Digiraces: Menu Choices

(PBS, 2010)

    Race: the power of illusion (PBS, 2010) site has not moved past the "menu driven" (Nakamura, 2002) concept of race when identifying the people in the game where you separate them into categories you can only choose one category to put them in because that is the category they identified with. This leads me to believe that when they were asked to identify their race they were given a menu driven concept for identifying there race in the beginning. This could lead to incorrect identification in the game because several of those people do appear to be of mixed race. Many people I know are mixed and if a form asked for them to identify their race and the do not allow them to choose more than one answer they do not answer it at all. The other problem that I have witnessed in regards to identifying race more so in interview than in self-report people will ask what are you most of, which discounts the other part of you and if your half and half you just have to choose a race. One section I noticed on the Race: the power of illusion website that they went away from the "menu driven" (Nakamura, 2002) concept of race when they showed the map of the world and differences between the features of the people in different countries on a continuum rather than a menu style where there is no gray area (PBS, 2010) .



Nakamura, Initials. (2002). Cybertypes: race, ethnicity, and identity on the internet. New York:

    Routledge.

PBS, . (2010). Race-the power of an illusion. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm