The Power of Your Byte!
A keynote address by Mel King
September 20, 2001
Transcribed by Jeff Streier

"Good morning. I am very honored to be here. So you know, when Samantha told me about the conference, I invited myself. And I invited myself because I think we are at a place and time where we can change. We can change so much of what is going on in the planet today and this was before September 11 that this was organized. Because I believe very fundamentally in the challenge and the change that we can make happen, I also want to indicate that I am very impressed with those of you who take on the challenge, only to let you know that you have some awesome, awesome responsibility. And I put it in terms of responsibility because this has to be viewed as an opportunity to again make a difference.

"What I’d like to do in the next moments is first to talk a little about how I got here, other than my own invitation. Two, some of the rationale for being involved with the technology. Three, something which deals with the title I chose, “The Power of Your Byte!” I know when we were children, we thought there was one kind of power of our bite. I know now that there’s a significant kind of power with our bytes.

"Now, picture growing up in a time if you went to the movies, and you look like me, and some other folks in the room, you did not see yourself represented in a positive way. And those of you who know the step-and-fetch-its, know how they were portrayed as turning white on the screen, always acting as if they were clowns, buffoons. Or how one person white could always outwit hundreds, thousands of Africans. And when those kind of things happened and you went to school the next day and you were almost always faced with a challenge and a fight because of the stereotypes and the negativity that came from the people who saw those kinds of films. And so at one point it dawned on us, friends and I, that going to those films, spending our money to have people laugh at us, etcetera, didn’t make sense, and so we stopped going.

"Went to college in South Carolina and was then faced, as I had grown up in Boston where we could go almost anywhere, to see that they had the segregated theater, and that, if you wanted to see a movie you had to go upstairs. But fortunately in Orangeburg, South Carolina there was a theater owned by Black people, called the State Theater, and they had something that I hadn’t seen: films that were made by people of African heritage about people of African heritage. And so it was interesting to go to the theater there and sit anywhere and see some identification. Yeah, we learned that there were Black cowboys and things that people didn’t get to know about until a lot later, in the late seventies, early eighties. So, I was struck by that.

"The issue had to do with who had control of the images. And so, when I returned to Boston, and was working as a youth worker on street corners, one time was a commercial on the TV at that time where there were two African American heritage men talking about using the new Gillette’s, whatever blade it was that they were pushing at that time, and the young people who were in the room all stopped. Now they had been watching, the game was on and they were [gestures], but as soon as that come on they all stopped and watched. And so later I said, “How come you stopped?” One of them said, “Well, the presence there makes me feel like we count too.” The presence there, doing something natural, I guess if you shave it’s natural [gestures at own beard], makes them feel like they count too. So that kinda stuck because it reminded me of some of the issues and concerns I had at a similar age.

"And so from then on, a major piece of my work and involvement was to be around the issue of dealing with images, dealing with the stories that are told about people, and the idea of Cotter Woodson’s Negro history turned Black history have a lot of impact and meaning. And that any of the things that could begin to bring persons of color into the consciousness, not only for their own internal psyche and ego, but for getting the ideas out across the whole community, became important.
So, before going to MIT to work, got involved with Bill Russell and others. Bill Russell, the great basketball player from the Celtics who understood also the impact of the media, and challenged the media. The TV organizations and agencies in Boston were one of the first in the country to get Black people, and then Latino and Asian people, on the camera so that they were visible. And so we worked and challenged that.

"The next thing came was the cable. So we thought that it was important to try and get access to cable. There are three issues here. The first is to get access to the infrastructure, to the hardware. The second is to get access to the content, the programming. And the third is to get people to do critique and analysis of what kinds of things that get put on. Well, obviously getting access to the infrastructure meant having a lot of economic resources, the kind of finances in order to do that. On the other hand the next thing would be to get access to the programming, to see what we could do with the content. And what you learn is since you don’t have access to the infrastructure, you have difficulty getting access to the programming and the content. Except that there was on e political leverage that we had. That is, with cable they had to get permission from the city. And so we pulled together a kind of political process which meant that different companies, who wanted to get access, had to come before the body politic, through the council, and then we could make some demands on them. One of the things we were able to get was the issue of local origination, so that the different neighborhoods got access to the cable channels, so that they could do local programming and have programs that they originated, which could talk about themselves, their community, etcetera. And therefore, a number of different groups were able to get some kind of access to the programming.

