As I continue to investigate for my own understanding, what it takes to make progress toward becoming an ethical democratic nation-state, I became interested in the role of IT's in helping us develop ethical green democratic nation-states.
Global South nation-states can learn from such models especially when they are located in Global South nation-state geopolitical contexts.
I was encouraged by the following news report which contained a lot of measurable specifics:
Patni centre gets LEED Platinum rating
Green IT-BPO centre
Patni centre gets LEED Platinum rating
The eco-friendly facility is now the largest LEED Platinum rated building outside USA and the second largest in the world
Friday, October 03, 2008
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BANGALORE, INDIA: Patni Computer Systems, a leading global IT and BPO services provider was awarded the prestigious LEED Platinum (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating for its Green IT-BPO Centre inaugurated earlier this year in Noida.
Set up with an investment of Rs. 175 crores, this Green IT-BPO centre is spread over 5 acres of land and seats over 3,500 people. It has been jointly audited by the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) and US Green Building Council (USGBC) and publicly reviewed by the more than 10,000 membership organizations that currently constitute the USGBC. The LEED Platinum rating recognizes the company's commitment to superior standards of quality, and efficient utilization and conservation of energy, water and natural resources.
Commenting on the occasion, Narendra. K. Patni, Chairman & CEO, Patni said, "We are extremely proud of achieving the LEED Platinum certification for our Knowledge Centre. This reiterates Patni's commitment to energy conservation to reduce adverse environmental impact. A Platinum certification is indeed a significant step for Patni as we consciously embrace a greener business model."
Said P. C. Jain, Chairman of the IGBC, "We are delighted that a leading IT and BPO organization like Patni is one of the front runners in the green architecture brigade. We are confident that Patni's initiative will inspire other companies to pledge their support for environment conservation."
Patni currently offers a variety of outsourcing facilities and this Centre will support the company as it diversifies into other areas of operation. It will also give Patni employees a healthier and environmentally-friendly workplace, thereby increasing productivity levels. Studies from institutes like IGBC have shown that there is almost a 15% increase in employee productivity by using such green initiatives.
Green facts on Patni Knowledge Centre
* Climate responsive architecture
* Over 50% green area
* 75% of the area receives natural daylight
* 95% of the occupants get access to outside views
* Zero discharge building; 100% recycling of sewage
* Drip water irrigation and solar water heating
* Interior materials with low volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions
* Healthy air quality with CO2 sensors for adding fresh air on demand
* Maximum use of eco-friendly recyclable material.
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also check this out -- green IT in Silicon Valley:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/magazine/05Green-t.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1
1 comment:
Racism, White Nationalism, and Violence Towards “Us” by Many McCain/Palin Supporters
I am sick to my stomach but at the same time GLAD that mainstream news station (MSNBC for example) are finally naming USA's history of white nationalist domestic terrorism in respect to this latest presidential campaign, violent rants from McCain/Palin team, and many of their supporters. Finally!!! I'm not surprised by what I have been hearing from so many obvious white nationalist who support McCain, as I've always known that these people exist in DROVES in this country; my shock comes from A LOT of responses from people in this country who are Obama supporters and STARTLED that this racialized and racist violence still happens; and I'll be honest and say that those who are startled are collectively not black, brown, or indigenous people. We (black and brown and indigenous folk of the USA) have been saying this SINCE colonialism, no? But, we're told we are "playing the race card" or always "blaming white privilege" and that it's "our fault" that we are in the unequal situation that we are in, collectively.
But the mere fact that mainstream media is FINALLY acknowledging the parallels of what these people (white nationalists) represent is both irritating & uplifting; irritating because it's taken until to 2008 to state the obvious: that these fanatics are part of the history of domestic terrorists who bombed black folks', lynched them, terrorized them. McCain/Palin team know exactly what they are doing by "inciting" violence in people they know who are white nationalists and know that certain "key words" will incite them to mold their perceptions of Obama into some "scary" dark "arab terrorist muslim" (because of course "Arab" = "Muslim" = "Terrorist"). I feel like they are hoping that one of their crazy minions will literally pick up a gun and assassinate Obama. I think they are banking on this. Once again: amazing what you can get away with in the USA because white privilege and Christian fundamentalism are the acceptable "moral standards" while anyone who is not a combination of this is "suspect" and deserves "violence" enacted upon them...
