COMING OUT COLORED™

Media Venture Collective: What is it??

Media Venture Collective describes itself as "a grass-roots, 501(c)3, public-benefit venture fund, under the Rudolf Steiner Foundation; media democracy brain trust ... focused on leveraging citizen donations into ... investments that promote media democracy as the fulcrum for social change." MVC wants to "pool citizen donations into - "purposeful" - working capital ... to develop and position the most promising projects for larger financial support...". MVC adds it wants to do this proactively, "not just reactively". They also do some things with Alternet.org.

In Canada digital divide grows, along with Internet use

Heba Aly's 15 Aug article in the Toronto Star reports both Net use and the digital divide are growing in Canada. North of the border some prefer to frame the divide as more "urban-rural" than ethnic/racial. It is in part a 'spatial' thing: if the U.S. is big, Canada's even bigger. South of the (U.S.-Canada) border one's impression is that of the two, Canada has more rural areas with greater distances to reach urban centers.

"... In 2005, 68 % of adult Canadians used the Internet for personal non-business reasons. In Toronto, that number rose to 75%. ... The shift to a virtual world raises concern over a “digital divide” that continues to exist between people living in urban and rural communities. Only 58 per cent of residents living in small towns or rural areas accessed the World Wide Web, compared to a 68 per cent national average and a high of 77 per cent in some metropolitan areas. ..."

Britain's Vega Science Trust

Click here to learn about Britain's Vega Science Trust.

"Racism, Ethnicity and Television," John D.H. Downing

This is definitely worth reading, sharing and discussing. It's from a short yet provocatively clear essay on the Museum of Broadcast Communications website.

""Until the late 1980s whiteness was consistently naturalized in U.S. television--social whiteness, that is, not the "pinko-grayishness" that British novelist E.M. Forster correctly identified as the standard skin-hue of Europeans... We come to the most complex question of all, namely how viewers process televisual content related to race and ethnicity. It has already been argued that decades of daily programs have mostly underwritten the perception of the United States as at core a white nation with a white culture, rather than a pluricultural nation beset by entrenched problems of ethnic inequity. ... it was ever harder to muster a coherent and forward-looking public debate about race, whiteness and the nation's future, given TV's continuing refusal, in the main, to step up to the plate. It was not the only agency with that responsibility, nor the unique forum available. But TV was and is crucial to any solution. ... (John D.H. Downing, Racism, Ethnicity and Television)

AFASDA Haitian Women's NGO Gets Online...

AFASDA - founded November 18,1997. Web: www.haitimedical.com/afasda. Mission: Working with Women and helping them to make actions for a more equitable society through their active participation. Actual Projects: Literacy, Health, Environment, Health, Training Center for girls. Realisations (projects completed): Potable water, Health Education, Education, Human Rights, Literacy, Agriculture. Geographical area of intervention: In the following departments of Haiti: North/North-East/West/South East/Center. Number of Members: 1000. Contact: AFASDA, c/o Mme Elvire Eugène, Rue 21 J-K # 145, Cap-Haitien, Haiti. email: [email protected]; phones: 011-509-262-2558 or 011-509-557-4626; fax: 011-509-262-3535 att.Elvire Eugène. More info in both English & French on their website.

Internet images of people of color

How would Harvard's Project Implicit test on race describe and interpret a seemingly ordinary (to me) image? This is from Technorati. Helping 're-discover' the world's people of colour.

Technorati: "there are no posts tagged antiracism"

Well, before this one anyway... At 11 August 2005, on Technorati, prior to this post - in Technorati's own words - there are no previous posts tagged 'antiracism'. Part of me wishes I were making that up. Although I'm sure some relevant material already has been tagged under 'racism' (how about 'antiracist'?), the two words obviously are not exactly the same, and in the strictest sense they're antithetical. Tag: http://www.technorati.com/tag/antiracism

30 July 2005

Opening Blogher, originally uploaded by MarianDouglas.

I wanted to post a few photos from Blogher, beginning with this one. (And thank you, George!)

Meta Search

I'm fascinated by the workings of a "meta search engine" called Kartoo which displays networks of sites that are linked or have connections.

Information or communication?

The thought has crossed my mind repeatedly that visiting the blogosphere can be something like wandering the desert... especially when peeking in on services like del.icio.us and Technorati. Great concepts and capacity, but content - the subject matter they actually focus on - can be incredibly limited. They seem to be dominated by information on gadgets and technological developments. Both del.icio.us and technorati demonstrate the ability to connect, but connect about what? What about what's going on with people, communication and human community beyond a few limited groups?