"And then along comes the information technology. I just want to caution us because I use that and others use it as if information technology is something new. Well, we’ve had information technology ever since. Some of it started with smiles and facial expressions and words and then with pictures that were drawn and we can go on to the printing press, etcetera. So, we’ve always had it. This one here seemed to have so much kind of uniqueness going for it. So at MIT in the early eighties, we put together a program called Community Bytes. And what Community Bytes was about was to get some of the community agencies to learn how to use the technology to manage their operations better - to do something about their database, to be able to do their fundraising, to get their mailings out, to keep a record of their services, their people who were getting services, who was delivering services, etcetera. So we worked with some of the agencies to get that. Now keep in mind this is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And it wasn’t easy to get the folks at the school to understand what we’re about and how significant and important it is and was at that time.

"Well at that point the Internet was not a well-known entity. And so as it began to emerge, the late eighties, the early nineties, I called to pull together a national conference to bring together people to talk about what the potential was in this technology. And to again go through the same issues: access to the infrastructure, access to the content and the programming, and to get people to critique it.

"And what we came out of this was that, in many ways, many people were talking about this information superhighway. And what we wanted to make sure was that we were not going to have this information highway do the same thing that the national defense highway system did across the country. It ran through neighborhoods, ran through rural communities and the people in there couldn’t get on or off. And they didn’t have the access. And so we said, well, we cannot have a repeat of that with this information highway – that it had to be one that was accessible to people everywhere, that they had to be able to get on and off everywhere. So we saw at first that this might be a civil rights issue – getting people that kind of access to make sure that that could happen. And so we brought lawyers to that conference to raise those kind of questions. It was going to be, and you’re doing something similar here, the issue of the technology, so that people should understand what the potential of the technology was – and we brought people to the conference to do that. With the issue of community, of networking information – and so we brought people there to do that. And so, after that conference was over, we began to realize that this was unique, this was different. If I wanted to go on TV, I had to go to CNN or someone and get their permission and more than likely couldn’t get that together – even with cable, with local origination, didn’t seem to have the kind of resources to do that. But with this technology, I’m here talking to fifty or sixty people and I have the capacity to reach thousands of people. And I don’t have to go through the same kind of limitations and get the same kind of permission from others that I have with this technology. And that makes it extremely different as a vehicle for communication and dealing with getting the kind of images out there that I think are important.

"Now, part of this talk about the digital divide, I know you know, is misleading. ‘Cause the divide is not digital, the divide has been political social and economic from the beginning. It is based in a constitution that says clearly that if you were of African heritage you were only three fifths of a person that if you were a woman that you didn’t have the right to vote, a non person, and if you didn’t have the financial and economic resources, you had to step back and let the property betters make the decisions. And our government is framed that way. To this day because you know the millionaires are where? The millionaires are in the senate. Now, there may be one or two there who are not millionaires, but the fact of the matter is that our country still represents the beginning and so becomes very important to understand that the digital divide is systemic. And that if we’re going to try to deal with changing those kind of relationships, we have to say, “What is it that we can do with this technology? What is it that we can do to end the kinds of ideology, institutions, interpersonal behavior, and internalization?” Which, I think, are the eyes of oppression. And that comes from a group called Youth Build, which is working with young persons to have them understand what their situation is.

