Cybertypes

Lisa Nakamura concludes in “Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet” that communication networks have intentionally marked different ethnic and racial groups as “others” in order to maintain privilege for the white Western society.

Nakamura first introduces a commercial from “Anthem” which states that on the Internet, there isn’t gender, race, or age, but only minds. For the remainder of the chapter, Nakamura explains how computer networks advertise in order to maintain the idea of different races and ethnicities so that whites in America still feel like they are part of a privileged class. Nakamura gives numerous examples of ads that picture particular ethnic groups in stereotypical ways. The ads show that although these people may possess computer knowledge that they are still very different from white Americans. These companies feel a need to do this so that their primary target audience, white Westerners, will still view themselves as part of a privileged group. This as Nakamura states also alleviates their fears of “[making] the world smaller in undesirable ways” (95). These ads also assure Americans that there will always be groups of untouched native peoples that remain unchanged and won’t be able to access privilege available to white Westerners. The chapter concludes by stating that the message of cybertechnology is that users will be striped down to just minds. However, this in not favorable for those in privileged groups and those who belong to them won’t allow this to happen.

What do white Westerners have to gain by portraying foreigners as “others”? As stated in the chapter, white Westerners hold on to privilege by distinguishing between themselves and other ethnic groups. If the groups are no longer distinguishable on the Internet, whites will loose the privilege that they possess. This is not beneficial to them and they don’t want to see that happen. Therefore, they intentionally depict foreigners as “others” in order to maintain the privileges that they benefit from.

I found the reading to be somewhat different from what we have read previously in class. Although there was still the issue of privilege based on race, it was of a different sort. I don’t believe that I have ever viewed the ads that the reading mentions, or if I have I don’t remember them. Even if I had viewed the ads, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the intended meaning of them. It does make sense, however, that whites would want to hold on to this difference which they gain privilege from.