First Practicum Post

For my practicum assignment, I was given Minority groups. Either I blacked out while signing up for projects or did not actually rank this project, but c'est la vie. The reason I bring up this grievance is because I am a little confused as to how I should go about this project. Considering the premise of this assignment is to determine how a minority group uses the internet, I feel like this could turn out a tad bit racist. There is no way to go about this project other than generalizing and stereotyping almost. If anyone has any advice for how to handle this, shoot me a comment.

Anyway, despite my concerns for this project, I obviously chose to look at African Americans internet usage. I have found two different blogs/forums so far that I have signed up for--one is called Chocolate City and the other is called Black Voices So far, I've just been scoping out the scene and seeing what kinds of discussions take place on the boards, what information is most popular, and what kinds of links the sites provide. On Black Voices, the boards include forums on hair, education, film, health, money, parenting, and my personal favorite, Rants. I decided that I would start looking at rants. I came across an interesting post called "Stop Talking White." I thought that it was interesting that many responders were concerned with how the threat to "stop talking white" from fellow African Americans makes them their own worst enemies. A lot of posters were annoyed that it is even referred to as "talking white." One person said to those who believe in "talking white" that they are "their own slave." This is very intriguing to me because they are confronting stereotypes and showing how they bring about many of them themselves. This shows how there are many different "types" of people within the black community--and their opinions are conflicting.

So far, it appears that they use the internet to voice their opinions, and perhaps to get on the same page. They discuss issues that they have with stereotypes and such, but also issues that they have with others in their race. We'll see what else I can find out later...

Links:
http://conversations.blackvoices.com/rant/575e20364fc942e6937fd7ccb9633d19/stop-talking-white/42b69ad912814fe898c895e0326ec69b

http://www.chocolatecity.cc/