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Of Race and Robots
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Do robots need to be associated or defined by race?
"Transformers - Robots in Disguise," the popular 1980's animated cartoon series about futuristic robots from a distant world who crash land on earth in the midst of waging a destructive civil war that not only threatens their existence, but also threatens to end human civilization, has landed on the "big screen" and become a successful motion picture franchise under the direction of Michael Bay.
But just like any other successful venture, a complication has arisen that has cast a shadow on Mr. Bay's intentions in his latest installment, "Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen."
Upon the film's release in the summer of 2009, fans of the franchise immediately reacted to two of the robotic characters, Skids and Mudflap. As if the names are not bad enough, these two characters were depicted as "less than successful," jive-talking machines who have no real purpose (other than to make you laugh), and who in the end fail to contribute to the success of the Autobots in their vicious battle against the Decepticons.
It is not really fair for any of us to assume that these two characters were meant to represent Black robots or Black people, but when you see them in action, there is no other association that can be made. Skids and Mudflap are disguised as smaller vehicles that consistently fight (against each other), speak in slang, and cannot read. They embody just about every negative stereotype that Black people have been fighting to eliminate since the days of slavery.
Of course, it does not help matters much that in today's society, Black people are paid into the "millions of dollars" to sing, dance, act, perform, and entertain - most often times at the expense of portraying the caustic stereotypes of old that many Blacks in America have fought long and hard against to abolish.
The Transformers are "robots" - heroes made of metal. They represent machines that are designed and built to perform functions that might otherwise be difficult and/or hazardous for humans to perform. Is it really necessary (even in fun) to differentiate one robot from another by associating it with a race of people?
Robots in today's world can be beneficial in helping us learn how to treat each other as people. For instance, when a robot is properly programmed to interact with humans, it can communicate with people from all ethnic backgrounds, and it does not make any distinctions between people of different races in its directives to provide service to human beings.
A fine example of a perfectly programmed robot can be found at your local ATM (Automated Teller Machine). This machine, when provided with a few bits of information, immediately searches its database and presents the (human) user with his or her requested information. The machine treats every user the same, and does not make a decision to provide the user with the requested information based on his or her race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
It was not necessary for the writers of "Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen" (Ehren Kruger, Roberto, Orci, and Alex Kurtzman) to create Skids and Mudflap. I doubt very seriously that anyone who watched the film would have left the theater complaining that "something was missing," or that "the film would have been much better if it had a couple of inept, hip-hop, jive-talking characters that wreak of Black stereotypes and were the bungling joke in the movie."
We all need to take responsibility for the countless number of stereotypes in our society that plague all races, and work to refrain from using them to identify and categorize groups of people. It starts with us (as individuals) taking inventory of ourselves to gain a better understanding of who we are.
We cannot learn the truth about others if we do not know the truth about ourselves.
If we as human beings, who pride ourselves in being fair and in being treated equally by others, do not find a way to purge the use of stereotypes from our "catalog of expressions," the next generation of robots that we create may unfairly inherit and use this horrendously defective trait we have against us.
Your ATM experience will never be the same.
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