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Digital Diaspora"Wired up Black communities" add value to global city LondonFirst in a series of articles on one of the most important issues facing Black people this Century
Black communities and London's policymakers both agree: the new information and communications technology (ICT) has great potential to promote better cities based on sound information freely shared. But, there is also a special case for wiring up socially excluded Black Londoners of African Caribbean origins, said 200 participants at the Chronicle's Digital Diaspora workshop at Wembley Centre in October. They were part of the Black History Month 2003 "dialogue with the diaspora" celebrations honouring historic Black personalities: Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Robeson and Du Bois. Sponsored by Mayor Ken Livingstone the event attracted an estimated 1500 delegates and their families. Most of the Digital Diaspora workshop participants owned or had daily access to a computer. Three out of ten were computer literate and frequent users of the internet and e-mail. Many had made personal sacrifices in order to achieve their goal. All were concerned with one vital question: How, in a climate of racial disadvantage, can the internet be used to improve the lives of Black people? The vital need This follows a warning of a deep digital fault line along economic and racial lines. Evidence suggests that working class Black Londoners are less likely to be computer owners and internet users than whites. And their inner city schools are ill-equipped to meet the internet challenge. Ways must be found to ensure that Black communities can access the information tools they need for self-development and participation in civic affairs and urban prosperity and renewal, said Prof Blair.
Action case studies Studies in Toledo, Ohio suggest that "new information technology initiatives have worked in Black communities," said co-organiser Prof Abdul Alkalimat of the Department of African American studies at the city's university. He told of networking scores of churches, small businesses, even hairdressers -all vital to the Black community - into major information producers and sharers. Prof Alkalimat, a widely acknowledged "cyber-organiser" whose web site is http://www.communitytechnology.org/cyberpower said: "When people come together as a group for common purposes, and they experience cyberspace together, their actions pay off in terms of more robust, enriched and longer lasting projects." In essence, "we call our work building up social capital and cyberpower," he said.
Here in Britain, panellist Devon Thomas, manager, London Small Business Initiative Ltd, Brixton, London said "Black people in Brixton [an historic area of Black settlement] are using information and communications technology (ICT) to change their lives". Mr Thomas said his ICT company helps local groups and businesses to develop the internet skills they need to achieve their aims. Web sites like http://www.brixtononline.org contribute to transforming the district - stigmatised by media reports of crime and drug abuse - into a world stage of Black creative and cultural industries. Equally, older organisations working on behalf of Caribbean people in Britain can benefit from these new initiatives, said Walter Trant, director, West Indian Standing Conference. The conference is a grass roots organisation for justice and equality of opportunity founded in 1958. When asked what he hoped to gain from the workshop, Mr Trant said: "We want to get into the digital area of preserving our history, thereby making the community more aware of our continuing activities on their behalf." Once wired up Black organisations like the WISC can go the next step. They can network across the post-colonial boundaries of the African Diaspora. Nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in the developed and developing countries are already beginning to show how this can be effectively done, said C Gerald Fraser, workshop panellist and veteran reporter on the media and United Nations affairs.
One can glimpse at the heart of all these examples the essential stages of collective internet development: accessing the internet, creating online web sites and fashioning a global creative role in cyberspace. But starting and maintaining this process is no easy task. Computers, modems, software and time online all cost money that many working class Black families simply cannot afford. This limits their involvement in the much vaunted information society. Not unexpectedly many participants argued that the ICT partnerships responsible for "wiring up Britain" - namely government, industry and voluntary sectors - should pay for future ICT developments in cash-strapped inner city Black communities. Researching the
future One rich source is the new research study "Connecting Communities, Tackling Exclusion?" Another is "Londoners On-Line" which presents new figures on home internet connectedness from London Household Survey data. "Connecting communities" reports on the use of information and communications technology by socially excluded Londoners. Sponsored by the Greater London Authority, BT, LondonConnects and the London Development Agency it seeks to determine the best means of providing a route out of exclusion. Another fruitful line of enquiry is policy research to discover who the "early adopters" of ICT are. Furthermore, what distinguishes two different types of internet users? On the one hand, there are active producers and "uploaders" of information created by grassroots organisations; and on the other hand, internet users who are solely passive "downloaders" of other people's information? In addition, there is a harvest of ideas to be gained from studying resource agencies and the projects they support. Among them are the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists www.wcit.org.uk and the Support Group for London based community groups www.it4communities.org.uk. There is also a need to explore funding opportunities in collaboration with communities, industry and the public sector Ê
Conclusions However, the new cyber activists at the first Chronicle Digital Diaspora workshop have expanded this political mantra. Funding the ICT needs of Black communities should be ringfenced and properly funded. This may prove to be a political hot potato but the benefits are incontrovertible. Wiring up Black communities has triple benefits. It aids their social, civic and political integration and advancement; it enhances their competitiveness in the urban marketplace; and it adds value to London's success as a global city.
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