The main focus of the documentary was upon the men that participated in the uprising, on both sides. The documentary described the black community’s rioters as typically a 17 year old male, high school drop out, with no father, and the police and national guards (only made up of men) were also described, their male leaders sought out and interviewed for their opinion upon these black men. Both “sides” of the uprising were asked what had happened, but it was only in the times of asking the black community that we heard any female voice: the woman who explained that she needed a job, but needed a babysitter, and the cycle therein which was holding her back from a job. Other than this one woman, and the mentioning of the mother at the incident that started the revolt on August 11th, there was no major mention of females and the struggles that they had gone through, rather the focus was upon the men with no jobs, the men with no fathers, the men with only anger left after years of subjugation. The cry heard was for “brotherhood” and only heard by male voices, or the calls for “get whitey” played over the sound of burning cars was only that of males. While it was seen in the videotaping of the looting that black women, or the women being arrested to show that women were also taking part in the revolt to gain some footing in the events, the absolutely driving force (physically, verbally, and spiritually) was the black man demanding respect and finally taking it from the whites who held him back. As seen in some interviews, the men were explaining the demoralizing, and even unmanning, times that they were subject to police brutality; such as the only (and eventually first) black reporter that was sent into Watts, describing the humiliation of going on a date and being spread against a fence to be patted down while his girlfriend has to look on in silence, both unable to fight back or say a word. What this reflects is the loss of masculinity within the community of Watts and of any black man who had encountered the police. The documentary distinctly showed this type of imagery repeated when the last interviewed black man (whose face was never shown) played out the altercation between himself and police upon his arrest in the uprising, or the clips of men getting arrested. The documentary did not show women, did not seek out women for thoughts, only portraying the loss and downfalls of the black man.
Category: Digital Watts
Week 4: Black Women — Victimized & Villified
In what ways are women an absent presence in the film? What did you see as the overall effect of the manner in which black masculinity, black male role models, and the black family were discussed in the documentary?
Week #4: The Family Unit
The lack of female presence in the film speaks largely to the larger trend of Black Nationalism which seemed to in part be centered on the re-appropriation of the Black male body and therefore Black masculinity. This topic makes me recall the image of Huey P. Newton which also serves to assert male masculinity for the Black Panthers and consequently works to negate or silence the Black woman. The film in a similar fashion rejects the female voice by focusing on that of the male. In retrospect this is very interesting as one can be led to believe that the uprising was merely a “fight between males”. Yet no one both in this situation or in something as the Black Panthers ever focuses on the fact the the Black woman facilitated the work the males within the Black Panthers did and that in many was they were active participants and supporters. Although these male centered power movements were problematic they were also distorted to reimagine Black masculinity as a threat and therefore a sort of behavior that needed to once again be oppressed.
¶ Week 5: Question
In the intro to Sorting Things Out, Bowker and Star write about the all-encompassing nature of classification systems, how they shape (and control) our everyday lives and their implications:
Remarkably for such a central part of our lives, we stand for the most part in formal ignorance of the social and moral order created by these invisible, potent entities. Their impact is indisputable, and as Foucault reminds us, inescapable…Each standard and each category valorizes some point of view and silences another. This is not a bad thing—indeed it is inescapable. But it is an ethical choice, and as such it is dangerous—not bad but dangerous. (3 & 5)
Week 5: Ethical Choices in Archiving
With our digital archiving project, we’re faced with many ethical decisions, particularly about what artifacts we make accessible, how we make them accessible, and the ways in which we label, classify, and categorize the information we present. Decisions we make regarding which documents go into the archive as pertaining to Watts ‘65 is one way in which our ethical judgment comes into play. Another is in the ways we present this archive digitally (and how we seek to make it accessible via online searching using tags/metadata). Finally, and most relevant to what we’ve been doing this past week, the ways we title, describe, tag, and contribute our assigned artifacts will affect the ways researchers view them in important ways. This is the area in which I’ve been conscious of my decisions and subjective voice in this process, and how it could shape (and potentially damage) the goals of this project.
One pitfall I’ve been contemplating as I’ve completed my descriptions and tagging metadata is the way in which our voices as complete outsiders to the Watts community can act as unwanted, subjective interpreters and cast the artifacts in a lens that speaks more to our views on these events than those represented in the documents. I’ve tried to keep my descriptions as dry and neutral as possible, using quotes from the documents to convey the writer’s perspective or goal, but I still worry about information overemphasized or left out based on my subjective reading of even these brief texts. While shades of this subjective perspective are inevitable in doing this work, I’ve been ruminating on how our perspectives as academics totally disconnected from this community could create more distance between our raw materials and the people trying to seek them out rather than less.
