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[ Current Events ] Fire over the debate of computer and Internet access is fueled by an increasing number of activists and politicians willing to capitalize on the issue while they can. What is perhaps most interesting, and saddening, is that the rhetoric has not changed much. Perhaps the rhetoric surrounding racial inequality is the most predominant way in which this is evident. The primary issues surround the topics of schools, access, and politics. Clinton and others call for schools everywhere to be wired, but where is the funding for even more fundamental necessities, such as current textbooks or adequate facilities? Access has become an issue that cities, the Federal government, and big businesses alike want to tackle. Finally, politics itself is definitely at work, especially in the social context. Is the Digital Divide even about race? Is it more universal than that, creating the greatest disparity in the information "Haves" and "Have-Nots" at a level more serious than just the different in access between whites and blacks? The one component I will not be addressing at length in
this work, but which certainly deserves attention, is that of economic disparity
in certain regions. Martha Mendoza, an AP business writer, performed some of her
own research, and the economic problems are obvious. In the Silicon Valley, and
quite probably elsewhere, the average annual wage of software engineers exceeds
$90,000. With such a large population of high-wage employees, real estate in the
Silicon Valley is out of reach for even the average middle class family in the
United States. A person moving to a single-family home in many areas of the
Silicon Valley would need to have a family income placed in the upper 5% of the
U.S. Almost all blue-collar jobs do not pay enough for a person to live within a
reasonable distance from the job locations they work at unless they are
fortunate enough to have lived there before the Silicon Valley boom.
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