I agree that focusing in on MySpace vs. Facebook seems a little trite - but honestly, I think that it is great that someone has looked at it with such a close critical eye.  All aspects of our culture and community could use a healthy dose of consideration to determine exactly what messages are being sent to children, minorities, and the population at large.  I don't think that online communities - as huge as they are in this society - should be free of the skepticism and questioning that are applied to films, toys, books, etc.

Also, I don't think that anyone would call liking Bruce Springsteen a racist tendency - I also don't think that an individual moving from one area to another is instantly racism.  However, it is easy to see that a mass exodus of wealthier community members hearts local municipal systems - especially public schools.  I beleive that the speaker was not trying to say that everyone who left MySpace is a racist - I think that she was merely noting that the exodus from MySpace to Facebook resembled a cyberspace parallel of "white flight".  The last sentance from the excerpt seems to clearly show that the speaker wants us to be aware of what seems to be happening.  I think that is fair.

While I think that you have  analyzed the article in an interesting way I still hold to my original premise that sometimes things and choices change without any invidious reason. That if you want to look at societal behavior on the internet perhaps an exploration of the rise of hate groups from all sectors of society should be explored. But the old sixities/seventies view of the world does no one any good. Having grown up during those years (moving to Memphis from Augusta, Ga, one month after the assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and then throughtout the midwest, eastcoast and New England), I can atest to the fact that those paradigms are outmoded and without merit in today's world.

I also find it specious that it is the responsibility of the weathy to stay in urban areas inorder to fund public education. NYC had the finest public school system in the world during the 50s-60s. It was and has always been a middle class driven system. The middle class has never left NYC. Money is not the  panacea to the issue of public education. Per capita more money is spent today on public education nationwide than ever before, while 50% of students do not graduate high school.There are numerous factors that caused the breadown of the national education system, movement of societal groups is not one of them.

By the way, my reference to Springsteen was an extreme allegory to what I thought was a bit of a reach by the author. I suppose I should have used  someone not seen as a left leaning musician, maybe Ted Nugent.

:) apologies for my tone.  I figured it was an extreme example. 

I certainly concede that issues of poverty and separation in more urban areas cannot be completely summed up by this one particular dilemma.  I've worked in an "urban" Boys & Girls Club for 5 years now and have developed a healthy appreciation for the complexity of these issues. 

My only point is that it is always a good idea to question something that is saturating our culture.  Whether or not we can all agree on the messages being sent is neither here nor there.  What's important is that there IS a dialogue.  I'd argue that nearly all of society's toughest issues arose not from single moments or institutions.  Rather, these problems developed as society collectively ignored or failed to pay attention to seedling problems. 

I think that every citizen, with any hope of living in a healthy community, has an obligation to inspect cultural standards - whether they are unspoken rules and agendas or online communities.

Absolutely, I agree with you completely.

In following this conversation, I'll add that I hope you both are members of the Poverty in America cause!

I am now.

Don't get snide. I was active in women's rights dear, before you were born. Don't act like your generation has any understanding of female disenfranchisement or the real purpose of the feminist movement. And don't think just because you decide something is consciousness raising it is nothing more than self-righteous drivel that has turned off the vast majority of the country and especially the new generation of women. These young people are not ignorant or uneducated. What they are is looking for answers not someself-important, pseudo-psychiatric or pseudo-sociological baloney that makes you feel like you are accomplishing something when everything is actually going backwards worldwide.

2nd Wave vs. 3rd Wave maybe?

a gross oversight of the second wave, indeed! :)  missing the trees for the forest - that certainly was pretty counter-intuitive.