African professor gives
speech advocating Internet
technology
By Katie Muehlhausen
Staff
Writer
In a moving lecture directed toward the hearts
of every black American, professor Abdul Alkalimat laid it on the line.
"This is the new society — you can choose
to be a part of it, or you can remain an outsider."
The "new society" Alkalimat spoke of
exists only in cyberspace, and the inhabitants of this society participate
only because they choose to do so.
Alkalimat, who engineered the only known internet-based
course taught from Africa to students in the United States, spoke at
a symposium on Saturday sponsored by the Black Cultural Center. The
title of the symposium was "Culture and Technology: Moving African
Communities Toward a Position of Power."
In his address, Alkalimat stressed the idea that
the Internet provides the opportunity for a completely free society
in the 21st century.
A scholar of African-American studies for more
than 30 years, Alkalimat is considered an expert in the field. He is
a professor at the University of Toledo and the moderator of H-Afro-Am,
the largest African-American studies list on the web.
He also created Malcolm X, a research site, and
a research agent called eBlack Studies.
His work at the University of Toledo and within
the local community is an outstanding model of a university fulfilling
its role of social responsibility, said Dorothy Washington, Black Cultural
Center librarian. She hopes Purdue will be shortly behind.
In his lecture, Alkalimat said that the Internet
is a medium where equality is not only right and accepted, but guaranteed.
There is nothing to stop people from creating a free society in cyberspace.
"The 21st century is the time to unleash ourselves," he said.
"We don’t have to be isolated anymore."
Alkalimat made a parallel between hungering after
cyber knowledge in this decade and striving to read, even if by candlelight
at night, in the generations before us. "You can be one of them,
or you can wait for somebody to invent the electric light for you,"
he said. "You just let me know when you get it. Until then, I’m
going to seek knowledge by candlelight."
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