Blog # 9 Menue Driven Race

              Within the reading , Menu Identities by Nakamura, she defines the term menu driven identities as a way of creating an online identity, within a a cybersociety, from the choices that are given to the user by the user interface. She states that users are limited in their choices and cannot, " modify the terms or categories available to them , then identities that do not appear on the menu are essentially foreclosed on..."(Nakamura 2002). Later within the writing, she goes on to say that most of these identities choices are further limited to a single choice by the user, even though he or she may define themselves as multiple races(Nakamura 2002). The remainder of the reading discusses how intellectuals hopped that the Internet revolution would create equality and erase bigotry and racism within non-virtual reality. Nakamaura states that the Internet has done the opposite, by reinforcing stereotypes by people who represent themselves as avatars of differing races and gender. The solution, stated by Nakamaura, is a daunting task. She says, " Until and perhaps even after increased education, economic parity, and changing cultural priorities in the " real world" make the web accessible to a greater number of racial minorities "(Nakamura 2002) can change and equal representation occur.

              Using this information , I tried to critique the“Race: The Power of Illusion” website. Upon entering the site, I was struck that it seemed to be catered to the default "white user". The site posed questions about my general knowledge of race and if I had the ability to categorize people. The site seemed to portray many option for links into the site by clicking on the eyes, but they all seemed to take me to the same internal page within the site. As awkward as I felt, I "played" the race categories " game" and found that I was a complete failure at it, with less than 15% of my choices being right. Within  a menu-driven concept of race, the site clearly defines a race that should be viewing the content, white people, and the race or races that are demonstrating the information, non white people. The way the site was constructed defines how the users can navigate the site. This site allows for the user to view information in a way the created desires. Though I think that the site is not only a tool for educating white people , but other differing races. I believe this because in the sorting part of the site, white people were a category to be sorted. 

References

Adelman, L. (2003). Race- the power of an illusion. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm

Nakamra, L. (2002). Cybertypes: race, ethnicity, and identity on the Internet.. New York: Routledge.