After reading an article by Lisa Nakamura based on identity tourism and racial passing, I have one question in mind why did LambdaMOO (online community website) creators did not give their visitors a choice of race?
Nakamura, L.(2000, pp298) states “Yet while the textual conditions of self-definition and self-performance would seem to permit players total freedom, within the boundaries of the written word, to describe themselves in any way they choose, this choice is actually an illusion. This is because the choice not to mention race does in fact constitute a choice – in the absence of racial description, all players are assumed to be white.” Not sure how much I agree with the last part of this statement, because if I were to be Asian I most likely would assume that all other players are also Asian, or I would not even think about race at all because it’s not the most important subject. I don’t believe this is a bad thing at all, not considering race to be important when creating this web page only prevents discrimination and unpleasantness, because there still are people out there who would happily discriminate the others anonymously. Perhaps the founders wanted to create a neutral space where people can be themselves, putting racial differences aside and conversing about mutual interests.
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| image found: http://coppock-violi.com/web/Project/web/Report6b.html |
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