Research Proposal

From this class we've been talking about identity categorizing through the internet and I started to think about Facebook and the affects of what the website has come to be today.  Oh, Facebook you say, that's an easy way out for a research paper.  I think not.  I'm interested in facebook and how its technology has made us lose identity, making us conformists, i.e. "If you don't have a facebook, you must be a loser and don't exist." You're considered "normal" if you have a Facebook - categorizing already.  I have been a FACE on facebook for the past 6 years now.  I can honestly say I don't remember what life without its distraction was truly like.  Facebook has become an encyclopeida of objectifying people through groups and fans and "liking".  How do these categories come to exist? How do people on facebook belong or do not belong to them? Surveillance, privacy - privacy, surveillance.  How is surveillance and privacy linked to the social categories we make on Facebook? Facebook is a lack of face to face communication such as skype.  How has facebook disembodied us? How has Facebook destroyed relationships - cause I know damn well that facebook made me go crazy when my boyfriend went off to college - facebook gave me information, not the individual.  Facebook has destroyed friendships for me, ones I thought would last forever.  Facebook has changed what the written word has always meant - facebook is monotone, facebook is emotionless.

I have found several books in the library and through other libraries addressing these questions.  And I would like to interview facebook users, asking them how life was prior to using facebook.  Will they even remember?

We are always being watched.  And yet we know this about facebook, and we know how it shapes how we behave towards others, it has shaped our relationships.  For my research paper, I'd like to argue all of these aspects; That through technology our relationships with other people on facebook has changed how we view the world, how we view people. What you see, is what you get. 

No step in the right direction, ever hurt anyone

War. What is it good for? That's what I thought....absolutely nothing.

The World is at war.  Burma has been at war since 1950. China is at war. India is at war.   The Korean war is still in conflict. Israel is in conflict with Palestine. There's a civil war in Palestine. There is genocide happening. There is a drug war in Mexico.  Thailand and Islam are in conflict. AIDS is running high in Africa.  Russia is in conflict.  Nepal is in conflict.  Nigeria, Spain, Turkey - all places in conflict. The United States - in conflict with Afganistan, Iraq, Mexico, the Phillipines.  There are thousands of children dying of starvation each day.  The list goes on.  The world is at war.

The World is at war. The world is at war through the internet.  The world is at war through racism.  The world is at war through sexism.  The world is at war through hate.  I can't remember...what are we fighting for again?  Oh yea...Peace and Justice...I'm sorry but WTF?!

The World is at war.  The People of the world are at War.  The planet itself is now at war.  War has led to the destruction of the most important individual to us all - the earth, our home.  We live in a bubble people, we're not going anywhere, and if we can - who knows if we all can go.

I'm over it.  I'm over the hoopla.  I'm over the discrimination, I'm over oppression, I'm over poverty, I'm over affluation, I'm over the blunders of the internet, and I'm down right over war and violence.  I want to live my life in a fairy-tale at this point.  I'd rather be selfish and say "SCREW YOU CORPORATE AMERICA - I'M GOING TO THE MOON"  or may discover the lost people of Atlantis or something.  I'd rather spend my days and nights by the ocean, a fire, singing songs and listening to jams.  But I can't - because I live in a reality that was created for me - a reality that literally doesn't exist.  The only reality there is, is the earth.  THAT will always be real.  The trees, the plants, the animals, the fish, those will always be real.  And yet what have the people of our earth decided to do with it over the centuries?  Destroy it. Because all they saw was power.  God gave them the power.

Seriously....some say God is the creator of the earth, then why would god EVER want you to destroy the land that was created for us?   I'm a child of the earth.  I may not be a "child" per say, but  I am a creation of nature.  My life has purpose now that I exist on this planet.  We are the lucky ones. We can communicate, feel, run, jump, LOVE.  We are a part of something much bigger than just being human.  We are a part of a cycle that forever continues.  Our souls make up this cycle,  our souls lie in nature.  Nature brought us all here.  And nature will take us out if nature decides our people have lost what it takes to understand what it means to be a part of existence. Nature is not happy with what we are doing to our home and our neighboring plants and animals.  If God made nature. Then nature is God.  And we've destroyed God by putting emphasis on emotions like hate, greed and evil instead of emotions that lift us up and heal us, like love, compassion and hope. 

