<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div>This has developed into an interesting discussion, at least in so far as it exposes some of the disciplinary rifts and boundaries amongst the many different constituencies and communities claiming some purchase in the history of computers and computing. Like the Doubloon nailed to the mast in Moby Dick, here sits Tara McPherson's essay with its provocative title, "Why are the Digital Humanities so White?" under an even more provocative listserv subject line, "Is Unix racist?" Not surprising many of us feel compelled to weigh in.<br><br></div>I suspect some are reading the essay through something like the following framework:<br><br></div>The author, starting with a bold and perhaps overdetermined thesis, sifts what historical evidence she can find, comes up short, and so stumbles and fumbles her way toward an unsatisfying conclusion. Alas, there is no smoking gun to prove that UNIX developed out of overtly racist motivations after all, but we can still salvage a publication and an English professor qua digital humanist can maybe toss some red meat to students.<br><br></div>But that's not what's going on in the essay, I don't think. Instead, I see the decisive passage as this one:<br><br>"By<span class="none"><span class="sentence annotated" id="sentence-29885"> drawing analogies between shifting racial and political formations and
the emerging structures of digital computing in the late 1960s, I am not
arguing that the programmers creating UNIX at Bell Labs and in Berkeley
were <em>consciously</em> encoding new modes of racism and racial understanding into digital systems.</span> <span class="sentence annotated" id="sentence-17731">(Indeed,
many of these programmers were themselves left-leaning hippies, and the
overlaps between the counterculture and early computing culture run
deep, as Fred Turner has illustrated.) . . .</span> <span class="sentence" id="sentence-20954">Nor
am I arguing for some exact correspondence between the ways in which
encapsulation or modularity work in computation and how they function in
the emerging regimes of neoliberalism, governmentality, and
post-Fordism. </span><span class="sentence annotated" id="sentence-23779">Rather,
I am highlighting the ways in which the organization of information and
capital in the 1960s powerfully responds—across many registers—to the
struggles for racial justice and democracy that so categorized the
United States at the time.</span> . . .<span class="sentence annotated" id="sentence-10140"> </span><span class="sentence annotated" id="sentence-18157">Computation
is a primary delivery method of these new systems, and it seems at best
naive to imagine that cultural and computational operating systems
don’t mutually infect one another.</span></span>" (149)<br><br></div>The core thesis, then, is that cultural and computational constructs influence one another. Indeed, the very division is suspect, precisely the "modularity" of which McPherson speaks. <br><br>Who here would seriously disagree? Which is to say, I can well imagine specialists in the history of Unix (or the history of American social relations in the 1960s) disputing this or that aspect of her subsequent discussion and analysis. That's called scholarly communication. But the kind of rhetoric some here have deployed, questioning her credentials and the terms of her employment? That's something else entirely. Best, Matt<br></div><br><div><br><div><br><br><div><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><div><div><br><br><br></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:11 AM, Ceruzzi, Paul <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:CeruzziP@si.edu" target="_blank">CeruzziP@si.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue">Well, we know that BASIC was developed at Dartmouth College, which at the time was all-male and quite the macho place. Dartmouth was founded to train Native Americans for the Christian ministry—enough about that.
