We have been critically examining the social forces that are at play in our world. These include classification systems such as race, class, and gender which we have used in class as analytics – lenses to help us understand the way the world works. We have made the argument that taken together, these social forces create social infrastructure – fundamental structures that organize our world and which we use to make sense of it.
We will soon be turning our attention back to the technologies that are part of our everyday lives and the focus of research by Social Informatics scholars. 

Your task is to write a coherent essay that engages the following prompts. We ask that you engage the chapters assigned to you written by Austin Channing Brown (chapters 1 and 5 of I’m Still Here). Reflecting on your reactions and thoughts about race, gender, and class as analytics will help us prepare to understand sociotechnical problems in everyday life (or indeed any problem). Consider responding to the following prompts listed below. Refrain from merely synopsizing the text – don’t just retell the story, react to and analyze the story.

What were your thoughts and feelings while reading those stories or hearing others talk about the stories they read?
What are some common themes?
What did you learn that you didn’t know before? What did you read that resonated with you because of your experiences?
Did anything challenge what you know or thought you knew?
How did each of the people’s encounters with social forces affect them?
Compare and contrast these effects.

Excellent essays will:

Analyze and react to the text

Demonstrate proficiency with the text
Incorporate your own personal lived experience

Address one or two of the above bulleted prompts
Be proofread for grammar and readability
Be approximately 500 words?