Project Profile: I Need a White Guy

Someone (not me) posted a link to the satirical product 'I Need A White Guy' (2019) [0]. I dug into it and found that the author, Jabari Bell [1], recently published a blog post describing the context, motivation and message of the project [2]. The HN submission [3] was flagged before I could comment, so I've submitted the blog post, which I think is more useful anyway.

Jabari's post describes the point of the project:

"I need a white guy preaches humanity using the conceptual metaphor of “privilege (human right) as commodity”. Commodifying people in the name of good still has a dehumanizing effect on those people being commodified. Being aware of these conceptual metaphors and how they influence behavior can make creators more aware and create with greater efficacy."

Jabari is developing Giya [4], a city guide app that aims to be "the easiest way to explore curated local itineraries that make experiencing a city more fun." I have not evaluated Giya beyond the landing page.

[0] https://alonecuzzo.github.io/ineedawhiteguy/

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/jabari-bell-42b41619/

[2] https://owlpal.substack.com/p/i-need-a-white-guy

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28930197

[4] https://giya.us/