I believe that technical communication brings together two academic areas that remain problematic for African Americans—those of technology and of writing. The absence of race identity and the absence of race markers in technology and the perceived standardized nature of communication may serve to justify the fields as all-inclusive, where the lack of focus or concern about race reflects unity.

However, I suggest that those absences may instead reflect inadvertent exclusiveness. Some of the suggestive homogeneity and unified front in technical communication theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical frameworks may reflect a desire or unfamiliarity not to proactively engage the status quo. This status quo position may leave Black people and others who seek exposure to the technological and technical communication fields without a meaningful way to gain entrance. I do not advocate for a racially categorized technological ideology however. What I do seek is a space where the strengths of a marginalized cultural and social community can be considered as important and as worthy as those of the dominant culture. I believe that honoring and accepting diversity and multiculturalism should begin at home. I suggest that how we interact with American diverse cultures necessarily dictates how we as technical communicators shall interact in the technological global village. Respecting, understanding, and honoring diverse cultures begins at home.

A few resources from which to critically consider technology and technological issues:

• Atwill, Janet. "Instituting the Art of Rhetoric: Theory, Practice, and Productive Knowledge in Interpretations of Aristotle's Rhetoric." Rethinking the History of Rhetoric: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Rhetorical Tradition. Ed. Takis Poulakos. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993. 91-117.
• Blyler, Nancy R., and Charlotte Thralls, eds. Professional Communication: The Social Perspective. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993.
• Barab, Sahsa A.; Rob Kling, and James H. Gray. Designing Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004.
• Barber, John T., and Alice A. Tait, eds. The Information Society and the Black Community. Westport, CT: Prager, 2001.
• Bell, Derrick. Gospel Choirs: Psalms of Survival in an Alien Land Called Home. Basic: New York, 1996.
• Bell, Derrick. “The Chronicle of the Sacrificed Black Schoolchildren.” And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice. New York: Basic Books, 1987. 102-7.
• Bell, Derrick. “The Space Traders.” Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York: Basic, 1992. 158-94.
• Canagarajah, A. Suresh. “Safe Houses in the Contact Zone: Coping Strategies of African-American Students in the Academy.” College Composition and Communication 48.2 (1997): 173-96.
• Delpit, Lisa. Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York: New, 1995.
• Doheny-Farina, Stephen. Rhetoric, Innovation, Technology: Case Studies of Technical Communication in Technology Transfer. Cambridge: MIT P, 1992.
• Ellul, Jacques. The Technological Society. 1964. Trans. J. Wilkinson. New York: Knopf, 1973.
• Feenberg, Andrew. Critical Theory of Technology. New York: Oxford U P, 1991.
• Feenberg, Andrew. Questioning Technology. New York: Routledge, 1999.
• Foster, Michele. Black Teachers on Teaching. New York: New, 1997.
• Hawisher, Gail E. and Cynthia L. Selfe, eds. Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century Technologies. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 1999.
• Heidegger, Martin. “The Question Concerning Technology.” The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. 1954. Trans. William Lovitt. New York: Harper, 1977. 3-35.
• Herring, Susan C., ed. Computer-Mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1996.
• hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education and the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994.
• Hubbard, Lee. “Is the Digital Divide a Black Thing?” Salon 02 Mar. 2000. 04 June 2003. <http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2000/03/02/digital/index.html>.
• Johnson, Robert R. User-Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts. Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1998.
• Ladson-Billings, Gloria. Crossing Over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
• Latour, Bruno. Aramis or the Love of Technology. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U P, 1996.
• Lievrouw, Leah A.; Erik P. Bucy; T. Andrew Finn; Wolfgang Frindte; Richard A. Gershon; Caroline Haythornthwaite; Thomas Köhler; J Michel Metz, and S. Shyam Sundar. “Bridging the Subdisciplines: An Overview of Communication and Technology Research.” Communication Yearbook 24. Ed. William B. Gudykunst. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001. 271-95.
• Mathis, Deborah. Yet A Stranger: Why Black Americans Still Don't Feel at Home. New York: Warner Books, 2002.
• Mele, Christopher. “Cyberspace and Disadvantaged Communities: The Internet As a Tool for Collective Action.” Communities in Cyberspace. Eds. Marc A. Smith and Peter Kollock. New York: Routledge, 1999. 290-310.
• Miller, Carolyn R. "A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing." College English 40.6 (1979): 610-17.
• Miller, Carolyn R. “Rhetoric and Community: The Problem of the One and the Many.” Defining the New Rhetorics. Eds. Theresa Enos and Stuart C. Brown. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993. 79-94.
• Miller, Carolyn R. "What's Practical about Technical Writing?" Technical Writing: Theory and Practice. Eds. Bertie E. Fearing and W. Keats Sparrow. New York: MLA, 1989. 14-24.
• Parker, Patricia S. “Control, Resistance, and Empowerment in Raced, Gendered, and Classed Work Contexts: The Case of African American Women.” Communication Yearbook 27. Ed. Pamela J. Kalbfleisch. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003. 257-91.
• Peterson, Elizabeth A. “Creating a Culturally Relevant Dialogue for African American Adult Educators.” New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 82 (1999): 79-91.
• Royster, Jacqueline Jones. Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African-American Women. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 2000.
• Smitherman, Geneva. Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner. New York: Mariner, 1994.
• Smitherman, Geneva. Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1977.
• Sterne, Jonathan. “The Computer Race Goes to Class: How Computers in Schools Helped Shape the Racial Topography of the Internet.” Race in Cyberspace. Eds. Beth E. Kolko, Lisa Nakamura, and Gilbert B. Rodman. New York: Routledge, 2000. 191-212.
• Wajcman, Judy. Feminism Confronts Technology. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1991.
• Walton, Anthony. “Technology versus African-Americans.” The Atlantic Online January 1999. 23 May 2003. <http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jan/aftech.htm>.
• Wenger, Etienne. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. New York, NY: Cambridge UP, 1998.
• Winner, Langdon. Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977.

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