Via disgrasian, racist voice control on the iPhone and racist digital camera “blink deteector”
I don’t much mileage out of the words racist and sexist because they get used so broadly and differently that they usually just get read as attack but don’t actually explain why the situation is messed up. That said, these kinds of technology examples are exactly the sort of thing that set me down the path of feminist technology obsession that brings you this blog today. In Margolis and Fisher’s “Unlocking the Clubhouse,” I learned about conference phone systems tuned and tested only on male voices, literally giving voices that tended higher the short shrift. Got other examples of this sort of thing?
Interesting post! I think, like you, I’m wary of the word “racist” because it is so emotionally charged that it tends to shut down reasoned discussion. These products, though, strike a nerve. When I think about racist products I’m usually put in mind of items that literally deliver hate speech (t-shirts with hate speech or hateful images printed on them, “no colored allowed” signs posted in stores) or to a lesser degree products or institutions that depict stereotypical images of minorities (Aunt Jemima syrup, Sambo’s restaurant chain, Land O Lakes butter). The examples you give are fascinating because they don’t foster a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among races determine individual achievement (to paraphrase dictionary.com) but they DO physically encode assumptions about what is or isn’t culturally or physically proper or normal, and they do discriminate in their usability by race. I’d wouldn’t call them “racist” but I would call them thoughtless and much worse. These items are much more dangerous than an idiot’s slur-covered tank top, and because they are so dangerous–and because being able to discuss the assumptions and design processes that formed them is so important–I think I need a new word to capture them. Probably this word is already out there: what is it?