Oftentimes in our discourses and media we act as if technology is objective, and it is only how it is used that makes it “good” or “bad.” This mentality falls apart very quickly when considering algorithms, such as the ones used on reddit, or camera technology, as the article I found discusses. In many cases (despite the important contributions of women and people of color) technology has been created by and for white men. This article from the Daily Beast investigates the consequences of facial recognition not being designed to recognize people with dark skin, and what that means in a society which criminalizes black people at a higher rate than any other race or population. In the past, activists have argued for a higher visibility for black people by technology and those who create it, but Zoe Samudzi believes that increasing visibility for black people in regards to facial recognition will only end in further surveillance and marginalization of an already discriminated against population.
Of the media and scholarship we’ve looked at in our class, only Dead Set explicitly includes race, through their inclusion of non-white characters. The way the cameras look at Angel, the only black woman in the house, is explicitly different than how other characters are viewed. Patrick, the producer, who is in charge of what parts of the house the public gets to see, throws several racially charged insults at Angel’s image on the screen, marking her mediated image as fundamentally different than the other characters. The cameras, both used by ‘Big Brother,’ and those used by the actual crew of Dead Set were created to be used on white skin, because the creators never thought to consider that black people might be on film someday. While the film industry now has methods to adjust the camera for darker skin, the default continues to be white skin.
In our discussion of tech vs human, I think it is important to racialize in what ways people have not been considered ‘fully human’ and how that has consequences. The Monster Theses which we read acknowledges the relationship between the monster and the human ‘other.’ One way in which we might explain this phenomenon is that monsters are created to enforce ideology which marginalizes groups of people, based on the principles of white supremacy. Studying monsters without considering race would be severely lacking—much like Marjorie and Regan’s danger comes from the fear of young women’s sexuality, so too does the fear of the monstrous eventually uncover racism which is embedded in our culture.