In Why I Fight To Close The Digital Divide, Mignon Clyburn applied her personal stories to deliver a strong argument that having a Digital Civil Rights Bill is important. In other words, she stated the reasons behind why accessing to the Internet was not just a privilege but a fundamental human right.
Mignon started with her grandmother’s story, which could be described as touching. When she’s in her childhood, one day she just found that the role model in her mind, her grandmother, used wrong syntax and misspelled words in a letter. She noticed that in an unincorporated town in South Carolina, her grandmother, who not belong to White, had been stopped opportunities in learning at grade six. In Mignon’s words, broadband Internet access is the greatest equalizer of our time. She said that if in 1912, there’s a broadband, people may have an open platform and get equal opportunities in learning no matter the color, gender, and zip code. “Broadband is a gateway to the Internet and the Internet is the gateway to endless possibilities”.
She moved on to talk about there’s highest rate of chronic disease in least connect counties. In disconnected places such as rural areas, the obesity prevalence was 25% higher than urban areas and diabetes prevalence was 41% higher, and that’s the data from 2018. She couldn’t believe the disparities in the most well-developed country in the world, and even though the government allocated billions of the money to address the issue, 24 millions people still did not have access at home to broadband. Therefore, she mentioned that it was necessary to have a Digital Civil Rights Bill, which could embrace, empower, and embolden Americans, and it also would use and leverage the technology. People should demand more from policy makers, regulators, and elected officials to prevent themselves getting sicker.
The TED talk was powerful. Mignon applied her personal stories both in the beginning and ending of the speech, which appealed to emotions. Internet is an open platform that provides unlimited information, but related to the classes we had, can we make sure that everyone achieves the same opportunities online?
Hi Cherry! I watched this TED talk too and Mignon’s emotional appeal was quite effective on me as well. I think you bring pop an interesting question. I think the government’s goal is to give the same opportunities to everyone but I am not sure how they would organize this. I hope that they continue to research plausible options.