REVOLUTION. EVOLUTION.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality? Actual reality? I find that science fiction films have grown into something more than just about robots, space creatures and space ships. The Matrix, a more recent science fiction film, revealed a system of racist White supremacy alongside the idea of virtual reality, living a dream world kind of reality much like Alice in Wonderland. It took the idea of technology to a whole other level by taking away a human beings true sense of reality.  Star Wars was an other movie and had a much more powerful message than viewers would notice.  The Jedi was monastic, with practices rooted in Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism.  The Jedi stressed patience, humility, respect and believing in the power of the spiritual world over the physical.  At the same time, you see in Star Wars the heros' are White, hetero-normative men out to, yes to save the people from evil, but also to save the white hetero-normative woman, with the bad guy dressed in all black (an "evil", dark color).  In Star Wars, technology was observed as merely a tool that human beings could use or misuse.  Their idea of technology was much different than the 21st century Matrix.  Star Wars' technology had their artificial intelligence robots as being just as aware and valid as natural, human being intelligence. Star Trek was a movie that created an alternative reality through time travel.  While their movie has moments of equality between species and other feeling creatures, it is still about the White, hetero-normative man saving all existence between the galaxies.  Star Trek has the character Spock, half human and half Vulcan heritage who has been suppressed by the Evil so and so who has been planning to destroy the Vulcan culture completely.

Yes, it is wrong to continue these cycles of discrimination particularly through science fiction where "the other" is viewed as its americanized stereotype.   Some of these movies from this genre create other human beings from a culture other than ours as "alien", which it is really when you define what alien means.  Something different from what we know to be normal and real to us - such as different cultural ways of cooking, dining, etc.  Still, I think science fiction films do show us the viewer that we are all victims of and providers to machines, technology, their systems, and the industries that provide them to us.  It just goes to show that it is no longer a fantasy. We ARE in a virtual reality. We live through cyberspace daily.  We, as an american culture, and now across our vast world, use and manipulate our lives through technology, through the internet.  We've created identities for ourselves and essentially for others through our use of facebook, twitter, blogging, youtube, online avatars, chat rooms, and so on and so forth.  There's no escaping it.  It has been done, it exists and we are present in it.  The only thing we can do is act like the Jedi.  We should accept the destructive nature of anger and hate and the extreme lust for power as it will all only lead to suffering.  It will lead to suffering of you the individual but to everyone you know and love around you, your community, your world, your mother earth, your planet.  

We cannot break the recurring racialized representations of people of color in all genres of film until awareness can be brought to the majority about what these representations have done to our ecological system as a whole.

color-blindness and blogging

So I've been thinking lately about blogging and the internet and everything about the world wide web and what it has done to our personal lives and the messages it sends out about race, gender, sexuality etc.  I have this blog, you see, and if I had not put a picture up of myself on this blog, technically no one would know if I was black, white, yellow, brown, blue, or gold.  Technically no one would know if I was Muslim, Asian, Indian, Native American, British, Australian, Italian and so on and so forth.  This blog, the internet, allows anyone to become anyone they want - especially when you think about photoshopping and what not.  But what many fail to remember is what it actually means to have a blog, to have a public web journal, with your thoughts on the internet.  Yes, thoughts are made public when you speak your mind to another individual but thoughts and feelings on the internet are there for whomever.  Literally...whomever.  It bothers me really that I have a blog. Blogging is something that many do enjoy following as some web journals are creative, interesting and humorous.  But to be a blogger means knowing the dangers blogging can bring to an individual.  Having your words written out on the internet can bring in who knows - online predators, sex offenders, racists, sexists, and crazy politicians.   Now....I say these things.  I post my thoughts onto the internet.  This means the sex offenders, predators, racists and sexists can see what I write if they come across me on the internet.  This is public.  This is more public than reading what I wrote only to my classroom of students.  To be honest I find it unfair.  I don't like the fact that I was never asked how I felt about starting a blog especially when I'm getting graded on it.  How much liberty do I actually have with this?  If it is indeed my blog. Some days I hate knowing I have to write a blog and put my name out there.  Because it's never fun to feel targeted, exposed, naked and raw.  And some days I love the blog because then I get put my beliefs out there and hopefully start awareness to those online about what's going on with us.  What happened to our community, our species.

