Nakamura

This piece went over something we never really think about..until we read about it of course. Have you ever seriously thought to yourself, "Yeah I bet the person who designed this is a white guy, because....," I mean- I haven't, but if you have, then you are steps ahead of me. And maybe that's just because I'm a white female, who hasn't particularly noticed that the interfaces and clickable boxes don't allow me to select or express what my identity really is (when it comes to race, that is).

Nakamura argues that in many ways the web "forces the user to choose 'what' they are, and allows only one choice at a time," that the web is stuck in political and racial divides due to demographics and racial representation- that because due to the under-representation of specific races in internet usage, "the racial demographics of those who write the content, design the interfaces, and create the search engines make up the web and condition of our readings...If African Americans are underrepresented as web users, they are even more underrepresented as web builders."She also pulls terms such as digital divide, from Hoffman and Novak, that I feel are important in complementing and describing the racial issues on the web.

 **Now, applying this to web design, it is important for us, as designers, to take into consideration, once again, the audience of our pages/designs. That we must make sure to understand every different type of characteristic or aspect of the user, whether it be race, location, experience or level of knowledge. Not only can we apply this to our designs, but in general, it's just a very eye-opening piece that demonstrates just how naturalized some aspects of our American culture have become and how racism is still around. (but I do feel that since this article has been written there have been some changes, for the good, in online spaces and on the web...just don't google "beauty," right?)