Erasing Race

The article,” Erasing Race”, is an opinionated article that expresses the idea that technology erases race over the internet. By using the internet, people are able to create a “new self” and new identities that may or may not represent who they really are. In the article it tells about how sometimes the idea of race is not apparent on the internet and that because of this our communication over the internet is changed.
This quote: “[you] must assemble a virtual self. While the elements of identity that are offered to users vary from world to world, the general act of creating a persona within the world does not change.”, is a big idea of what this article is about. The idea of creating a “virtual self” allows others to not be so judgmental and actually listen to what you have to say in many cases. Weather it be through words or just your language, many people are able to make their own assumptions about a person. The author talks about how when you’re new identity is created online, no one person can be able to tell your exact race unless you tell it yourself. Because of this many people are automatically assumed white which tends to privilege most people. “The lack of an @race property means that the MUD is an environment where racial identity is presumed to be either irrelevant or homogeneous.” We today, have been more and more dependant on these online networks to kind of create a whole new society. Because our online communication has increased so much, people are now tending to create online identities that are not “true identities”. These are becoming less about who the person really is and more about what looks more appealing to any certain online network.
Why is it that people can’t even be their “true self” anymore? I believe that so many people have been using the internet to communicate now days because they are afraid of what others will think of them. Many people create false identities and make others believe false things about them just to accept. The idea of race has become such a big deal to our society that some chose to hide it from others and allow it to be “erased” by cyberspace.
In my eyes, our society has allowed itself to become so judgmental that it is now causing people to hide who they are. A person should be proud of who they are and not have to use cyberspace to communicate just so they can hide that. Cyberspace has allowed race to be “erased” and I think that this is something that is a big problem in our society and it looks like its just growing rapidly.
This article has shown me an idea that I had never really thought of. I now am realizing these things online, little things I have never noticed before, and I can say that I am in a way upset about what our society has come to.