The notion of a “digital divide” has always irked me. Why single out computers? Was there ever a phone divide? Or a color TV divide? My family was certainly on the wrong end of that one through my childhood. The rich kids had color TVs but I didn’t. I watched Captain Kangaroo and Howdy Doody in dull black-and-white. Was I scarred? Did I survive?

Fifteen years ago it was black kids who supposedly were on the other side of the digital divide. To remedy that, hundreds of computers were put in youth centers. There was also the public library. And then there was the “Gore tax.” But still the libs whined about the digital divide. My favorite response was from a black teacher at George Watts Elementary School who, when asked about the so-called digital divide, pointed out that there didn’t seem to be a divide among the black kids when it came to the latest video game machines. It all depends on how you want to spend your money, she said. It had nothing to do with racism. A wise woman.

Now it’s Hispanics who are on the other side of the digital divide. We aren’t doing enough, the critics say, to help these benighted people get up to speed on computers. Somehow I think that for families that braved illegal border crossings, coyotes, moving to a new country, learning a new language, enrolling their kids in a new school, the digital divide doesn’t seem like that much of a chasm to cross. My bet is they’d rather do it on their own, but, then, that wouldn’t give lib bleeding hearts any control over them. Which is what it’s all about, after all.