Digital Diaspora

Cast the 'net wide

U.S. Black churches use cyberspace to rouse communities - is this the future for Afro-Britons too?

Abdul Alkalimat, Manchester/chronicleworld.org

Something was troubling the bishop. The tide of crack cocaine was swamping his congregation in Toledo, Ohio. He had a terrible vision. The community is breaking a part; families are disintegrating. "We are about to lose a generation".

But, recalling the Biblical passage Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Bishop W J Murchison saw the light of a compelling idea. It was time to plant the seed of self-help against poverty and despair in this old port city on the St Lawrence Seaway. It would be an independent church centre for community organisation, guided by the slogan "Knowledge is power".

Keen gardeners, Toledo

This inspired project might have floundered but for the intervention of sociologist and professor of Black Studies, Abdul Alkalimat of the University of Toledo. He thrust a new element, called cyberpower, into the process of change. The bishop's organisation became a community technology centre (CTC) delivering low cost computer training to parishioners and local people.

Now, thanks to Prof Alkalimat's intervention, it is not unusual to see "no hope" teenagers surfing for job markets, community activists building coalitions through chat room discussions, or a grandmother creating a database for her vegetable garden club.

Community organisation

Prof Alkalimat told the story of the Murchison CTC on his visit to Manchester, England in spring 2003. In the audience were race equality academics and activists, communications specialists, info-technology professionals and city officials.

CTCs are a novel method of fulfilling lives, said the professor and cyberorganiser. There are already 38 successful centres in metropolitan Toledo with networks of computers and Internet access. Most are in white and middle class areas; some are in poor districts.

All are part of a publicly funded $5.6 million program supported by the University of Toledo Urban Affairs department. They are centres of community organisation, and in the right hands can be instruments of social change.

Toledo's independent CTC web sites mobilise their own urban commentaries. They are a powerful antidote to the heavy-handed official web sites that deliver top-down policies to local people,

Refuse collection, schools and crime are major issues of concern. The web-sters hotly debate the work of city officials and the mayor (who happens to be African American). Citizens protest against the crippling effects of urban renewal that destroys homes and displaces people.

Special focus

The Murchison CTC has a special focus, however, Prof Alkalimat told his Manchester audience. "Our emphases on Black heritage, equality and justice give our projects their own eBlack character."

And rule number one, it appears, is that cyberorganisers must know the social factors that influence access and use of the Internet. Black Toledans are on the negative side of the "digital divide". In fact, the professor feels that differences in income and class, colour and [segregated] spaces are the barriers that must be overcome.

Statistics support this view. Many Black households live at low-income poverty levels and many families are held together by females alone. As in much of America, Blacks live in well-defined neighbourhoods often with fewer resources than other areas, according to the 2000 census.

Social capital

In this difficult circumstance, the Murchison centre helps bring out the creativity in people and binds them together, said Prof Alkalimat. The people's collective actions generate "social capital". It is a valuable commodity that can be used to gain resources and recognition for local enterprises.

(No one knows this better than the leaders of the many thousands of Black churches - traditional, Pentecostal and storefront - whose wealth is numbered in the hundreds of millions. The essence of Black culture in America is undoubtedly religion. Hence, the Black preacher's call for "Soul Power" endorses, to a large extent, the economic and equality goals of their parishioners, and has a strong base in Black ethnic solidarity.)

In effect, social capital is a form of group wealth and legitimacy. Local parents, many of them young grandmothers raising their grandchildren, organise and manage their support groups. People who have never imagined facing a computer, complete a strenuous program of 15 hours a week of training; and the number of recruits is increasing.

Cyberchurch

What's more, there are tangible, bread-and-butter accomplishments. One is the Cyber Church directory. It links the church and community through the Internet and has grown to more than 300 church web sites in Toledo.

Started as a project in the university's course on the Black church, students and staff go out into the community to teach the clergy, church personnel and parishioners how to create and update their web sites.

Their efforts paid off in a wave of publicity and some welcome support. "Churches utilise cyberspace to grow links with the community", reported the Toledo Blade newspaper.

One participant, a church pastor, said "he had never been interested in computers, and at his advanced age he thought he would never be able to learn the complexities of the Internet and computer jargon". But, he told reporters, he's now "almost a computer geek."

Cyberschools

The Cyber Schools project, another initiative, is run at the centre's Community Math Academy in association with a local elementary school. Parents attend meetings of the school's parent and teachers' organisation. They monitor the maths proficiency tests and serve as teachers' aides and after school tutors. They help to post their schools' activities on the web and encourage discussion by e-mail.

