Jonathan stern in his essay talks about a time where the whites had greater access to the computers than non-whites. However, that time seems far known to the current generation because in today’s day and age everyone is connected to the online world through different kinds of gadgets. Which made me wonder why was there ever a time when people access to the computer was based on the race they belonged to. I came up with an answer to my question which was some what similar to Stern’s reasoning, the limited supply of computers at that time made them extremely expensive for the common man to use and so the availability was only limited to the wealthier white sections of the society. Since the schools were used as the agents for spreading “computer literacy”, the differences in the condition and locality of the schools also determined the student’s access to the computers. However, I felt if the bill to donate computers to schools by companies like Hewlett-Packard and Apple was passed maybe there was a possibility that one didn’t have to wait till the mid 1990’s to see the change in the non-white groups actively using computers. It was amusing to read about the fourteen year old ‘black‘ ninth grader, Lewis who reads at the fifth grade level but mastering the computers was not a hard task for him. In fact Lewis even worked as an instructor for a computer-consulting firm. This machine brought out the boy’s self esteem by giving him the “power in his fingertips”; it helped make him what he is today. Stern also mentions in his essay contrary to his research that computers other than being found in wealthy schools were also found in the ”unlikeliest of places. | He talks about the Chippewa Indian reservation in Wisconsin where the people are using computers to learn their ancient language that has nearly gone extinct. These two examples show that the computer had a big role to play in the lives of the people even that time. Moreover, I feel since it was so useful there should have been an easy access to computers by the all people in the society regardless of their race or background. In conclusion stern felt that even if there weren’t racial differences in the Internet and computer access with in the United States, there would “continue“ to be a gap worldwide. I disagree with sterns statement here, Internet has become such a significant part of our lives that working without access to it seems impossible. I would like to support my argument with an example, coming from a developing country like India even the domestic help that works for us owns some kind of gadget that can get them connected to this place that is conceived “raceless”. Even though stern writes about a period that had these racial gaps in the use of Internet, I believe this problem no longer exists in the modern world. |