We need to move forward and create a vision of our world (because we're talking world wide web here) coming to the resolution of living together in peace and happiness.  To not make other human beings, who all have feelings, suffer just because of their gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, or sex.  We belong together in the place we call home - the earth.  So one day am I maybe going to get a nasty comment from some other blogger about how I'm some weird peace loving chick who should be pushed aside?  Where does it end?  It pisses me off honestly, that in our world, our people, have over time chosen to create us as unequal just because of our physical appearance.  Hello people! We're more than that! We're more than what we see in the mirror - and I think secretly we all know it.  As individuals we know that.  And yet what has this hatred towards others physical appearance lead us too? War. Anger. Violence.  I don't know about you, but I think it's a lot more fun to not live in fear of being killed by another human. I think it's a lot more fun to have friends and family and hang out and laugh and play.  And I think, as individuals we all know that.  We do, we've just forgotten because we see color.  We see color in humans.  Color is awesome. I love blue and red and green and black and purple and white and pink and brown and every other color on the palette.  Color is everywhere.  We LOVE to see it (those of us who are fortunate enough to be able too).  Why not then embrace the color of our physical bodies? We're all different shades on the color palette - that's all.  Embrace it.

The Digital Divide

Selections from Technicolor emphasize the technological inequalities that permeate cyberspace.  These inequalities are not merely economic issues, yet also inequalities amongst race and sex. Logan Hill's short essay, Beyond Access, elaborates the lack of access to minorities of fundamental technology that exists in American homes.  Hill lets the reader know that minorities are two to three times as likely to not have a telephone in their home, with African American and Latino homes being half as likely to have a computer than whites and Asians with less than that having internet access.  Hill believes lack of access to the internet is an issue that has been placed aside widening the digital divide instead of placing proper technological material in schools and libraries to allow those who need access to learn the skills of the internet that essentially runs our nation, our world today.

Mimi Nguyen loved the Xerox machine, working on her "zines", cutting and pasting and copying. She slowly moved to a new dimension of design: the computer.  A web journal became her new zine, writing her thoughts, while also posting images of some of her zines.  As an Asian American woman she wrote in her punk rock, cynical voice on the type of material that would pop up on the internet when searching for asian+women.  Of course all that popped up was pornographic material which only reinforces the notions of what kind of people are making these sights available, straight, white men.  She quoted Peggy Phelan who wrote, "If representational visibility equals power, then almost-naked young white women should be running Western culture."  As Nguyen goes on to say, that if representational visibility equals power, then naked Asian women should be running  most of cyberspace, especially when that is all that shows up when "asian+women" is searched on the web.  Comments started to come to her Web journal, criticizing her identity, mocking her and accusing her.  These brutal responses to her website are examples of how the hierarchy of "the body" continues not only in the natural world, but the cyberworld.   It is Nguyen's essay that I feel I could explain to others, as I have been subjected to some hostile remarks - not on a web journal, but through other commentary the internet allows users to do.

Guillermo Gomez-Pena wrote a compelling essay on being a Latino and the assumptions of his inability to properly learn the ways of technology or computers. He draws on the stereotypes of Latinos being incapable of learning such skills of the computer and other technologies.  If they were given the proper access to such technologies they would be able to acquire skills. You cannot learn how to use a piece of technology unless it is in front of you.  Duh.

Something I am unclear about is Henri Lefebrve's notion on "extra-technical".  Please help me understand!

you and me baby ain't nothin' but mammels, so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel

Students at UNH's annual University Day were asked how they felt about their university having a porn policy on their campus.  This policy, in theory, could potentially be limiting access to pornography sites over their internet connection, in hopes to prevent public users of the campus library viewing pornography in an academic setting.

