A recent study conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology found that self-driving cars were more likely to hit a black pedestrian than a white one (Independent, 2019). Over the past twenty years, ever since the Tech boom of the 2000s, there have been many scandals regarding the “racism” of modern technologies.
The reason that explains why those technologies are not designed for African-Americans is rather simple, they are not designed by African-Americans.
The world of tech is known to be one of the least diverse sector in America, with African-Americans being the least represented group as The State of Black America 2018 report shows (National Urban League, 2018). Therefore, many of those new technologies are not designed to represent African-Americans and their interests.
This lack of representation does not only raise security concerns, it asks a question about America’s economic structure and the opportunities that if offers (or in this case, does not) to African-Americans. In an economy that is increasingly focusing on tech and one that is facing the risk of automation, many low-skill jobs, largely occupied by African-Americans, might disappear (The Atlantic, 1999).
In a 1999 article in The Atlantic, journalist Anthony Walton reveals an interesting pattern in the relationship between African-Americans and predominantly “white technologies”:
”The history of African-Americans since the discovery of the New World is the story of their encounter with technology, an encounter that has proved perhaps irremediably devastating to their hopes, dreams, and possibilities.” (The Atlantic, 1999)
Although it has been proven that in ancestral Africa many technologies were developed (Franklin, 2010), African-Americans have been dominated by white technology in America. This historical background helps to prove the point that technology is not racist, but rather that technology is a mirror of society, a human creation that reproduces patterns of racial discrimination. Technology is nothing but another structure of power dominated by whites.
Technologies could also be understood as a new kind of extra-legal discrimination, which separates racial minorities from the dominant white community.
Understanding why African-Americans are underrepresented in and by the world of tech can be extremely relevant since the conclusions we can draw from this study might help to better understand the different patterns and power structures that shape the African-American experience in America today.
The African-American community’s unequal representation in the world of tech can be attributed to three phenomena: dysconscious racism, educational disparities and historical patterns of self-limitation.
Dysconscious racism
A good starting point to explain the underrepresentation of the Black community in tech might be to study the racial composition of the tech workforce. Many of the large tech companies, such as Google, Apple or Facebook, are mostly White and Asian, while only 3% of their employees identify themselves as African-Americans (Vox, 2018). This racially unbalanced workforce can help to explain why technologies have design issues when it comes to Black consumers. However, it seems to be a weak argument. Why are white engineers not trying to come up with non-racially biased products? Why are tech companies not hiring more African-Americans?
Lorna Roth of Concordia University provides an interesting answer to those questions. She talks about “dysconscious racism” (Roth, 2009). According to her, engineers and tech companies are not voluntarily racist, they just suffer from their lack of diversity and therefore end up creating products that only represent their interests:
"It is much like an occasional, but passing, consciousness of the subtle racial implications embedded in practices, objects, institutions, and policies, and it represents an uncritical habit of mind (including perceptions, attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs) that justifies inequity and exploitation by accepting the existing order of things as given”. (Roth, 2009)
Their uncritical habits of mind embedded in a society dominated by whites leads them to be dysconsciously racist. They are aware of the ongoing struggles of African-Americans, but they are not directly impacted by them, it is not part of their daily reality, their products are just mirrors of their reality.
A less neutral explanation is given by Anthony Walton. He explains that African-Americans are often seen as consumers not as designers, which explains why the products are not tailored for them (The Atlantic, 1999).
The composition of the tech workforce is really important. Who works in tech defines who will work in tech in the future and for who tech will work:
"Finally, who does science is important for who will do science. Scientists play a crucial gatekeeping role insofar as they recruit, train, socialize and mentor other scientists". (Leggon, 1995)
The predominantly white workforce of those companies unconsciously reproduces a system, one that separates Blacks from the decision table of the tech industry.
Educational disparities
If dysconscious racism is a central element that explains the underrepresentation of African-Americans in tech, another key factor needs to be reviewed: educational disparities.
It is known that African-Americans have a poor access to education which results in a less high-school and college graduated population (Franklin, 2010).
This disparity is even more prominent in the field of tech. Anthony Walton, when talking about African-Americans and tech uses the term “technological illiteracy” (The Atlantic, 1999).
Even when kids in elementary schools are being familiarized with technologies, differences can be noted between whites and blacks. While the engineering of the computer is explained to white kids, black kids are only taught to surf the web (Leggon, 1995). This biased education could be problematic in the future since the economy seems to offer an increasing amount of jobs requiring computing skills (The Atlantic, 1999).
The pattern of inequality that is produced and reinforced by the education system of America results in a society, as described by Martin Luther King Jr., of “haves” and “have-nots”. Following the same pattern and the same train of thought Cheryl Leggon uses the terms of “technological elites” and “technological peasants”:
“The necessities of economics will eventually enforce a social division into the islands of the trained, who understand enough to devise and operate an increasingly complex technology, within a sea of onlookers, bemused, indifferent, and even hostile” (Leggon, 1995)
It should be noted that those inequalities should not solely be attributed to race. All of the uneducated lower class could be a victim of the tech revolution. However, the inequality in tech just mirrors the striking pre-existing inequalities (especially in terms of education) faced by African-Americans.
Historical patterns of self-limitation
Dysconscious racism and the educational disparities are both external elements of the African-American community. Both of them are rooted in the system of the American society and explain the underrepresentation of the black community by factors created by a racially biased society.
In his piece, Anthony Walton tries to explain that there are internal factors, within the Black community that can explain why African-Americans are underrepresented in tech. He explains that historically, tech has not been seen as a way up in the segregated black community, careers in law or medicine were much more valued. This historic preference ended up shaping the idea of what is achievable and what is not:
“Folkways, the "consciousness of the race," change at a slower pace than societal conditions do -- and so a working strategy can turn into a crippling blindness and self-limitation.” (The Atlantic, 1999)
Anthony Walton also explains that the American dream has often advertised career paths that do not require a lot of education, such as entertainment. According to him, this state of mind has especially affected the Black community:
“Young blacks believe that they have a better chance of becoming Jordan, a combination of genes, will, talent, and family that happens every hundred years, than of becoming Steve Jobs [...]”. (The Atlantic, 1999)
It can be argued that a mix of self-limitation, race consciousness and a biased idea of success have driven away African-Americans from pursuing careers in tech. The lack of role models and famous Black tech figures also explain why tech is not attractive to African-Americans.
Knowledge is power
The underrepresentation of African-Americans in tech is symbolic of the African-American experience in America: it is marked by a racially biased society which reproduces patterns of dysconscious segregation, strong educational disparities and historic patterns of self-limitation that draws African-Americans away from careers in tech.
Different solutions to tackle the issue, such as incentive through sanctions directed towards Silicon Valley companies, have been put forward (Vox, 2018), however it seems like they are not very successful.
Anthony Walton proposes the idea of a Tech Marshall Plan which would educate everyone to tech. The education solution seems to be the most promising. It would help to close the education, and therefore the economic gap between Whites and Blacks. It would also boost the confidence of the African-American community and hopefully make careers in tech more appealing. Finally, it would eventually, over time, change the uncritical habits of our society and ultimately make it more representative of the diversity of America.
As Cheryl Leggon argues, knowledge is power, and the knowledge of tech represents a lot of power. A power that African-Americans have a right to have, and it seems like this power will be obtained through education.
As French philosopher, Michel Foucault once wrote:
“there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time, power relations.” (Foucault, 1977)
Dysconscious racism will disappear as soon as the reality in which we live, represents the interests of each member of society. America today is a world in which only those who are actors of the system, and who have the knowledge to be a part of it can claim representation.
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