In response to class 4/9 and 4/14

In class last Thursday, we discussed the fallacies implied in the novel that improvements in technology directly bring along social progress. Although progress in technology often does work to improve society, it has no direct effect on the uplifting of specific races or their equality with one another. As we discussed this in class, I was reminded of the recent iOS 8.3 iPhone update, which includes a revised emoji keyboard with new, diverse skin and hair color options. Although this does not directly disprove my point (since the little emojis are not doing much for racial equality on a large scale), it does provide some inclusiveness to cultural varieties within this one particular technology.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2015/02/24/apple-ios-8-3-will-have-300-new-emojis-including-racially-diverse-options/

In yesterday’s class, we touched on Freeport Jackson, whose career was selling “whiteness” to everyone that wanted to look “good” (pg. 178). As we discussed, this post-racial ideology is completely wrong in that making everyone “white” does not eliminate the race issue. The fact that you must “whiten” or try to “erase” ones race to become accepted equally indicates that the original race was “wrong”, it does not mean that issue of race separation has been corrected whatsoever.