Questions began to get asked like, "If you blocked words saying pornography (or child pornography in the case of what occurred here on campus) then you wouldn't be able to find articles talking about the issues of porn like many students have done in research papers and other essays."  Then you get into the discussion of pornoogprahy on the internet in general. especailly when you talk about the contents of our constitution. Yet we still continue to try and communicate to others that it is wrong to put these images on the internet which is free for all viewers because proclamations in our constitution say we have a freedom to post such content. It's called the WORLD WIDE WEB for a reason.  The issue for a porn policy at UNH is about a web system filtering all pron/child pornogrpahy websites, a web system which has been employed by our government. Should those guilty of posting or consuming child pornography be arrested? Or do we go the other direction and put offenders into a psych ward for mental evaluation?

Many people are uncomfortable when talking about sex and the naturalness of it. For humans sex is not just procreation, it is desirable and pleasurable.  It is artful and naked and pure.  Where is the line drawn between  erotic pleasure, pornographic positions and art?  A male and female couple once had a gallery, with an audience, with them performing sexual acts with one another, trying to express its beauty.  Can pornography not also be described as erotic sexual acts performed for a viewer? I don't know, it gets me all confused because there are so many different sides when talking about sex as it is so personal and private for some people.  It means different things for so many different people.   So we have to consider tthe definition of pornography.  It's defenitions are so complex that one cannot distinguish art and pornography, pornography and sexual freedom.  They're too complex to discuss in a court of law.  So really, asking UNH to put a filter on all pornography could potentially lead to a tangled debate in the justice system.

Child pornography would still exist in the homes of millions across the world.  As Daniel Quinn puts nicely in his book, The Story of B, Quinn elaborates how we cannot just make programs to change things we've ruined to make them better, we need to see the vision of what we're aiming to fix.  We want the vision to be for all people to know that children are sacred spririts to us and not to abuse their youth and their bodies as ways to get aroused- let alone put it on the internet.

Should the very fact my blog says pornography in it be filtered by a porn policy?  Having this blog means to  publicly  have my ideas on the internet, even though it may just be for a class.  My blog can be found by thousands who already have accounts on blogpost and other blog websites. Our culture - and others who rely on the internet - has been so accustomed to the quick, unlimited access of the internet.  We really only use so many websites that it is forgotten what it really means to be on the "world wide web".  Pornography on the internet is just one of the many problems the internet has brought in to our society.

oye - technology

First of all, as much as I love technology it totally blows. We become so dependent on it that we assume it will 'naturally' just work for us, hence me believing my blogpost had posted itself and without double checking to make sure it had (me, relying on technology) left the computer and now here I am rewriting! So I apologize to Courtney for this post taking so long to come up, and to my other fellow bloggers if someone was left without a blog to comment on.  With that out of the way here goes:

Eve Shapiro has totally figured it out.  She has truly come to understand the way technology has shaped the way societies view gender and the body itself. I particularly enjoy her arguments between gender and biomedical technology and all the "ologies" that are linked to the medical field. Elaborating on social scripts shaping us as individuals and societies she has been able to argue biomedical technology as a mediator between our physical and mental lives.  It is true that when we miss class or work we must legitimize our sickness through doctors notes to let our 'superior' know why we were not present.  What Shapiro says is why can we not let whoever know on a personal account of how we were feeling.  Our bodies are our source of knowledge, and where do we as humans draw the line of how much to trust our bodies over technological innovations - as we have been thought to believe technology knows best. 

Her argument can connect with the AIDS PSA video.  Yes, technology has encouraged us to help the AIDS crisis and reverse the effects of the awful disease but our physical and mental bodies let us know when something is not right - not technology.   On Page 30, Shapiro brings up feminist philosopher Donna Haraway who argues we have all become cyborgs especially now with such biotechnology tools recrafting our bodies.   Through social scripts, AIDS was seen as the victims problem, that it was their fault they got the disease.  Well...we didn't know there was such a thing in existence until it came about - same with cancer and all the other crazy diseases a human can come in contact with.  The AIDS epidemic is prevalent and affects a huge amount of people across the world yet (for me) it feels it has been pushed aside in so many ways because of the social script that was created between the link of AIDS and gays.  Yet on the positive side we have to acknowledge how technology has been good to us in the effort to find a cure for this nasty epidemic.

We've figured out how to get to space, no? We have all this advanced technology. Then, let's figure out how to save more lives, right?