Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 30, 1995 TAG: 9503300081
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JUBE SHIVER JR. LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
During a Black History observance last month, a standing-room audience jammed a Library of Congress meeting room to hear a talk about an unlikely historical subject: cyberspace.
More than 200 people listened to authors Stafford L. Battle and Roy O. Harris encourage blacks to get more involved with computers and online technology. Their 100-page book apparently is the first on the topic aimed at a black audience - and it has sparked enthusiastic response.
``I don't think we have had any audiences as large as that one,'' said John Ashley, program director of the Daniel Murray African American Culture Association. ``It tells me there is an enormous amount of interest out in the community about computers and technology.''
Battle and Harris are online activists, leaders of what might be called the civil rights movement in cyberspace. Together with advocates for the poor, the elderly and women, they're demanding more computer access for the disenfranchised and urging minorities to put aside their fears and enter an Information Highway mostly dominated by students, scientists and male computer jocks.
It's a movement that has come into its own only recently:
Last month, a White House official joined the Older Women's League, Gray Panthers and a nonprofit training and online service group, Senior Net, to announce an alliance to encourage computer use among older Americans.
In Los Angeles, a citizens' task force organized by Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas is rolling out a computer bulletin board that will enable South Central Los Angeles residents to connect with each other and with the global Internet. The group plans to have 65 terminals available.
In November, nonprofit groups formed the online Latino Net, aimed at linking thousand of community groups across the United States. It followed the 1993 launch of Chicano/Latino Net - a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, Chicano Studies Research Center and the University of California, Santa Barbara, Linguistic Minority Research Institute that supplies Latino-oriented research material over the Internet.
Alarmed at the lack of computers in inner-city homes, a coalition in Ohio last fall persuaded regional phone giant Ameritech to bankroll construction of 14 community centers to offer computer access to low-income residents.
These efforts come amid mounting evidence that the United States is dividing into two societies: one comfortable with personal computers and telecommunications technology, and another with neither knowledge of the Information Age nor access to its basic tools.
Lack of money is one factor. Despite steadily falling prices, personal computers, software and online services remain too expensive for many Americans. Many government policy-makers and industry officials have focused on providing some kind of access via public schools or libraries, although few believe that is an entirely adequate solution.
But activists say money is only a piece of the problem. An equally important challenge is showing the utility and relevance of technology to people who do not see its benefits in daily life. Even the most cynical and alienated Americans, experts say, can be engaged when given the incentive to explore the online world.
``Many people think that the barrier for people in lower socioeconomic groups is the cost of the computer equipment,'' said Mike Goodwin, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But now that the cost of used and discarded equipment often is lower than a television, he said, the real barrier is helping people accept the idea that computers ought to be a part of their lives.
The psychological and cultural obstacles that keep many people - especially minorities - away from technology are deep-rooted.
Battle, for instance, said that when he goes out in his old Washington neighborhood to try to persuade T-shirt vendors and other black merchants to consider offering their wares over the Internet, he often encounters a fear of cyberspace and the perception that computers are for whites.
``They say, `That's the white man's thing,''' Battle said. `` `We don't need technology.' ''
According to an October 1993 Census Bureau study, less than 14 percent of adult blacks and Latinos have a computer at home, compared to 26.9 percent of whites. The study also found that 47.1 percent of employed whites used a computer at work, compared to 36.1 percent of blacks and 29.3 percent of Latinos. Among the elderly, 8.4 percent had a computer at home and 20.3 percent used one at work.
Astounded that there were only two computers in her inner-city Dayton, Ohio, neighborhood of more than 1,000 people, Linda Broadus joined neighbors and the local Legal Aid office to lobby for help. After weeks of negotiations, Ameritech agreed to fund construction of 14 community centers around the state.
In a ground-breaking agreement approved by the Ohio Public Utilities Commission in November, Ameritech promised to spend $2.2 million to build the centers and set aside $18 million for a fund that school systems will use to buy equipment and wire schools to networks.
``People in my community were on their way to being left out because they had such limited access'' to telecommunications technology, said Broadus. ``Everyone who lives in this community is not low-income and [the industry] ought to realize that the more people are exposed to this technology the more demand there will be for their products.''
Providing all low-income citizens with access to information technology remains a distant dream. Government policy-makers certainly are aware of the problem. While it is unlikely that Congress will adopt the suggestion of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and give laptops to all the nation's poor, lawmakers hope to pass a measure that will assure most Americans access to the next generation of telecommunications technology.
The debate centers on whether users of the modern networks that make up the information highway should be required to subsidize access to it.
by CNB