Racists (who currently seem to "masked" their racism as xenophobia, Islamophobia, etc...as if that's 'okay') and white supremacist christian fundamentalists exist in the tens of thousands in the USA; they did not disappear when someone signed the Civil Rights act 40 years ago. It is sad that it finally took Obama's nomination and vicious attacks against his "character" (read: non-whiteness) for the mainstream media to begin "exposing" and naming what is going on to many people who have lived their entire lives with racial privilege, meaning they never viscerally experienced racism or the violence of white supremacist christian fundamentalism, and therefore have "concluded" that racism must no longer exist in the USA.
I guess I have to contextualize my anger as someone who is a black female from a working class back ground who grew up in a New England town that is 98% white (5000 people at the time of my childhood). I constantly experienced what I definitely would name as racism and threat to the emotional and physical safety of me and my twin brother. The oblivion (or perhaps it was just willful ignorance) that my peers had to their collusion in "whiteness as the norm" was astounding! When I went off to Dartmouth College for 4 years (1994-98), it was no better. However, when I would name it as "racism" or "white supremacist ideology" I was told that what I was experiencing was NOT those. So, this is where I'm coming from with this essay. I just don't think a majority of people with white racial privilege in the USA truly understand how stressful and scary it is to be in a nation in which non-white bodies (And and I know bodies that don't conform to heterosexuality, heteropatriarchal binary gender conformity, etc live in "unsafe" situations as well, so I'm not ignoring that, but am just focusing on "race"/racism/whiteness in this writing) are verbally and physically attacked-- but the violence isn't even being named as "violence" or "terrorism" towards us. It's simply "normalized" or masked as "something else". My words don't even touch the emotional agony and physical manifestations of this anguish that so many brown, black, indigenous people have collectively survived through in the USA. And it seems to be part of "our" (brown, black, indigenous) cultural memory but part of cultural amnesia of the racial status quo in the USA. I know that not all white racialized people have this "amnesia", but am pointing out that the majority do and this is devastating-- and it is not just in the USA. This have been globalized
Below is a list of journal articles and books that show research about racism, whiteness, white privilege, and the need for racial healing and anti-racism in EVERYONE’S lives. These readings will also explore the trauma of racism and whiteness that we people of color continue to survive through in the USA, and other literature the explain the history and current state of whiteness, racialization, racism, and race in the USA and abroad. I highly suggest reading Edward Said to understand why so many people in the USA violently equate “Arab” with “Muslim” with “Terrorist” (Islamophobia). Also I have highlighted what I consider crucial works to read in bold font. Please post titles you think are important as well in the comments section and I will add them with much appreciation.
Breeze Harper is a PhD student at University of California, Davis in the Geography Graduate Group. Her research can be found at www.breezeharper.com
Reading List
Ababio-Clottey, Aeesha, and Marianne Williamson. Beyond Fear: Twelve Spiritual Keys to Racial Healing. HJ Kramer, 1999.
Armour, Jody David. Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism : The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
Bailey, Alison, and Jacquelyn Zita. "The Reproduction of Whiteness: Race and the Regulation of the Gendered Body." Hypatia 22.2 (2007): vii-xv.
Bash, Harry H. " If I'm So White, Why Ain't I Right? Some Methodological Misgivings on Taking Identity Ascriptions at Face-Value." Critical Sociology 32.4 (2006): 675-97.
Bell, Derrick A. Faces at the Bottom of the Well : The Permanence of Racism. New York, NY: BasicBooks, 1992.
Berard, Tim J. "The Neglected Social Psychology of Institutional Racism." Sociology Compass 2.2 (2008): 734-64.
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism without Racists : Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.
Brown, Michael K. Whitewashing Race : The Myth of a Color-Blind Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
Butterworth, Michael L. "Race In "The Race": Mark Mcgwire, Sammy Sosa, and Heroic Constructions of Whiteness." Critical Studies in Media Communication 24.3 (2007): 228-44.
Dei, George J. Sefa. "Critical Perspectives in Antiracism: An Introduction." The Candaian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 33.3 (1996): 247-68.
Dwyer, Owen J., and John Paul Jones III. "White Socio-Spatial Epistemology." Social & Cultural Geography 1.2 (2000): 209-22.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. 1st ed. New York Berkeley, Calif.: Grove Press ; Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2008.
Gillborn, David. "Rethinking White Supremacy." Etnicities 6.3 (2006): 318-40.
Griffin, Anya T. "Racism, Stress, and Health in African American Females: The Impact of Stress Experienced from Perceived Racism on Cardiovascular Reactivity in African American Adolescent and Adult Females." Dissertation. Fielding Graduate University, 2005.
