On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
For some time I am a bit puzzled by the fact that I don't know any African American Wikimedian. For some time just because I am living in a European country without African population, so everything seemed to me quite normal for a long time.
I tried to make a parallel between Roma people and African Americans, but it is not a good one. It is very hard to find a Roma with university degree. At the other side, two former State Secretaries are African Americans and present US president is almost, too.
What are the reasons? Why American Wikimedian community is exclusively white?
Maybe the answer to that question would give us an idea what should we solve to get more contributors.
The short answer:
<snip> this seems like a whole lot of unfounded (and fairly offensive) generalizations? If you're really making a class-based argument, then yes, I think the privileges of having free time, a decent education and good internet access are all class-correlated to some extent and are all likely prerequisites for becoming a Wikipedian -- and that's applicable everywhere. But class cuts across ethnicity and gender; you can make the same arguments about poor white people, or whoever. (For what it's worth, I grew up in a rural area that was lily-white but very poor, and very poorly educated; urban demographics aren't the only part of the U.S. to consider).
-- phoebe