009/11/01/throwaway-cities-systemic-racism-and-capitalism/
Re: No offense but...
on 2009-12-23 06:55 am (UTC)2. I didn't attack your choice of numbers. I attacked the fallacy which states that if X% of the population are Star-Bellied Sneetches, then we can pick any situation and any walk of life and there will be an X% chance of any one individual there being a Star-Bellied Sneetch. You seem to think this is true. I'd love to live in a world where it is, but it isn't.
3. I made no such claim. I said "increasingly made and tested"... i.e., I predicted that it will happen more and more in the future. Do you think that's not true?
4. Again you selectively ignore things. I said they cannot afford to ignore the difference when they're selling here. Does anything in that statement suggest that their domestic economy could not support a consumer electronics market? No. It's talking about what would happen if a company that developed goods for the Chinese or Indian market chose to sell to North America without looking at the differences in the marketplace.
5. I'm angry that somebody feels the need to ignore what I'm actually saying, take issue with things that haven't been said and throw up a bunch of smokescreens rather than admit that the world he lives in is one in which bias is built in, most likely to his own advantage.
If it wasn't a kneejerk response, you'd be able to dismiss points I actually make instead of
And you know what? While I'm glad you say you're done arguing, part of me wants you to respond. Part of me wants to see you explain the blatant discrepancies between what I said and what you have said I said (in your points 3 and 4 in particular... golly, that is so blatant I wonder how you think your points can possibly stand when anybody who reads them can also read my comment and see how badly you've twisted things), but I've wasted enough time and enough energy and enough spoons filling out a bingo card with you.
You are done here. Thank you, ban_set.
6. It supports it perfectly. It's a racially biased outcome growing out of racially biased circumstances. In a dream world where "X% of the population being race Y = X% chance of any individual in any specific circumstance being race Y" held true, you would be perfectly right. We don't live in that world. This is an example of systemic racism. Not the most consequential, not the most shocking, not the most devastating, not the most harmful. One reason it's brilliant as an example is because it's so easily dismissed that it
And you know, what I said in point 5 goes back to the actual point of the post: admitting to racism. I can admit it. I'm white and I benefit from white privilege. I'm not perfect. I participate in racist systems. I have furthered racism through my actions and my inactions. We all have. Everybody who is part of society to a meaningful degree has, and we should all feel free to admit it and to examine our actions, past and present, because that's the only way things are going to get better. I'll be making a post at some point in the near future that will deal with this... my own failings... in more detail, because really that is the problem here: that the idea of racism is so strongly reviled that we can't deal with the small bits of racism, the subtle racism, the "background" racism, as it were, because everybody acts like talking about it is tantamount to calling everybody KKK members.
The KKK are a bunch of assholes, to be sure, but they're not half the problem that the everyday shit is. You call this everyday shit the reality of being a minority, and you know what? You're right. It is.
You know what else is "just reality"?
Every other problem that needs solving.