It's very desirable that people in different ethnic groups are on an equal footing and can engage and edit. It's also very desirable that if systemic issues prevent swathes of the national or global population doing so (issues can affect specific groups, locales, social categories, genders, ages, etc), then we try to identify and address those issues. But I would not go further and politicizing the issue or consider it a political one.
In other words if we examined barriers to entry and found som ebarrier would allow 15 million poor people, or 18 million african-american people, or 17 million single housewifes to be more able to edit, then those barriers are worth addressing and we would aim to do so positively..... but that's not the same as treating people not in those groups less positively.
Everyone matters as an individual, and that's so even if we aim as a foundation to maximize our efforts by removing barriers that research suggests may have wider impact or affect larger groups and sectors of the population.
FT2
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 6:30 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.comwrote:
I would not wish that world upon anyone, Fred. African Americans are underrepresented for the same reason that Native Americans and about 300 ethnic groups are: lack of internet access and, with access emerging, learning how to engage in the internet. It's not because any specific group does not have a desire to volunteer, as you asserted, it's because our (not black, white, North American, South American, African, Asian, Australian, European or sitting in a small hut at a weather station in Antarctica) ones and zeros are finally reaching populations. You cannot expect any group to embrace things like Wikimedia all at once, nor can we assume we're all white guys. There is no hope for focus our outreach if we begin with that approach, whether it is merited or not. To promote free knowledge, we must assume that everyone is just someone and the bridge is built from there.
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 12:21 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud@fairpoint.net
wrote:
I wish I could live in the world you wish, where poverty and oppression of a people did not damage it. The question was not whether there are a few who edit, but why there is not mass participation, and trouble when it does emerge.
Fred Bauder
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