Dr. Ernest J. Wilson III comments on the technology revolution and African American competitiveness
Dr. Ernest J. Wilson III, associate professor of government and
African American studies at the University of Maryland — with a
doctorate and a master’s degree in political science from the
University of California-Berkeley and a bachelor’s from Harvard — has
been consulting with international organizations and scholars in such
places as Malaysia, Morocco, and Brazil about the implications of the
technological revolution that is changing the nature of scholarship and
society for many years. The information revolution is, as he puts it,
“really big stuff.”
And yet…
“As African Americans,” he says, “the perspective we can bring to this revolution is more than a touch of skepticism.”
The following are edited excerpts from a conversation Wilson had with Black Issues senior writer Karin Chenoweth.
What kind of skepticism are you talking about?
There are two points of skepticism: first, that this is the
hyperbole economy. It may be [that] a lot of this technology stuff is
hooey. As Americans, we like new stuff. We like instant coffee, and all
the things have to be the newest and the latest. This may just be
satisfying our national cultural propensity for killing the past and
anticipating the future. It may be like eight-track [tapes]. Remember,
people said cable television — would revolutionize television and it
hasn’t. So it may be not the digital revolution but the digital change.
