Response to Banks

Adam J. Banks’ Race, Rhetoric and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground begins with Banks discussing how African-Americans have always sought a third way to fight binaries, which actually made me think a lot of queer culture. He writes “African Americans have always sought ‘third way’ answers to systematically racist exclusions, demanding full access to and partcicipation in American society and its technologies on their own terms, and working to transform both the society and its technologies, to ensure that not only Black people but all Americans can participate as full partners” (2). He explains that their pursuit of transformative access can contribute a lot to rhet/tech theory. Banks believes that African American rhetorical history shows very powerful unities of identity. In his book, he focuses on a variety of contributions that African Americans have made which have affected the transformation of America and its technologies. In the introduction chapter he outlines each of the other chapters. One of Banks main points that comes out in the first chapter is that the digital divide is just as much about access and a “technological” problem as it is a rhetorical one because of how it continues to exclude African Americans from how we define and conceptualize it.

In the second chapter, Banks informs the readers that in the late 1990s the digital divide was introduced as a concept that acknowledged the differences in technology access for African Americans and other racial minorities; however, within academia we have failed to recognize this part of the “digital divide” concept and continue to ignore racial issues. Thus, the digital divide is a rhetorical problem. Banks discusses how we talk about race so seldom when it comes to technology within composition and rhetoric, especially at conferences. Much of the chapter examines silence. He does seem particularly pleased with the work of Cynthia Selfe. The Richardson article he mentions was interesting because it is about how “women of olor, because of the positions they often occupy as untenured or contingent faculty, do not have the luxury of adopting critical positions on technological issues” (21). Banks explains that eBlack consists of 5 parts: professional connection and discourse, curriculum development through distance education, community service, continuing struggle—the African American Radical Congress, and Research Website on Malcolm X. “African American rhetoric has always been multimedia, has always been about body and voice and image, even when they only set the stage for language” (25). He further explains that it is actually quite easy to see African Americans’ commitment to literacy as a technological one. He also thinks that we should pay attention to rhetoric that is not necessarily oratory, though what is oratory is very important. Banks continues to show how the digital divide is quite connected to race. He gives statistics on access to computers. He writes that “The history of African American rhetoric is, in many ways, one of individuals and collectives of writers, speakers, visual artists, and designers mastering , manipulating, and working around available technologies, even when access to them had been denied the masses of Black people. Even though Banks does not fully focus on the oratory and makes strong connections between the railroad as a sort of technology, I think he could have made more connections during slavery. For example, many African-American communities on plantations would create songs together as a means of communicating what was happening in the moment. I would regard that as a technology. Banks discusses access and how the Clinton administration believed that by getting all schools connected and with technology that it would be an equalizer in education. But Banks explains that there is different kinds of access:

Material Access: begins with equality in the material conditions that drive technology use or nonuse.

Functional Access: the skills and knowledge necessary to use the tools effectively

Experimental Access: an access that makes the tools relevant to peoples’ lives

Critical Access: must know whether technologies work for budgets, curricula, and plans.

The biggest work is making access meaningful for African Americans and other groups.

I saw more connections to queer rhetoric when Banks began his chapter on Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. When he writes that both saw the rhetorical achievements that could be had by utilizing television, I thought of ACT up and how they used counter media, really, their own media, infusing the visual and the verbal in order to reach a wider audience and in a powerful way. This chapter focuses on X and King’s manipulation of technologies for rhetorical gains. Using visual rhetoric, King could show people across the nation footage that would help convince them of the wrongdoings of our government. Malcolm X would turn conversations while being interviewed on TV. Malcolm X’s rhetorical genius often lay in his ability to force his opponents onto the defensive, to justify their ideological assumptions before they could attack his position” (53). Banks explains that X was always aware of how he could manipulate technology, whereas King questioned the roles of technologies in human lives (61). Banks explains that it is failure if we do not use print, visual, and electronic effectively together.

In chapter 4, Banks focuses on use and how African Americans engage African American discourse and language in the online space. These online spaces Banks discusses mean three things: a repudiation of cyberspaces theory that race is irrelevant online, that the importance of oral traditions for the written is confirmed, and that black people take ownership of digital spaces and that they should be considered in user studies. We need to pay attention to black use online. Black Planet is discussed a lot in this chapter and actually, Liz and I went on there when we were reading together and I wasn’t super impressed. It was described as a one-click system in Banks’ book. While I could see a lot of what was going on, I could understand much of it. I was tempted to create an account to understand it, but then I wondered if the site was exclusively for blacks, and whether I would be “touring.” So we didn’t enter all of the way. From what Banks described, it sounded cool when you actually enter the site. I like that other users can compliment your design, font, text, posts, etc. Banks really does drive the point home that we focus so much on ebonics and whether it should be allowed in composition that we really miss the point on other discursive and fascinating practices.

In “Rewriting Racist Code: The Black Jeremiad as Countertechnology in Critical Race Theory” I didn’t connect much to. The chapter examines how racism is encoded into our legal system and much of our bureaucratic systems. It’s funny that I didn’t connect to the chapter, per se…I guess it was a bit dry to me. But Victor and I talked about it. I did, however like what banks said about countertechnology: “Bell’s chose to use the jeremiad in this way, to challenge legal discourse as both insider and outsider positions the jeremiad as a countertechnology” (88). Banks widens our understanding of technologies, how technologies are processes as well as artifacts.

Chapter 6 focuses on design and how African American rhetorical study needs to address it. He drives the point that design traditions have been hard to see, that design is a part of the African American struggle now, and that the rhetoric of design is bi-directional. Throughout much of the chapter, Banks discusses William Mitchell’s work. Banks points out many of the problems with his utopic vision. I liked “Baraka reminds us why all of this is so important to African American rhetoric, as well as to rhetoric, composition, technical communication, and Black studies: critique alone will not interrupt these practices. Those of us who care about ending systematic oppressions must design new spaces, even as we point out problems in our current ones” (118). It made me think about designing new queer spaces, not necessarily online, but those in and outside of our classrooms in higher education. For example, today in PDC we discussed CLASP and ensuring that part of that is fostering the notion that “marginalized groups were represented.” And while I think it is doing good work and that it being designed effectively to support first-gen and racial minorities, I raised my hand and asked that if the purpose is to support marginality, then shouldn’t they consider outreach to queer groups on campus. I hope that in some way, and I will continue to make contact, I made an impact on the design of this new commons. I know what it is like to go through higher ed…three degrees…and not feel like I have a space to speak from my positioning.

Chapter 7, I think can be summed up from a quote in the middle” Soul is…teaching students to master Standardized English and rhetorical forms like no one else can and keeping the languages, the Ebonics, the Spanglish, the indigenous languages of home alive. Soul is the ability to recognize complexity and still pursue unity. Soul is understanding that that one goal is something far far more than Diversity or Multiculturalism, but racial justice…” (134).

I think that Banks made a lot of good points.  Primarily, I like the idea of not just critiqueing the system but changing the design of it.