Race and New Media Conference

Our Race and New Media conference last Saturday was a great success—putting it mildly. Positive reviews are raining in from all directions, from participants to audience members, and there are a few journalists in the process of writing rave reviews. We’ll also have the audio online soon for podcast, as well as pictures.

Thanks to all who were involved for making it work so well, from the two of us who organized the event, Annie Seaton and Aaron Barlow, professors of English at New York City College of Technology, the host of the conference. Estimates are that close to 200 people participated in the conference at one time or another.

The conference kicked off with a talk by Dr. Reginald Blake, professor of Physics at New York City College of Technology, also a Visiting Research Scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory and director of City Tech's Black Male Initiative (BMI). Dr. Blake cautioned us to remember that new and old media are inextricably intertwined, setting a framework for what proved to be a day of intense and instructive conversation. In fact, Dr. Blake’s kickoff talk was far more than just the expected introduction—it was a very smart and thoughtful foray that left with the following questions: how does “new media” deal with the catalog of American racial stereotypes (mammy, sapphire, sambo, etc.). Does “new media” alter perceptions of race, or reinforce them? Dr. Blake reminded us that, after all, this is just a tool—and therefore, neither intrinsically helpful nor harmful—but as we think of Barack Obama as the first “new media” candidate, it’s difficult not to feel helpful. And yet, Dr. Blake brought us back to some basics: is there, he wondered, via new media-- a time on the horizon where notions of race and racism will alter significantly? Dr. Blake was skeptical—feeling that “new media” had, perhaps, not done enough to prove itself to be different, but he was also hopeful about the goals of both the conference and the larger intersection between race and new media.

Following that came four concurrent sessions:

First was “Race, New Media, and Religion.” The nationally known speaker on matters religious and political, Reverend David Dyson of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn—headed a panel that looked at the impact of Reverend Jeremiah Wright on the Barack Obama campaign, among other things. We were lucky enough to have an informed debate about Black Liberation Theology in the media from two of our other participants, Mike McNamara of Union Theological Seminary, who is currently a student of James Cone, the founder and chief theorist of Black Liberation Theology. Otis Gaddis, a Yale Divinity School student in the process of becoming an Episcopal priest, also gave us vital insight onto the warping of the intersections of race and religion, reminding us that the white fundamentalist ministers surrounding John McCain and even Hillary Clinton had not been subjected to the same “vetting” process. David Dyson, who has a long professional knowledge of Reverend Wright, was illuminating on the details of Wright’s career, noting that President and First Lady Hillary Clinton consulted Jeremiah Wright during their own marital difficulties. Kenneth Page, a lawyer for the transit workers and a founder of Transformation Ministries, an inter-faith project, reminded us of the bottom line: will people eat, are they seen fully as human beings, and who are we allowing to shape this dialogue on what it means to be an American, and to what ends? City Tech students in the audience had much to say, with Evan De Saussure at one point insisting to the speakers that he was in complete agreement with Reverend Wright’s critique.

Second was “How Can New Technologies Be Used As Tools for Community Development?,” a panel chaired by City Tech English professor Richard Hanley, founding editor of the Journal of Urban Technology featuring Sigmund Shipp, director of the public service scholar program and associate professor of planning and urban affairs, Hunter College; Laxmi Ramasubramanian, associate professor in the department of planning and urban affairs at Hunter College; and Christine Stearn, formerly the technology director at Npower.

Third was “GreenWalk,” a reprise of a walking tour held for the first time last Thursday and led by City Tech English professor Mark Noonan and Chemistry professor Peter Spellane.

Fourth was “Questioning OLPC,” a panel made up of Barlow's own Advanced Technical Writing students discussing the pros and cons of the One Laptop Per Child project.

Next came Mizery, a film by Carmen Oquendo-Villar and Joaquin Terrones. This experimental/documentary film, featuring a cross-dressing black/Latina protagonist, has already been exhibited internationally, and is part of a body of work for which Carmen, a Harvard Phd, has won the prestigious Javits Fellowship to study at NYU Film school for an MFA. Carmen’s co-director, Joaquin Terrones, is finishing a PhD in Romance Languages at Harvard and writes fiction in addition to making films.