"But there are two pieces to those eyes of opression. One is isolation. Because if you get isolated and then don’t believer that you can, are involved, there are others who are in the same category, then you either try to do something on your own or you don’t do anything at all. And the other piece of that ideology has to do with the imagery and we are witnessing it right now. Witnessing it right now – the whole imagery. You have Middle Eastern imagery to try to isolate and to harm you. And so I think it is very important that we understand and keep this in the context. But what the technology then allows us to do, if we understand its power, is to put on the imagery that we believe, to get the stories out there. And you’re witnessing that on a day to day basis now, given what’s taken place in the days since the eleventh: more and more people, more and more people are using the internet to get different perspectives around what is being given on CNN or the networks and in your newspapers. More and more people are getting more information and that is absolutely critical ‘cause when you talk about the power of your byte, this is one place where you can begin. And when you get something that you understand, gives a perspective that ought to be shared, share it and ask people to share it, because almost instantaneously your words and those thoughts that can make a difference, can reach out, not only across this country, but across the world and in that way ending isolation becomes a critical way for using the power of your byte. Ending isolation, because that is one of the things that we suffer most from in this society. We have as a people been isolated from people in other parts of the world. We have been isolated from attitudes. We have been isolated from their pain. And now we are beginning to have a little more of a sense of what that means. But, it is a horrible way for people to get understanding. Very horrible way. But other people have been terrorized and we have not said it was an attack on humanity, or an attack on civilization, and our problem is that we are so isolated that we cannot begin, or we are beginning, let me put it that way, to get outside of ourselves.

"So, when we talk about the power of the byte, it seems to me that we need to look at several kinds of things. First critical issue is that we talk about the potential for the Internet and for bringing people in. When we bring people in at our center, we ask them to think about two things. The first is that we see this as a vehicle for creating knowledge, producing knowledge, that we do not see it as a place to be just consumers. Because if you just be a consumer, it in a way suggests that people think that you don’t have anything to contribute. And so we want people to be creators of knowledge. And I tell them about why I’m in it and my little history about the images, and so I think you need to get your stories out there, to be producers of knowledge. And the second thing I say is: if this is valuable, it really only be valuable if when you learn something, you teach somebody else. If you learn something you teach somebody else. You know there’s a little group that sings the song, “Love is like a magic penny, you hold it tight you wont have any. But you lend it, spend it, you end up having more.” I try to get that – if this is valuable, share it. And so we have a very good process in our program where people who learn on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday can come on the next Monday and teach others how to do that. We have people who are now teaching their fourth class, having learned how to do Photoshop, or having learned how to do web page design. And so we try to build that in - create, and share what you’ve learned.

"Now, the other aspect of the potential of this technology have to do with understanding the ways in which they can be used to deal with some of the issues in your neighborhoods and your community. So, for example, used the information technology to get access to some of the banks records, insurance companies records about where they were giving insurance and where they were not. And they could see clearly, by using excel and charting it, that neighborhood “A,” with people with similar kinds of incomes as people in neighborhood “B” were being denied access to the insurance, and the neighborhood over here was getting it. What do you think was the factor that appeared when they looked at the two neighborhoods? Come on what do you think was the issue? Hello? Race. Not income. Income was pretty much the same. But it was race. So you use that technology to begin to deal with the disparities that come from public services, insurance companies, banks, etcetera. Because you can begin to do that, and now all of them have their records online in ways that you can get access to. And if your city doesn’t, you have to insist that they put on line so that you can have access. It’s a matter of public record. And you can, ought to be able to, log on and be able to get them.

"One of the things that we are trying to get people to look at when we are talking about school failure, or the failure of the schools, is to, cause they always, you know, they’ve done tracking right? They’ve tracked the youngsters; if you’re smart you’re in the ‘A’ class, ‘B’ class, ‘C’ class, or whatever. But there hasn’t been any tracking of what happens to the children who are in certain classrooms and there is a pattern of the fact that the person who is supposedly teaching is not delivering on that. And so there are groups that are looking at how do you use the technology, how do you use that information to see what the record is of a teacher in a particular classroom, what happens to the children in those situations. And so you can track school success or failure.

"Those of you who are into politics on the electoral level, notice I say at the electoral level cause we’re all into politics, at the electoral level it’s become very helpful and having those laptops or the palm pilots accessible when you’re at the polling place. You’re able to call, as you can check off people who are coming in to vote and you can then send people out to particular areas where you know your strength is. And you have your strength there because people, when they’ve gone around to knock on doors or they’ve made phone calls, they have put the information right on the computer. And so there are those ways in which we need to think about how we maximize the political participation and the political power. Those are just a few of the approaches that we think make some sense.