It was also the inspiration for the movie _<i>Animal House</i>_. What this has to do with BASIC I have no idea, but when I think of Dartmouth BASIC, I think of John Belushi in the cafeteria (a scene that was totally ad-libbed by the way). What for me in most
interesting about Dartmouth BASIC is that it was designed for a time-shared system, but it was adapted by the PC community for the Altair and other PCs. That was a radical re-definition of the language. For example, you could not have commands like “Peek”
and “Poke” in Dartmouth BASIC, if you’re running it on a time-shared mainframe. You’d crash the system. But Peek & Poke were absolutely necessary for the personal computer, given the limitations of memory they had. (Also “usr.”) Kemeney & Kurtz did not approve
of the way BASIC was modified, but it had to happen. Who came up with those changes?—it may have been at DEC for the PDP-11.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue">Are the terms “peek” and “poke” sexist? Probably, but we do know that among the computer companies of the 1960s, DEC was one of the most progressive in hiring women.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue">As for the Is UNIX Racist discussion, I am disappointed that some of you use that paper in coursework. But there are so few alternatives, and the topic is sorely in need of further study. I talked about this at
the SIG meeting in Dearborn. We need to address the topic in a more fundamental way. I recommend a recent book by a colleague of mine, Richard Paul, _<i>We Could Not Fail</i>_, about African-Americans who worked for NASA in southern NASA Centers, during the
hey-day of the Space Race. Around the same time, IBM established a major facility in Atlanta, and the company had to remind the Atlanta political and real-estate establishment that its employees were to be treated fairly. When the Braves moved from Milwaukee
to Atlanta, Hank Aaron expressed some concern about the move. The issue was real. What about the effort by Ken Olsen at DEC and William Norriss at CDC to establish plants in inner city neighborhoods, in St. Paul, Boston, and Springfield, Mass.? What became
of those plants?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue">As I said, this topic merits serious discussion, but the UNIX paper? Maybe not so much.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue">Paul Ceruzzi <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> Members [mailto:<a href="mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org" target="_blank">members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org</a>]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Andrew Meade McGee<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, August 17, 2015 8:19 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Nabeel Siddiqui<span class=""><br>
<b>Cc:</b> Sigcis<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Is Unix racist?<u></u><u></u></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><u></u> <u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">On a semi-related query, has there been much race-, gender-, or class-related discussion around the cultural logic or social context of the development or reception of BASIC?<u></u><u></u></p><div><div class="h5">
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">I could imagine that fitting into a larger conversation on class, institutions, social action, and (possibly) accusations of paternalism given its Sixties-era development and Dartmouth origins. Just curious -- I
admittedly know far less than I should about the dissemination of programming languages. <u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><u></u> <u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">Best,<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">Andrew<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><br clear="all">
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --<br>
Andrew Meade McGee<br>
Corcoran Department of History<br>
University of Virginia<br>
PO Box 400180 - Nau Hall<br>
Charlottesville, VA 22904<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><u></u> <u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 5:55 PM, Nabeel Siddiqui <<a href="mailto:nasiddiqui@email.wm.edu" target="_blank">nasiddiqui@email.wm.edu</a>> wrote:<u></u><u></u></p>
<blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #cccccc 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
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<p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">
<span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif">I assign it in my course to discuss race with students, but it does have its problems, specifically correlation vs causality. While the article doesn't get into it, I think it adds to David Golumbia's
<i>Cultural Logic of Computation</i> on how computation provides a set of ideas and metaphors for people to think about the world around them. The Digital Humanities part is actually a part that was tacked on and doesn't really add much to the article. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">
<span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">
<span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif">Originally, the article was release as "U.S. Operating System at Mid-Century" in
<i>Race After the Internet</i>, edited by Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White. Link to the original article's pdf here:
</span><a href="http://history.msu.edu/hst830/files/2014/01/McPherson_2012.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif">http://history.msu.edu/hst830/files/2014/01/McPherson_2012.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:57 PM, Janet Abbate <<a href="mailto:abbate@vt.edu" target="_blank">abbate@vt.edu</a>> wrote:<u></u><u></u></p>
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<blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #cccccc 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">Anyone seen this piece by Tara Mcpherson? It starts with some interesting questions, but I found the follow-through to be disappointingly ahistorical. Again and again she argues that there must be a connection between
the modularity of Unix and the compartmentalization of race within American culture, but then immediately admits that she has no evidence for any direct connection. As far as I can tell, the only reason she singles out Unix is because it coincides conveniently
with the US Civil Rights era. I'm curious to know what others think.<br>
<br>
"Why Are the Digital Humanities So White? or Thinking the Histories of Race and Computation."<br>
<a href="http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/29" target="_blank">http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/29</a><br>
<br>
Janet<br>
<br>
<br>
Dr. Janet Abbate<br>
Associate Professor, Science & Technology in Society<br>
Co-director, National Capital Region STS program<br>
Virginia Tech<br>
<a href="http://www.sts.vt.edu/ncr" target="_blank">www.sts.vt.edu/ncr</a><br>
<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055" target="_blank">www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055</a><br>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS" target="_blank">www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS</a><br>
<br>
<br>
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This email is relayed from members at <a href="http://sigcis.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">sigcis.org</a>, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at <a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/</a> and you can change your subscription options at <a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Matthew Kirschenbaum<br>Associate Professor of English<br>Associate Director, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH)<br>University of Maryland<br><a href="http://mkirschenbaum.net" target="_blank">http://mkirschenbaum.net</a> or @mkirschenbaum on Twitter<br><br></div></div></div>
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