After a break for lunch, Omar Wasow (omarwasow.com) provided a keynote speech that had the audience spellbound—not to mention standing and sitting at his command. Omar critiqued the notion of the “digital divide,” and insisted that it is really the “literacy divide” that still matters most—an interesting point to be making at City Tech, where we English professors sometimes feel that we get short shrift. According to Omar, without advanced writing and analytical skills, in addition to basic math skills, people of color will continue to be unable to join the “new” economy and/or the new media—and so the “digital divide” is a bit of the cart before the horse question. Omar also put forth strong arguments in favor of charter schools and other school reforms, including deregulation and more school choice. Omar knows of what he speaks, since he is the co-founder of Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School, and is still involved in the running of the school. Wasow is co-founder and ongoing strategic advisor to BlackPlanet.com and an on-air technology analyst. Under Wasow's leadership, BlackPlanet.com became the leading website for African Americans, reaching over three million people a month. Wasow also works to demystify technology issues through regular TV and radio segments on NBC's Today Show and public radio's Tavis Smiley Show. These days, however, most of his time is spent in graduate studies at Harvard University, where he is pursuing a joint program in Government and African-American studies.

To give a break after that, the teenaged singers of 2Divine sang and danced, raising the energy level in the auditorium even higher, if that were possible, than Wasow had left it.

The next panel proved to be the last, for discussion was so enthusiastic that we did not have the heart (or desire) to stop it, and it went on for nearly two and a half hours. Featured were Wellesley College Professor Diana Williams, who began with a historical overview of the “biracial” category, followed by Harvard PhD candidate Joel Rainey, who offered “White Liberal Fantasies of Obama” as a trenchant critique of the political scene. Peter Rosenblum, an expert in politics and human rights, brought us back to the figure of Harold Washington and up through Colin Powell and Condi Rice in order to think about Obama. (Columbia Law School Professor, formerly of Harvard Law School), Ebone Bishop (Fordham Law School), wondered about the “will he be assasinated” narrative in relation to Obama. Mark Chackerian (MIT alum and digital analyst), offered a statistical analysis of Obama's relationship to the "new media," using Youtube and other sources in order to demonstrate that it really is Obama who has the far greater online "presence" and popularity. Baratunde Thurston of Jack and Jill Politics, political blogger and Obama campaign volunteer, offered a series of brilliant riffs on the Obama campaign and its reception, using Youtube to show how the attacks on Obama, as well, are often fueled by new media. However, according to Mark Chackerian, such negative attacks have been far less popular with a new media public for whom the "Obama Girl" and the "Yes We Can" video are more interesting than the Reverend Wright soundbites or anything at all with Hillary Clinton (who lags far behind in new media presence). Omar Wasow and Annie Seaton rounded out the panelists, with Annie’s speculations about the construction of Obama as both “musical” and “messianic” adding to the general frenzy, while Omar proved to be a skilled and lively panelist, debating brilliantly and enthusiastically, despite his earlier intensity. We really owe everybody on this panel a huge thanks, because they all worked really hard on their presentations, and, in fact, many of us met several times to read and discuss each other’s work in advance.

The final event of the before the evening party was provided by performance artist Kanene Holder, “BlackFace Crime.”

Kanene’s performance left us all dazed and moved. Alice Richardson, of the City Tech faculty, who we can’t thank enough for having been in attendance nearly all day, admitted that the onslaught of racist images from American media history left her feeling “upset,” which was the reaction of many others in the audience. But Holder’s performance was also uplifting, ending on a strongly positive note. It was not a simple enactment of negative images—at times, Holder acted the images out, inhabiting the racial stereotypes via wigs, outfits, and dances—while at other times, she addressed them verbally.

Rounding things out was a party and multimedia show at Superfront, an architecture gallery and project space hosted by Mitch McEwen, where we saw the work of several new media artists dealing with race.

We want to thank everyone who attended or who supported the event, including Provost Bonne August and Dean Sonja Jackson of City Tech, who supported the event in so many ways, and ePluribus Media, which provided, and continues to provide, a Web presence for the conference.