As for the work beyond what we’ll complete in class (which, let’s be honest, will be immense, considering our limited time frame), I think the most important aspects to consider are how this archive and these materials are positioned on the web and the degree to which we have represented these materials ‘accurately.’ Tagging and metadata as well as search engine optimization will be key for the first point, and the presence of a “second set of eyes,” especially those of SCL staff or community members, would be the best possible case for the second point. Another way to think about it is considering both the way the archive is discovered and consumed to newcomers or outsiders and how it reflects on the community and events taking place within it.
Week 5: Representation: Re-presenting a Lexicon?
After only a little bit of time with the metadata of the materials, but with more time actually handling the materials while in Critical Methodologies last year, I find that it has become easier to provide tags to pieces of the material due to their correlation. With more experience with the materials and more reading of the materials I know the story of Watts in order to better see the connections between the pieces which then build or tell a more coherent narrative of the events of and leading up to 1965. With this in mind I know that reading the Gerald Horne text, along with viewing things like the documentary of Watts helped in my being better able to approach the material confidently. Last year when creating the metadata for an object, it was daunting to attempt to claim a voice or a stance to speak from for the materials, the people who wrote them, or the people who participated in the events. But with a broader (not deeper) knowledge of the events I thought more as a historian being able to weave the pieces together to create a more cohesive narrative, one that even if I was not a part of, I knew well enough to show the highlights of details.
Week 5: The Ethics of Metadata
The importance of ethics when undertaking the responsibility of classification cannot be overstated. In considering this responsibility I am reminded of research I did on Native American author, Mourning Dove and her novel Cogewea: The Half Blood. At one point Mourning Dove was considered the first Native American Woman author, however, much of the scholarship revolving around her and her novel is centered on a man named Lucullus McWhorter. McWhorter was an anthropologist interested in Native American culture and history. He met Mourning Dove at a local event and the two developed a correspondence about her writing and McWhorter later became the editor of her novel. However, the two had different ideas about the story her novel would tell. While Mourning Dove had the intentions of writing a “western romance,” McWhorter was intent on selling the novel as a text about the Native American experience. Against her will, McWhorter pushed an “authentic looking” Native American depiction of Mourning Dove on the cover, added epitaphs before each chapter, and more. In all my research on the text , I would say the most frequently cited quote is Mourning Dove’s statement in a letter to McWhorter:
Week 5: More Questions Than Answers
Remarkably for such a central part of our lives, we stand for the most part in formal ignorance of the social and moral order created by these invisible, potent entities. Their impact is indisputable, and as Foucault reminds us, inescapable…Each standard and each category valorizes some point of view and silences another. This is not a bad thing—indeed it is inescapable. But it is an ethical choice, and as such it is dangerous—not bad but dangerous.
What kind of ethical choices are we making and/or what kind of ethical questions should we be asking ourselves?
Week #5: Classification and Ethics
We are making the ethical choices of describing material in a way that is not only findable, but somewhat disassociating it from the narrative that was and continues to be associated with Watts ’65. As with anyone making decisions on the the manner in which something is classified there is no way in which to not be subjective and this is largely where the ethical questions come in. We must ensure that we do not encode the material in a way that is counterproductive to goal of the library. We can only strive to be very conscious that what we are doing is indeed placing an opinion or connotation on a work or material that will be made available to others and which will coincidentally be read a certain way because of how it has been labeled. This level of responsibility is daunting and I believe none of us what to misrepresent the community for which this material is largely being sourced for or perpetuate the negative and inaccurate narrative that is displayed in some of these works. An issue I run into then is describing the material that is an inaccurate or highly biased representation for how do I list what it is (for example an article describing Watts 65 as a senseless riot) without perpetuating that narrative? I sometimes feel as if a disclaimer is necessary and maybe tags could be implemented in this way.
¶ Week 6: Questions
Please answers both questions below:
1.) The work you are doing on the Digital Watts Project is first and foremost for the Southern California Library. With that in mind, please explain your metadata creation process. In other words, give the library insight into what it takes to do what you did so they may learn from your efforts. Answer questions like: What order did you do things in? How did you decide on titles if the artifact did not already have one? What are your thoughts on the creation and application of subject terms? How much time did it take? How do you know you are done describing an object? What was the most difficult part of the process? Also, please make sure to share which of the class readings where most helpful—be they readings about classification, readings about Watts, etc.—and explain why they were helpful.