"The question of information is power, and that knowledge is power. But the information has to have understanding, people have to understand what does this information mean how do we analyze it and then you can move from there. Last night some of us were fortunate enough to have an incredible dinner at Samantha’s and every once in a while, we’d have to stop talking or raise our voice and that’s because the airplanes were going over. Well, one of my coworkers at MIT was able to help a community that was struggling to keep the airlines from building a runway and expanding it, by getting a computer hooked up with some sound equipment and they brought it into the meeting and it showed how because the airplane people were saying that the decibels would not reach a certain level. And I wish I had this here. They put it on and in front of the whole city council and others it showed the decibel level going up and up over what was acceptable. And they were able to do that using the technology to help people understand that the information was and how it could be used to keep the runway from being built. And they were very successful because, you know, it’s kind of interesting to be sitting in a room as somebody from the airlines saying, “Oh no this doesn’t happen,” and then to look up on the big screen and see and hear the sound and watch the thing go up and up. So that there are lots of ways that they can be useful.

"We’ve had some young people who’ve done mapping of their neighborhood and showed through the mapping how far away a particular social service was, a playground in this instance and they wanted something closer. And one of them was able to do, using a little comic strip approach to show how the park was being used at night for drugs and what happened when the police car came in and the people dealing drugs ran out. He did this right on the computer, showed it up on the wall, then went to the park department and asked them to change the use of the park so that it could be made accessible for them. So it’s a good tool in the hands of young people who begin to understand how they can use it to shape their community. But again, it’s understanding the particular level of power that is represented in the knowledge that the technology represents.

"Now, I’d like to share with you, since we are here and one of the ideas is about networking, a meeting that I attended on Monday which had to deal with a group of technology centers that we have in Boston for which we are very, very fortunate. There is a fund in Boston called the Timothy Smith Trust. Timothy Smith was a businessperson in the Roxbury community and made a lot of money and left it for the city and the city decided to use it for technology. One thing was, it had to be used in a particular geographic area. Well, the long and short of it is that there are several technology centers now with a twenty-year endowment of $50,000 a year for equipment. And so they have tried to figure out how to get together. Now that’s a very hefty amount of money. One problem. It’s only for equipment. It’s not for staff. It’s not for software. And so you can, as some people say, we are house rich and cash poor. And so they have that resource. They don’t have the capacity to run the centers because they now have to go out and raise money to get the kind of staff that is necessary. And so one of the ways to deal with it, instead of having each of the centers go out, again in isolation, to try and raise money, they’ve come together as a consortium to see how they can pull things together. And the four areas of objective that they have are: A) building each centers capacity; B) dealing with information knowledge management; C) professional development; and the last is training and education coordination. So others are struggling with this issue of coordination and coming together, as I understand you are, I think it is an imperative that we do that. I think it is an imperative that we have some kind of overall goal for the centers if we’re coming together so that we have a kind of mindset. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t different things that we can do. For example, we are promoting trying to get, over the next couple of years, five thousand people employed in the field because they have been exposed to training that can get them job ready over that period of time. But having some goal, then figuring out what each of us have to be about in order to move in that particular direction. What do we need for staff? What do we need for software, programming? What kind of training do we need so that we can move in that kind of direction?

"I just want to say finally this. That the use of the term technology is important in one way, but I think it’s very, very insignificant in our world if we aren’t networked, if we aren’t coming together, if we aren’t sharing the kind of information. And the web does give us that kind of opportunity to put that information there. I think it takes a lot of agency and community discipline to understand the real power in this by sharing the information and being willing to check it out. Because it’s one thing for people to be committed to looking at it and learning from what other people are doing. So conferences like this become very important because, as we sit here, we hear together. It seems to me that we have to recognize that there’s a power in this technology that allows us to tune into each other in ways that can make us more effective than continuing to be in isolation.

"Technology, or the term high-tech, for me, is not appropriate because people have used technology, and we hear it today, as weapons and means of destruction. When they talk about high-tech, well, to me that’s low-tech because in my reading of the book it says that you should beat your swords into plowshares and your spears into pruning hooks, which says that we want technology to be about the enhancement and development and not destruction. This technology gives us an opportunity to be about that, because we can share positive information about each other and we can build, build, build on the basis of communities of love and togetherness. And networking becomes a crucial part of that. Thank you."