[Gendergap] Black skins

[Sarah Stierch]

History continues to be written by Anglos and it's just as apparent in
Wikipedia..and add a male dominated voice, and well...that's history.

The same goes for topics about Native American subjects. I say it in my
lecture about Indigenous peoples working with Wikipedia - it's just like any
other history, it's primarily written by white males, and that has to change
(followed with a picture of Kevin Costner).  (I'm sure the same goes for
other communities/races/ethnicity/skin colors articles, whatever you prefer,
as well, these are just two areas I tend to write in..)

Malcolm X described history being "bleached," and I couldn't agree more.

And here is one of my favorite Onion slaps:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/white-history-year-resumes,139/

Having dialogue like this is a great start - I'd love to see it develop into
a larger community discussion, like the gender gap publicity did. There is a
lot of work to do, but, if we can develop successes with women, I like to
think we can develop opportunities with more specific communities - and
perhaps both at the same time.

-Sarah




On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 7:28 PM, Brandon Harris <bharris at wikimedia.org>wrote:

>
>
> On 9/19/11 4:26 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
> > Here is an example of Caucasian bias: the en:WP article on [[hair
> > straightening]].
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_straightening
> >
> > Despite the fact that this is a topic of great practical interest to
> > black women, many of whom either have straightened their hair or have
> thought about doing it, the
> > article makes no mention of afro hair, and the only two images are of
> Caucasian women.
>
>        Topical to this, there is a documentary:
>
>        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Hair
>
>        That points out that hair straightening (Relaxer) is a billion
> dollar
> industry.  This is a clear bias; I'm actually flabbergasted by this.
>
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