WGSS414 WK1 Blog / The Intersectional Internet Ch. 1 Summary & Wikipedia Project

Wikipedia Project

I checked out the Wikipedia article regarding parenting practices that are relevant for counter systemic bias. I believe that parenting is an exciting topic because parents can often set a foundation or framework in which their children can view, experience, and live in the world. However, the Wikipedia project page is rather undeveloped, but there are some ideas around the first topics and articles to consider for the page.

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The intersectional Internet: race, sex, class, and culture online

Part One: Cultural Values in the Machine / Chapter One Summary

The essence of Digital Intersectionality Theory and the #BlackLivesMatter Movement by Brendesha Tynes, Joshua Schuschke, and Safiya Umoja Noble is to examine social media, especially twitter, regarding how hetero-patriarchal ideals can still overtake activism in social networks. A brief understanding of how race is constructed in a digital world and theory around how social media content ultimately defaults to a hegemonic framework which frequently allows space for hegemonic social norms to be upheld is a critical point to this article and argument. Tynes et al. primarily discuss the trajectory of the #BlackLivesMovement after conception and how lack of intersectional internet spaces in social media rewrote a narrative that primarily focused on Black males, despite the movement rising from the thoughts and passions of Black women.

Moreover, the #BlackLivesMatter founders encompass several different social locations, and the concept behind the movement is an attempt to create an intersectional movement for all Black people in all social locations. However, only after several submovements and social media activism was a space formed where Black women and girls of all social locations started to take back the space that is #BlackLivesMatter and be seen and heard. Furthermore, Tynes et al., cite the importance of an intersectional approach to the internet in all aspects, such as critique, lenses, practices, and activism. Social media is a unique space where social change has the opportunity to transpire quickly and, thus, sometimes be appropriated. This article acknowledges the importance of intersectionality in social media and guidelines for activists and allies to support social change in this platform without the erasure of folks and to challenge hegemonic narratives and social norms.

Noble, Safiya Umoja, and Brendesha M. Tynes, editors. The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture Online. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, 2015.