Biologically,
there is only one human race. All people belong to the genus and species
Homo sapiens. The construct of differences
based upon skin color is created an idea created by humans. Racism is a social
and political hierarchy in which different divisions are placed above one
another based upon observed trait. Historically, race and racism stem from one
main event in the West’s history: Slavery and the slave trade.
The beginning of racism can be traced back to
the beginning of slavery. As soon as the economic advantages were realized,
slavery was something that light-skinned people wanted to keep and protect
because they were reaping the benefit. The idea that slaves were lower in the human
hierarchy stems from the protection of slavery for economic gain. This view
point allowed the sentiment to spread that slavery was acceptable because
slaves were inferior to people who have lighter skin. Racism, however, did not
end with slavery. The sentiment against people with darker skin lingered in the
West becoming ingrained in society. People of lighter skin did not want to mix
with the ‘inferior’ races due to a personal protection of their superiority. By
the 1800’s, the human race had almost completely been split into the superior
lighter-skinned people and the inferior darker-skinned people.
While slavery was the reason that
racism is so widespread, sentiment was not changed when it was abolished. The
ideas of superiority and hierarchy based upon skin did not go away. Laws have
been created to stop blatant segregation between people due to race, religion,
or culture, but that does not mean the end of racism, either. The fact remains that
small forms of separation of races still linger today. Today, racism is defined
as more of a separation of people of different skin colors and the judgment
based upon stereotypes. Just as literature was influenced in the years after
slavery to continue a form of this segregation, technology today is still
slightly influenced its movement to a small degree. Today, most technology that
is geared to a certain race is created to please a stereotype.
While the technology itself does
not necessarily prefer one race to another, the marketing and advertisement of
the technology does show a preference. Many different technologies that aid in
a healthy lifestyle will advertise themselves to white, younger women. This
demographic then feel that the technologies is made for them and they tend to
buy it more. Other products like the Beats headphones market itself to black
people who are in their teens and early adulthood. The advertisements pick a
demographic to advertise to so that they have the best chance of making a
profit. The advertisement may, however, be indirectly suggesting a certain
class of people to buy a technology by using a certain race in the advertisements.
Statistics state that more white families are of a higher financial class than
black families. Therefore, an apple product would use a white model to
advertise a new, expensive technology. This is not meant to necessarily target
a race, but instead uses race as a means to entice a social class.
Racism is still
present in today’s society. In the interviews, most people said that they do
still see racism around them. Not as many people, however, saw racism as a
trend in the creation of technologies. Instead, they suggested that the
technologies like Facebook provided a means of racism occurring in society,
especially anonymously. So, while race and racism are not factors that mold the
creation of new technologies, it does still affect the technologies in society
today.
