Racism in Cyberspace

WE did not get onto the Highway until 1995.  This was about five years after the 1st World.

We had a small geeky community in Ja (we could easily fit in a mini-van) and always shared everything with each other.

Forge said it first;  “I always wear the persona of a thirty year old white American man.”

(Forge was not and never will be a thirty year old white American man, and at the time was a 20 year old black Jamaican man).

I had experienced it myself; if I wrote something and they readers knew I was Jamaican, they would stomp all over it and insult me.

I decided to create a person; Al Green who was a thirty year old man who lived in Texas.

Where I tried to write at University level, Al wrote as if he had barely gotten through High School.

Everyone agreed with Al when he wrote whatever, and everyone attacked me when I wrote something factual.

We all decided to flood Delphiforums as two different people.  One would be the white American male, not very educated, somewhat racist, and the other would be a Black man or woman… (just in case I was mixing sexism for racism).

Some pretended they came from India, (routing through an Indian IP) or Ghana, (doing the same thing). Some stayed in Jamaica.

With two different personas we’d always make the ‘Other’ brighter, more insightful and publish sensible posts.   We’d always make our WAM (White American Man) dumb, publish somewhat silly things, and seem oblivious to reality.

Where ‘Nzinga’ would post something like;  “Foreign businesses are having a deleterious effect on our local manufacturers,”   Al would say, “I think it’s pure s8t that so many companies are going overseas.”

Everyone would attack Nzinga telling her how stupid she was and that if it wasn’t for Europe Africans would still be eating each other, and everyone would agree with Al that America should stop moving factories overseas.

We would sit and compare our experiences marvelling at the racism we didn’t really know existed.

In Ja if you aren’t mixed, your kids are, or your friends are. To have a 1/2 Chinese 1/2 white mother and a 1/2 Indian 1/2 Black father is not uncommon.    Just because a guy’s name is Dennis Chin doesn’t mean he isn’t Black.

As most people are Black or mixed to the extent Americans would call them Mulattoes or something like that, (I’m talking about the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Chief Justice, the Police Commissioner…) we deal more with class as portrayed in behaviour.

(Hence the boy from Jones Town who got into University free when Michael Manley made education free put aside his rough language and behaviour and adopted Royal manners when he was called to the Bar).

This is just to give an example of what it is like to live in a country where the colour of your skin isn’t that important.

In fact, I remember describing a fellow to an American and after I had she asked; “Is he Black?”  for I didn’t think to mention his complexion.

So there we are, on the Great Super Highway, learning that if we want to be treated as equals we have to pretend to be White American men.