4 ms·

Color film was built for white people. Here's what it did to dark skin

3 points by jtr1 11y ago

coldtea 11y ago
Yeah, it was optimized for the market segment that was expected to have money for film and cameras at the time. There are far worse things to complain about that happened to black people at the time (from Jim Crow to the KKK and seggregation) to make film optimizations anything else than an aside to the whole story.
- dalke 11y ago
  Yeah, there are Syrian refugees dying trying to get to safety, so complaints about a story on vox are little more than aside to the real suffering in the world. Snarky sarcasm aside, I believe the point was exactly what you just said - white people have a privileged position in US and therefore world culture. As it comments at the end, the built-in assumption that "users" == "white" still exists. The examples of face tracking systems that doesn't work for black faces, or images of black people getting miscategorized as "gorillas", imply it's not a distant historical artifact. In order to prevent issues this in the future, developers need to either be aware of either implicit cultural biases, or be able to recognize explicitly racially-motivated discriminatory practices. This includes secondary effects; black people are more likely poor, in part because of historical explicit social and government policies that made it harder for black people to acquire wealth. One way to spread that awareness is with video content, drawing examples from history and the present. Which is what this does. And after all, HN readers complain daily about things which are far more trivial. To revive an old meme, "Leave Brittany alone."
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >Yeah, there are Syrian refugees dying trying to get to safety, so complaints about a story on vox are little more than aside to the real suffering in the world. Only my argument was quite different, and applies to the Syrian refugees too: if one is to focus on suffering (to provoke outrage, affect change etc), they better focus on its really bad characterstics. The equivalent to the film story would be someone writing that the free sandwitches on rescue ships weren't up to par.
    - dalke 11y ago
      Yes, your argument was like my parents saying I shouldn't complain about something because there are starving children in Africa. It's like saying that we shouldn't complain about smog in the air in LA because the smog in Beijing is even worse. Or to not complain about the quality of dinner because my Scandinavian ancestors left Sweden to avoid poverty and starvation. Your statement is that it's to "better focus on its really bad characterstics". That's not correct. The focus is on how to improve things. If the video were all about what the KKK did in 1965 then what am I supposed to do about that? Sit here and feel guilty about things that happened before I was born? The difference is that we are developers. There is a positive action I can do in response to this information. Should I work in face tracking, or image recognition, or other similar software for the future, then I can actually make a difference by including a more balanced training set. Should management say that we use our target audience, I can remind them of the implicit racism in that statement. So things may change with this information, while focusing only on more severe information will likely do diddly-squat to make things better. I have no idea how your 'free sandwiches' comment is relevant. Surely a better example is an article like http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/29/syrian-refugees-sweden-new-life http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/29/syrian-refugees... where a refugee from Syria now in Sweden says "I feel like shit ... The only good thing is that I am safe." Do you want him to shut up because things were worse? Do you want the Guardian to not publish articles like this and only focus on the people dying in transit, or those being bombed and shot back at home? Because that's what your argument sounds like they should be doing. While my argument is while people might not be able to help the drowning refugees, they may still be able to help others in less of a direct plight.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        >Yes, your argument was like my parents saying I shouldn't complain about something because there are starving children in Africa. It's like saying that we shouldn't complain about smog in the air in LA because the smog in Beijing is even worse. Nope, you misread the argument. What you're missing is that the harm in both cases described in my argument are to the SAME people (blacks), at the same era. So, to adjust your examples, it's like your parents saying "you shouldn't complain about something" because there was something far more serious going on at your househould (e.g. you shouldn't complaint about not getting an iPhone for Xmas, because your father was just fired from his job". Or that we shouldn't complain about smog in the air in LA when there's a tsunami of radioactive waste coming down Santa Monica. We should focus on solving THAT first. >Your statement is that it's to "better focus on its really bad characterstics" That's not correct. The focus is on how to improve things. If the video were all about what the KKK did in 1965 then what am I supposed to do about that? Sit here and feel guilty about things that happened before I was born? If the focus is on how to improve things (to which I agree) then we should try to improve things that really make a difference. As developers we know that from profiling and Amdahl's law. Fixing (or fixating on) the film issue wouldn't make an iota of a difference for blacks. Exposing (no pun intended) the problems with seggregation and Jim Crow laws at the same era, would make much more difference. And its the same when we're talking about history. At best the article is a curiosity: "back when they routinely lynched blacks and they couldn't even get a room at a hotel or eat in a restaurant with whites, film wasn't really tailored to their skin tone either". That's nice to know when you have exhausted the other historical issues with racism. If not, it's mostly useless trivia, compared to what people should know about the era.
RUG3Y 11y ago
I can't believe anyone takes vox.com seriously.

