The New York Times article, A Greater Understanding of Race and Identity Through Tech, starts off talking about what the most important tech for work is and writer mentions that due to the constant loud and busy atmosphere, noise-canceling headphones are crucial. The noise-canceling headphones allow individuals to focus while completing tasks. While using the headphones, the writer discusses how he listens to a podcast called Ear Hustle. Ear Hustle is a podcast that is about San Quentin State Prison in California. The podcast talks about what life is like in the prisons and provides different perspectives of mass incarceration. The U.S. has the most individuals incarcerated and a majority of them are black and brown, and the writer talked about how listening to the podcast made he view black and brown people differently and made him rethink the system. The podcast isn’t the only media that changed his perspective on black and brown people, he says that social media also played a huge part. Social media created a sense of community for the black and brown people, especially after the killings of black and brown boys by police. Social media allowed personal content and footage of these events to be seen by the world and support you or not support you. Social media has many positive advantages, but it also has some disadvantages.
We are feeding machines with information everyday, and the information we choose to provide says a lot about who we are — our racism, our values, our strengths, our weaknesses.
This platform has become an outlet for outrage and outrage is the present. Outrage, at times, has brought awareness to communities and have helped move forward Black Lives Matter and outrage has also brought to light that racism through technology is a problem.