Despite promises of technology to improve our lives and bring us into a better, brighter future, today’s tech is giving us more of the same when it comes to racial division. We haven’t gotten rid of racism; we’ve just automated it.
Redlining in the Modern Age
The old FHA policy that left Black people excluded from suburban neighborhoods is no longer in effect, but its consequences linger. Katie Lambright’s article about the Nextdoor app and digital redlining made me recall stories my grandma has told me. She likes to go on about how, back when she was a child, things were different. Children could play out on the street without fear. Neighbors spoke to each other. Things, she said, were so much better than they are today. She never stops to think about how insulated her neighbor was growing up. Her family and all those around them were Italian Americans. Things were “good,” perhaps, for them, but certainly not for many other Americans. She didn’t make note of the racial division. Nor did the founder’s of Nextdoor, it seems, when they recall their own childhood neighborhoods and their inspiration for making the app.
The idea behind the app is respectable! It sounds nice, being able to communicate with and grow closer to your neighbors, to build community. Unfortunately, the makeup of many American neighborhoods hasn’t changed much since the 30s, with lots of suburbs still remaining overwhelmingly white. And even in places where racial makeup has changed, racism hasn’t. The reported posts about “suspicious individuals” remind me of my own neighborhood, where just a few weeks ago there was the case of a “suspicious” Asian man walking around. What was so suspicious? I suppose simply that he was Asian and he was walking.
Algorithmic Division- Separate but Not Equal
An article on Science.org introduced me to “The New Jim Code”: automated systems that perpetuate racial discrimination. Algorithms trained on data that is inherently racist produce racist outputs, as we’ve discussed before. The result of Jim Code in the medical field is Black patients continuing to be less valued than white patients, given less care and priority. However, instead of it being sanctioned by law, like Jim Crow, now it’s sanctioned by technology. Doctors can say “no, of course we’re not racist! The algorithm told us to do this, and the algorithm can’t be racist. It’s a machine!” And so, divisions in health care, education, and so on continue to deepen, now driven by the very technology that was supposed to give us a better future.
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