In the wake of Peter Jennings' death last week, I heard an NPR interview from the 1990s in which he was asked about bias. The most important bias, he said, is not how it's written, but what gets chosen to be written. He gave his own example: because of his personal interest in HIV/AIDS, he conceded that ABC World News Tonight may have concentrated on the story more than other networks. His openness on the subject impressed me, along with his admonition not to reject stories out of hand based on bias, but simply to be aware as much as possible what those biases might be.
In that context, despite all the other stories out there to cover--many of them grander and more important--I'm going to talk about the near-riot in Richmond, VA over a surplus Apple iBook sale held by the Henrico School District. Some of you may know that I lived in Virginia for 27 years, and spent 10 of them in the Richmond area. I found many enjoyable things about the city, and I owe it an enduring debt of gratitude for being the hometown of the beautiful Mrs. Joe, but for any number of reasons I'm glad I've taken leave. I'm unable to find electronic affirmation, but it's my recollection that HL Mencken once said, "In Richmond I have found a happy dullness of intellect to be endemic," and that's pretty spot on.
Enough about me; to the story. After seeing the AP version of the story at MSNBC (and check out the video, although the name is Hen-RYE-co, not Hen-REE-co), I went to the homepage of the local Times-Dispatch. It can't be said that the T-D wasn't on top of the story from the beginning; there are no fewer than THIRTEEN separate stories charting the process, beginning with the decision to offer the four-year-old laptops to the general public at below-market rates. That turned into a selloff that gave Henrico residents first dibs, an aborted sale date one week prior that drew over 100 people despite the cancellation, and finally this:
The crowd started forming at 1:30 a.m. as Henrico residents and taxpayers began to arrive. By the time dawn broke, people on foot had formed a line half a mile long. Others waited in cars parked nearby or milled about the entrance to RIR. An official estimate put the crowd at 5,500. Other observers estimated a crowd size more than twice that.
When gates opened just before 7 a.m., the crowd had already grown surly, many in the crowd yelling to police officers who said they were just trying to keep people from "inciting a riot." When the gates swung open, the stampede -- literally -- began.
"We were just coming in the door and everyone was just pushing," said one J.R. Tucker High School student who was sitting on the ground with a bloody foot after getting caught in the rush. "We just fell down and everyone trampled on us."
Nice--or as the MSNBC talking head put it, "That's pathetic." In a sidebar column, the quotes echo the madness:
"The one thing it shows you is human nature," Colt said. "There are people out here who don't give a damn about anyone else."
...
But many of the gatecrashers -- male and female -- held firm at the front, or used the milling confusion to elbow closer to the door. Some boldly ignored pleas and accusations from those early-comers irked by this outrageous behavior.
If you said something to them about cutting in line, "they'd just look at you like you're retarded," Lisa Friedman said.
...
Donna Owen, the 16-year-old student, watched her grandfather suffer heat exhaustion for nothing.
But there's a lesson in there somewhere, said Donna's overheated grandmother, Janice Nicely.
"No matter what, follow the rules," Nicely said, crying a little as she hugged her frustrated granddaughter.
That's right, Donna nodded bravely. "It will all work out in the end," she said.
"But for now," she added, "I'm ticked."
I just can't imagine Portlanders stampeding each other for outdated Apples, although if they did it would probably be more out of boojie nostalgic kitsch than festering incivility....that's mostly a joke; I'm certainly not going to claim city superiority based on this incident. But there is a serious component to the story. Home penetration of computers is keyed on a number of factors, including race, age, geography, education and income. This national study is a few years out of date, but more recent partial followups regarding internet and broadband usage mirror the trend: if you're very old or very young, have little money and/or education, and live in the South, you're among the least likely to have a computer.
Now go look at that video again, and profile the folks running for the gates (in what looks like a fogstorm, but what I think is just early morning heat haze--ugh, not fond memories of that!). Who do you see? Old people andAfrican Americans, primarily. It's no joke to these people--even the ones with less education aren't stupid; they know that owning a computer is quickly moving from luxurious advantage to economic imperative.
These are not collectors or connisseurs of cheap, vintage Apple equipment. They're people who have either been left behind in the computing revolution or (as the scalping indicates) those who are ready to cater to the first group and make a tidy profit. And it's worth mentioning that Henrico, while definitely pockmarked with areas of poverty, features much better schools overall than Richmond proper. If the entire Richmond Schools District even had 1,000 laptops to begin with, much less to sell because they were past their prime, I'd be shocked.
So think about that for a minute as you sit at your PC. Or maybe you don't own one either, and you're reading this at the library or from prison or an internet cafe'. I've been complaining about my crapass home setup for years now, having purchased it at least five years ago. But it works, it handles broadband just fine, and it keeps me ahead of the curve. For many people, the affordable opportunity to become a part of the digital revolution is worth peeing yourself in line over, or driving your car into a crowd for, or hitting people with a folding chair for.
If you've got a PC you no longer need, and you live in the Portland area, I urge you to think about donating it outright, or putting it through a refurbishing intermediary like FreeGeek.
--TJ
I read several of the computer riot stories, too. Amazing, and depressing.
Do people in prison actually have access to computers?
Posted by: Tom Carter | August 18, 2005 at 07:49
Interesting question. I assumed many had them available in the library, but perhaps that's a poor assumption.
They do allow them in Canada, althoug they've been causing problems.
Moving through Google, here's a complaint from PA that indicates there ARE PCs in prison libraries.
Posted by: torridjoe | August 18, 2005 at 08:28