Guess, Teresa J. "The Social Construction of Whiteness: Racism by Intent, Racism by Consequence." Critical Sociology 32.4 (2006): 649-73.
Hartmann, Douglass. "Rush Limbaugh, Donovan Mcnabb, and a Little Social Concern: Reflections on the Problems of Whiteness in Contemporary American Sport." Journal of Sport and Social Issues 31.1 (2007): 45-60.
Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Sexual Politics : African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Hoelscher, Steven. "Making Place, Making Race: Performances of Whiteness in the Jim Crow South." Annals of Association of American Geographers 93.3 (2003): 657-86.
Holloway, Sarah L. "Burning Issues: Whiteness, Rurality and the Politics of Difference." Geoforum 38.1 (2007): 7-20.
Hooks, Bell. Black Looks : Race and Representation. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1992.
Incite! Women of Color Against Violence. Color of Violence : The Incite! Anthology. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 2006.
Leary, Dr. Joy Degruy. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. Milwaukie, Oregon: Uptone Press, 2005.
Levine-Rasky, Cynthia. "Framing Whiteness: Working through the Tensions in Introducing Whiteness to Educators." Race Ethnicity and Education 3.3 (2000): 271-92.
Lewis, Amanda E. ""What Group?" Studying Whites and Whiteness in the Era Of "Color-Blindness"." Sociological Theory 22.4 (2004): 623-46.
Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness : How White People Profit from Identity Politics. Rev. and expanded ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006.
Markovitz, Jonathan. Legacies of Lynching : Racial Violence and Memory. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
Memmi, Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967.
Memmi, Albert. Racism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.
Mills, Charles. "White Ignorance." Suny Series, Philosophy and Race. Eds. Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana. vols. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. 13-38.
Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. Ithaca, N.Y. ; London: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States : From the 1960s to the 1990s. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Ortega, Mariana. "Being Lovingly, Knowingly Ignorant: White Feminism and Women of Color." Hypatia 21.3 (2006): 56-74.
Prividera, Laura, and John W. Howard III. "Masculinity, Whiteness, and the Warrior Hero: Perpetuating the Strategic Rhetoric of Us Nationalism and the Marginalization of Women." Women and Language 29.2 (2006): 29-37.
Pulido, Laura. "Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in South California." Annals of the Association of American Geography 90.1 (2000): 12-40.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin, 2003.
Said, Edward W., Moustafa Bayoumi, and Andrew Rubin. The Edward Said Reader. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.
Saxton, A. "Whiteness and Reconciliation: A Discursive Analysis." Australian Psychologist 39.1 (2004): 14-23.
Shearer, Tobin Miller. Enter the River : Healing Steps from White Privilege toward Racial Reconciliation. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1994.
Simpson, Jennifer Lyn. "The Color-Blind Double Blind: Whiteness and the (Im)Possibility of Dialogue." Communication Theory 18 (2008): 139-59.
Staurowsky, Ellen J. "“You Know,We Are All Indian” Exploring White Power and Privilege in Reactions to the Ncaa Native American Mascot Policy." Journal of Sport and Social Issues 31.1 (2007): 61-76.
Sullivan, Shannon, and Nancy Tuana. Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. Suny Series, Philosophy and Race. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Sullivan, Shannon, and ebrary Inc. Revealing Whiteness the Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege. American Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
Tochluk, Shelly. Witnessing Whiteness : First Steps toward an Antiracist Practice and Culture. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2008.
Trepagnier, Barbara. Silent Racism : How Well-Meaning White People Perpetuate the Racial Divide. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2006.
Vanderbeck, Robert M. "Vermont and the Imaginative Geographies of American Whiteness." Annals of Association of American Geographers 96.3 (2006): 641-59.
Vanderbeck, Robert M. "Inner-City Children, Country Summers: Narrating American Childhood and the Geographies of Whiteness." Environment and Planning A 40.5 (2008): 1132-150.
Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid : The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 2006.
Welcome, H. Alexander. ""White Is Right": The Utilization of an Improper Ontological Perspective in Analyses of Black Experiences." Journal of African American Studies 8.1 (2004): 59-73.
Williams, David R., and Ruth Williams-Morris. "Racism and Mental Health: The African American Experience." Ethnicity & Health 5.3/4 (2000): 243-68.
Wise, Tim J. White Like Me : Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son. Rev. and updated ed. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press, 2008.
Yancy, George. What White Looks Like : African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. New York: Routledge, 2004.
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