3 points by jtr1 11y ago

Yeah, it was optimized for the market segment that was expected to have money for film and cameras at the time. There are far worse things to complain about that happened to black people at the time (from Jim Crow to the KKK and seggregation) to make film optimizations anything else than an aside to the whole story.

dalke 11y ago
Yeah, there are Syrian refugees dying trying to get to safety, so complaints about a story on vox are little more than aside to the real suffering in the world. Snarky sarcasm aside, I believe the point was exactly what you just said - white people have a privileged position in US and therefore world culture. As it comments at the end, the built-in assumption that "users" == "white" still exists. The examples of face tracking systems that doesn't work for black faces, or images of black people getting miscategorized as "gorillas", imply it's not a distant historical artifact. In order to prevent issues this in the future, developers need to either be aware of either implicit cultural biases, or be able to recognize explicitly racially-motivated discriminatory practices. This includes secondary effects; black people are more likely poor, in part because of historical explicit social and government policies that made it harder for black people to acquire wealth. One way to spread that awareness is with video content, drawing examples from history and the present. Which is what this does. And after all, HN readers complain daily about things which are far more trivial. To revive an old meme, "Leave Brittany alone."
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Yeah, there are Syrian refugees dying trying to get to safety, so complaints about a story on vox are little more than aside to the real suffering in the world. Only my argument was quite different, and applies to the Syrian refugees too: if one is to focus on suffering (to provoke outrage, affect change etc), they better focus on its really bad characterstics. The equivalent to the film story would be someone writing that the free sandwitches on rescue ships weren't up to par.
  - dalke 11y ago
    Yes, your argument was like my parents saying I shouldn't complain about something because there are starving children in Africa. It's like saying that we shouldn't complain about smog in the air in LA because the smog in Beijing is even worse. Or to not complain about the quality of dinner because my Scandinavian ancestors left Sweden to avoid poverty and starvation. Your statement is that it's to "better focus on its really bad characterstics". That's not correct. The focus is on how to improve things. If the video were all about what the KKK did in 1965 then what am I supposed to do about that? Sit here and feel guilty about things that happened before I was born? The difference is that we are developers. There is a positive action I can do in response to this information. Should I work in face tracking, or image recognition, or other similar software for the future, then I can actually make a difference by including a more balanced training set. Should management say that we use our target audience, I can remind them of the implicit racism in that statement. So things may change with this information, while focusing only on more severe information will likely do diddly-squat to make things better. I have no idea how your 'free sandwiches' comment is relevant. Surely a better example is an article like http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/29/syrian-refugees-sweden-new-life http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/29/syrian-refugees... where a refugee from Syria now in Sweden says "I feel like shit ... The only good thing is that I am safe." Do you want him to shut up because things were worse? Do you want the Guardian to not publish articles like this and only focus on the people dying in transit, or those being bombed and shot back at home? Because that's what your argument sounds like they should be doing. While my argument is while people might not be able to help the drowning refugees, they may still be able to help others in less of a direct plight.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >Yes, your argument was like my parents saying I shouldn't complain about something because there are starving children in Africa. It's like saying that we shouldn't complain about smog in the air in LA because the smog in Beijing is even worse. Nope, you misread the argument. What you're missing is that the harm in both cases described in my argument are to the SAME people (blacks), at the same era. So, to adjust your examples, it's like your parents saying "you shouldn't complain about something" because there was something far more serious going on at your househould (e.g. you shouldn't complaint about not getting an iPhone for Xmas, because your father was just fired from his job". Or that we shouldn't complain about smog in the air in LA when there's a tsunami of radioactive waste coming down Santa Monica. We should focus on solving THAT first. >Your statement is that it's to "better focus on its really bad characterstics" That's not correct. The focus is on how to improve things. If the video were all about what the KKK did in 1965 then what am I supposed to do about that? Sit here and feel guilty about things that happened before I was born? If the focus is on how to improve things (to which I agree) then we should try to improve things that really make a difference. As developers we know that from profiling and Amdahl's law. Fixing (or fixating on) the film issue wouldn't make an iota of a difference for blacks. Exposing (no pun intended) the problems with seggregation and Jim Crow laws at the same era, would make much more difference. And its the same when we're talking about history. At best the article is a curiosity: "back when they routinely lynched blacks and they couldn't even get a room at a hotel or eat in a restaurant with whites, film wasn't really tailored to their skin tone either". That's nice to know when you have exhausted the other historical issues with racism. If not, it's mostly useless trivia, compared to what people should know about the era.

RUG3Y 11y ago

I can't believe anyone takes vox.com seriously.