Green Tea Ice Cream

My Particls beta just pulled down the first post in Hebrew I’ve noted.  Cool! That also reminded me to check out how the comments on a post on Apophenia about Israeli teen culture are progressing.  It’s, as ever with danah boyd, an observant, interesting post but strangely (for the woman who set off the whole class Facebook/MySpace media bomb), completely lacking in an overall social/political context.  For her, only Hebrew Israeli teens seem to exist, in complete ownership of the streets.  The question “Where are the Arab teens?” doesn’t occur to her.  It doesn’t occur to any of her readers either.  Let me be clear - the political situation in Israel is what it is and I have no comment to make here about the perceived rights or wrongs on either of the many sides involved - I don’t have time to write book and I do fervently believe that everyone’s stories need to heard.  But teen culture - or any culture - exists in negotiation with or opposition to other cultures and it seemed odd that in a situation where this would be nakedly apparent that no-one wanted to mention it.

About eight comments in, I mentioned the “elephant in the room”.  It seemed impolite to be more explicit and I was wary of flamed as an anti-Semite (yes, I’m a wimp).  Eight comments later, an Israeli poster eloquently picked up on it:

“For Israelis with conscious the “elephant in the room” mentioned by Michael Clarke is apparent and painful. It’s like if a blogger, 30 years ago, would write about the great life that white South African teens have. You were a guest there, and that’s cool, you have done nothing wrong, and nor did these teens. But the Arab or conscious Israeli reader can’t help but read your post through these lens and feel some bitterness, shame or guilt. “

Social media is global media.  By default, it cuts across class, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation and nationality.  By default, it engages with all these.  Yet whilst I read many blogs about web 2.0 that call for transformative thinking, for a “re-evaluation of all values”,  most of the talk involved seems to be about new marketing paradigms, not new social ones.  If social media is going to be a genuinely transforming force in society, then those of us who spend our time debating about its minutiae need to deal with the social issues involved.  Otherwise, Twitter and the like become tools that reinforce privilege when really, web 2.0 should be about exactly the opposite.  One laptop For Every Child isn’t enough.

Now as to what is enough, I’ve no idea.  But I’ll be bearing this in mind as I drop in and out of the Global Jam over the next couple of days.

One thing that does occur to me is how I’m uncomfortably aware that the discourse of the under-privileged can become an oppressive, hegemonic discourse in it’s own right in the hands of the privileged (i.e. me).  That isn’t to say that those voices shouldn’t be heard - it’s utterly crucial that they are - but the game of “My turn!” only perpetuates our problems.  Put more simply - everyone’s voice needs to be heard or one voice will always be silenced.

And maybe that’s what Web 2.0 has to offer - the chance to learn and practice polyphonic listening skills.  But only if everyone gets to talk.