Book Summary: Race, Rhetoric, and Technology

 Race, Rhetoric, and Technology is an amazing blend of story, history, philosophy, and design.  Oh wait, I guess I could say that it is an artful piece of rhetoric.  Each chapter is different from the others, but central to Banks' argument is this point, eloquently made by employing Dr. Martin Luther King as the supreme rhetor to deliver the message:

 "through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood.  But somehow, and in someway, we have got to do this. We must learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools" (King quoted on page 63).

In the service of creating the transformation needed to become an ethical brotherhood, the most important sets of questions that Adam Banks poses are these:  "What does this transformational ideal look like? What set of attitudes, commitments, and goals might enable one to peruse this kind of transformation?" (46).

Banks recognizes that transformative access is not just about African American or Black inclusion in the dominant cultural technologies, but about taking agency in determining what those technologies become (45) and how they are used.

Banks writes, "This kind of look [transformational] at race and technology posits that our nation is a construct, or system, maybe even a technological system, and the Constitution, federal, state, and local laws, as part of the code that runs it. Social spaces like schools, cities, the workplace, and the court system are all interfaces where people use that system. African American struggle as reflected in its rhetorical traditions, was always an attempt to both change the interfaces of that system and fundamentally change the codes that determine how the system works" (45).

This argument for transformative change is, in my mind, where the "rubber meets the road" because the soul of this country is a very destructive place, and dedicated activists and conscious users of technology must rally in the spirit of transformation.  And, while Dr. King was willing to assign the term "neighborhood" to the world we have created in this country (the level once removed from brotherhood), I would argue that the neighborhood as a cultural metaphor is no longer even apt-- we are moving farther and farther in the wrong direction.

As Banks suggest, prior to a rally for transformation, groups of people must articulate the values (attitudes, commitment, goals) behind which they will unite so as to define the nature of the movement(s).  If Martin Luther King's values are the ones that light the path for transformation, that is a very different call to action than Obama's state sponsored values leading the call to action.   The politics of this country are horrifically violent (both domestically and in terms of foreign affairs), and they get worse by the day. 

Case in point is what Banks writes abut law enforcement:

"Law enforcement is a technological system for protecting the persons and property in a society, as well as the desired patterns of relations between them.  Regardless of the availability of individual tools available to police in their work (guns, nightsticks, pepper spray, hands, feet, squad car computers, dashboard video cameras) and the wide range of force those tools represent, young Black and Latino men (and increasingly, women) are killed, injured, arrested, charged, and convicted at higher rates than other groups of people in this country" (40).  Banks continues, "any decision to about how police use the tools and the force they have is largely a result of what they have been taught about when and how to use them and the mandates that police forces are given that construct crime and criminals in particular ways" (40).

In other words, our cultural technologies and its users are programmed with a certain set of values.  The values our technologies are programmed with are exclusionary and they are physically cruel, and nowhere is this more publicly apparent--especially in the aftermath of Michael Brown's murder in Ferguson MO--than in the realm of law enforcement.  Simply wanting access to cruel and racist technologies makes no sense if a.) you are a target of their cruelty or b.) if you are against a philosophy of life (and its concomitant practices) that uses cruelty to control.  What I love about Banks' argument is that it emphasizes (or emphasizes in accessible prose) that the tool is not the point,  the values its programmers and users use it to employ are what matter.

The other important take away from Banks' book is the conundrum about access to the literacies of technology when the technologies are changing too fast to allow mastery by people who have limited access (18).  Access is a rhetorical problem. This is more evidence of the lack of intention on the part of technology users and programmers to have it be accessible to all.  That attitude must transform first.

So, as Banks suggests, the issue of the Underground becomes vital.  At some point when confronted with a culture of bullies and their arrogant insistence that they do not want you (Blacks, women, etc.) to play their game, then invent a work around, invent a different game, invent a better game.

 I wanted Banks to discuss in more detail is how Black cultural traditions could be better facilitated through more technological access.  What traditions?  In what ways? Perhaps the most interesting aspect for me is what he refers to as "soul" (129).  That intangible aspect of culture seems entirely absent from mainstream conversations about technology use.  To me, it is the loss of the concept of soul (in conversations about American culture in general) that makes the trajectory of our tool usage so dangerous.  To me, infusing technology with soul is the needed answer.  How African American agency can use the concept of soul to transform our use of technology is a part of his conversation I want to hear more about.

Banks' discussion of the Black Jeremiad begins to get at it because the concept both brings him to the issue of "soul" in less spiritual language. and it also poses the need for defining technology.  He writes, "It is still somewhat difficult to talk about discursive conventions or genres as technologies because it then becomes easy to wonder if the definition of a technology is so hopelessly muddled that it no longer defines anything" (89).

Writing is a technology because it is instrumental in the "ordering of our social, economic, and political systems"(89).   As other technologies allow the emergence of competing literacies (competing for time if not for resources), the teaching of writing as the foundational analytical skill (and, while not free, is cheap if you have a pen), keeps the digital divide from determining access to higher order thinking.

Getting back to the Jeremiad: Not only does American culture deserves a lament right now, the genre of the Black Jeremiad as one of the Black cultural traditions that Banks alludes to in this work, is a useful genre for a.) challenging the status quo's blind optimism in the face of an eroding civilization, and b.) for preserving a linguistic tradition in which unauthorized knowledge can be stored. Whiteness has experienced privilege for so long that it isn't "putting by" for the future.  We are so entrenched in our literacies of expensive technologies and outsourced access, that our folk literacies are dying.  Folk literacy is in many ways survival literacy--and here, I imagine, is a place where Black cultural practices are rich in linguistic traditions that need to be preserved in Underground locations that have nothing to do with hard drives, softwares, or even electric environments.  To me, the Underground is the place where survival literacies hide until the culture is in need of them again.  As Banks suggests, art is a wonderful place to hide these literacies.  Hip hop is a place where transformation happens (128).

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/videos/id.18160/title.derek-minor-who-you-know-

I love the idea of designing freedom into our artifacts, and I recognize the highly subversive nature of this work.  Covert ways of coding knowledge (123) is my favorite topic.  Unauthorized knowledges are, in my mind, the Higher Ground.  I always think of Cassy in Uncle Tom's Cabin when reaching for examples of how creative subversion can liberate.  Instead of using the standard method of subversion (overt violence), Cassy uses her understanding of psychology,  of Simon Legree's superstitious nature, to frighten him (making him think his attic is haunted) which gives her the time and the space she needs to run away.

Banks writes, "Finally, there is much that this book does not accomplish, many important experiences it does not document, many important ideas that it does not explore. This book is much like one of the quilts that slaves used to guide brave souls to freedom" (146).  In this touching conclusion, Banks invites us to design additional quilts.