Technology and I have always had an interesting relationship. It all began with film. My parents were huge cinephiles. My father owed a crate filled with VHS tapes he’d pre-recorded movies that came on TV with. Technology and are started off fine-I got to see some great films. There was a shift in our relationship when I became fifteen. At fifteen, I discovered screenwriting and fell in love with programs like Adobe and Microsoft Word that helped me formulate my ideas. Screenwriting and films have become so much of who I am as a person and that wouldn’t be possible without technology. Sometimes I wonder where technology begins and my mind ends. As far as physical appearance, technology has a huge influence in how I view myself. Growing up and watching films that had predominantly white cast members, I often attempted to find my identity within a white character. However, as I got older I started to use technology in order to seek out a more authentic self-black women. I went on Youtube, blogs, read articles, and discovered books pertaining to issues that I could understand and often had issues with.

Searching the web for stories about black women and their hair helped me love mine. Like most African American women in this country, perming and pressing hair during childhood years was very common in my childhood. Before events like funerals or picture day, I felt obligated to burn my hair in order for it to look more eurocentric. At the time I did not know that I was attempting to hide my ethnic attributes but in hindsight I realized that I was trying to appear more eurocentric-like the white women I often saw on TV and movies. When I got to college I started wearing my hair natural-which meant I put little to no heat in my hair. I watched tutorials of black women braiding their hair and all the different products made with my hair texture in mind. By the end of my first year, I was proud of my hair. By using the internet, I was able to access resources that uplighted my identity and showed me that my hair was good enough.

White supremacy is a prevalent ideology that is deeply rooted in our nation's systems. Black Lives Matter is a direct response to our nation's obsession with white livelihood, freedom, and preservation. People of color have always been unhappy being treated like second-class citizens in a country that they built and with the help of technology it is getting harder to deny so many of the injustices that take place. OscarssoWhite was a trending topic during the Oscars and Black Twitter is well known for humbling people are culturally insensitive. White supremacy infiltrated the music industry. Artist like Adele and Iggy Azalea are talented but are not the best. White artists that deviate from the status quo such as being moderately soulful are considered brilliant and better than people of color who sing better or are more creative. Moreover, because white supremacy is so prevalent in our media today, I seek out issues and events that take place in other people of color's communities. I want to be more well-rounded and knowledgeable about issues that aren’t talked about in mainstream media because I understand that that’s the only way to dismantle white supremacy and uplift people of color.

Thanks to the internet, we live in the age of information, as well as the age of hard facts. Jesse William’s Humanitarian speech at the 2016 BET awards had everyone online talking, engaging in topics such as black women in the black community, black freedom, and the creation of whiteness. Conversations like these are going to force Americans, like myself, to face troubling issues of today. Our country was founded because we committed horrendous acts, however, had many known of these acts and actually saw what happened, perhaps things would be different. Today, we have footage of black Americans being murdered, bombs going off in malls, and dead children washing up on shores.

The media fabricates and does not understand privacy, however, it’s unlimited information could be what helps us understand and grown together as a nation.