Economic and political benefits

But local innovation does not stop there, said Prof Alkalimat. Business enterprises have begun to flourish. A "Black people's hair" web site links 50 beauty salons, and shares information about personal hair care, product costs and prices. Drawing on examples from around the Black world - such as Ghana, Brazil and the Caribbean - local people gain a global awareness of Black beauty and culture.

Schools and families create web resource libraries to explore African and Caribbean history, trace their rural and working class ancestors, and to celebrate the achievements of prominent political and social leaders.

Cyberpower

Cyber-organisers have learned to use the Internet as a political weapon in the struggle for Black rights. Prompted by a visit to the Chicago headquarters of the Black Radical Congress, an alliance of Black scholars and activists, eBlack participants have formulated a new slogan for the Black Internet revolution. The Community Technology Centre + Internet + Politics = Social Capital & Cyberpower. The result is, potentially, a "new Black counter-public in the information society".

(Prof Alkalimat elaborates these ideas in his research paper (with Kate Williams, "Social Capital and Cyberpower in the African American Community, 2001. His thesis, briefly put is that (1) the social capital created in a community technology centre determines its role in the community and the continuing freedom struggle; and (2) community technology outcomes will be expressed in cyberpower, that is the ability to act to set and achieve goals.)

Views and Opinions

At the conclusion of Prof Alkalimat's Manchester talk, the assembled academics, professionals and city officials expressed views that ranged from polite to dismissive to hostile.

Britain has a different pattern of master-slave and Black-white race relations; and a different history of church-community action among Blacks, said critics. Hence, the Toledo experience, with its eBlack and church-led projects, has little relevance to the UK, they said. (The topic of cyberpower for Black and low-income people was, it seemed, too controversial for British people. They generally abhor what they consider a confrontational approach to race-class relations.)

Yet, this disparity of experience is not an assessment that many analysts, or a good number of Afro-Britons, would agree with. There is no escaping the fact that Black communities in London share similarities with those in Toledo. They are similarly effected by information poverty and unresolved social problems.

In October 2003, a relaxed and confident, Prof Alkalimat spoke again of the eBlack projects at the Murchison centre. This time to a sympathetic audience of cyber enthusiasts at the Digital Diaspora workshop organised by the Chroniclworld.org at the Mayor of London's Black History Month celebrations. (See "Wired up Black communities add value to global city London", 12/13/03)

Ongoing questions

The workshop promises to convene again to take a serious look at Internet access and use in Black Britain and the Diaspora. One practical output could be a directory of online Black British web sites. (One important exemplar of "cyberblack" studies is Prof Akalimat's new book The African-American Experience in Cyberspace: a resource guide to the best web sites on Black culture and history, Pluto Press 2003).

But, there is a warning to be heeded. Cyber-organisers must recognise that "social capital" in Britain tends to be "colour-blind" and expressed in moderate tones.

(Government sources define social capital as "networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate co-operation within or among groups" in the Cabinet Office publication Social Capital. London: 2002. Its main aspects are "citizenship, neighbourliness, trust and shared values, community involvement, volunteering, social networks, and civil and political participation"; as further elaborated in the Office of National Statistics, Social Trends 33rd edition, 2003, pp. 19-27.)

There is another subject worthy of investigation. Reports from the London Mayor's Office suggest there is a dearth of research on the use of information technology in the capital's Black Communities. There is a need to identify the community projects using the Internet and social action programs to empower Black participation in economic and public affairs.

And in this regard, a suitable case for examination are Black British churches: traditional, evangelical and Pentecostal (the fastest growing Christian church body in Britain).

Vibrant and dynamic as they are, Black churches, established more than fifty years in Britain, still face challenges to fulfil their community mission. They could make a major contribution by mobilising aspiring Black achievers in their congregations to create a networked system of Christian social services across the nation. These cyber-organisers could link faith groups, and government and industry, to tackle social problems and propose reforms in employment practices, health, education, policing, and urban regeneration.

The message from African Americans in Toledo cannot be easily dismissed. Social capital and cyberpower - that is, the effects of collective online activity - can be measured and mapped. Populist-inspired actions, whether rationally-conceived or divinely-motivated, when allied to the new communications technology can help enrich and empower Black people. Whether this idea will work for Afro-Britons no one knows, until it's tried.

This is the second in our Digital Diaspora series of articles - For more see "Wired up Black communities add value to global city London". 12/13/03 - in Archive 04

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