if someone were to ask me, “hey, did you hear about big corporation that wants to host this event uplifting the black community through scholarships and education on entrepreneurship?” I would never guessed McDonald’s was behind it. Yes, the burger joint that’s been serving America greasy food wants to give back to the communities that they have been serving. Now obviously, there is no doubt that this is a good thing that the McDonald’s corporation is doing. Anyone willing to help those who are struggling by providing scholarships for colleges is good in my book. However, I do get a bit of an uneasy feeling whenever large, faceless corporations try to appeal to our kindness. I think a bit of skepticism is a bit healthy considering how i’m not even sure how much “real meat” is in their food. What I will say is that even if they’re doing this nice event for the black community with the only motivation being that the company wants to better their image, I say let them. In the end, even if their motivations are flawed, doing good things is still just that. Good.
NAACP and Airbnb sit down to discuss ways to end user bias.
In recent years, the online lodging arrangement company Airbnb has been hit with a number of lawsuits involving certain customers being denied service from home owners for being black. To prevent something like this happening in the future, both the NAACP and Airnbnb have teamed up to come up with a plan to combat the situation and then act out said plan. One idea that hasn’t been out in motion yet is to set rules protecting anyone from being denied Airbnb service based on how their name sounds, or the color of their skin. Another thought of solution was to encourage members of the black community to open their homes for Airbnb service to open up more opportunities.
Broader Implications of Understanding Brown as A Cold War Case
At the heart of America’s understanding of its own history is an assumed story of progress. This story of progress is often the lens through which Americans (and American historians) have viewed current and past events. The history of the Civil Rights Movement is no different. It was, and has long been, understood as an inevitable outcome of society, a confirmation of Whig history in the twentieth-century.
However, Dudziak’s work undermines this understanding by arguing that the ‘grand narrative’ of the Civil Rights Movement was actually a well crafted propaganda campaign the United States used to further international interests during the Cold War. Brown, far from being an inevitable outcome, was a purposeful ruling that allowed the United States to portray meaningful change without it actually happening. The nation HAD NOT progressed but Brown allowed Americans to declare progress none-the-less. What does this mean?
It means that The New York Times can release a podcast yesterday titled Why Did New York’s Most Selective Pubic High School Admit only 7 Black Students? (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/02/podcasts/the-daily/black-students-nyc-high-school.html) yet people will still argue that America does not have inequality in education. If people assume Brown was an inevitable outcome of progress then they can assume that the nation no longer has issues of racism or inequality in education, effectively shielding themselves from important arguments over issues that persist today. Re-framing Brown as a Cold War case helps to undermine this assumed progress and create room for a broader discussion regarding the reality of the issues that still exist today.
Review II
Exam II Review_From Reconstruction to World War II_spr 2019
You should be able to answer this series of questions: What is the basic story of African Americans from Reconstruction to World War II? How did white Americans respond to African Americans efforts to realize their freedom in the South and the two Great Migrations? How might you differentiate African American politics during the two wars?
On “The FBI and their claims of ‘Black Identity Extremism.'”
I recently read an article regarding an investigation involving the FBI and the black lives matter movement. Specifically, two members of the New Black Panther Party, a peaceful and non-violent organization, were accused of plotting to plant bombs and kill the Ferguson police chief and the county prosecutor. The event took place six months into Trumps’ administration. A court case took place and the defense claimed to not have plotted any such thing. Also, the evidence towards the defense seemed to be “fiction” and “irresponsible.” I won’t get into the rest of the details of the article but would like to discuss the implications of the whole event. The problem here seems to be that the ability for (peaceful) protesting is beginning to be challenged. As we discussed in class, there were different views back in the civil rights era as to how to deal with discrimination and racism. (I think) It is now commonly believed that peaceful protesting is a viable solution. However, if claims are made against these protesters, then how can there be the freedom to stand up for injustices? Even if the case against the two men turned out to be true, it is a deviation from the actual movement and can’t automatically be associated with it. “Black identity extremism” shouldn’t describe what organizations such as the NBBP and Black Lives Matter movement. Also, law enforcement can’t be the first ones to take action, of course, unless there is good evidence. This didn’t seem to be the case, and cases like these can either silence people more or create more violence. I can’t say anything about the innocence of this case, but I believe that assuming violence with peaceful movements does create problems.
Voice Command and the Institutional Racism at Work in Big Tech
This weekend I had the opportunity to engage with a graduate student at the University of Michigan studying Information Sciences. This student’s work focused upon an area that relates to this class in unique ways. As a professional he worked in the field of robotics and A.I., trying to equip African Americans with access to new technologies. Specifically he was working with differently abled individuals who needed voice command to help them do basic tasks such as write or move.
What he found was a systematic bias in voice operated machines that could not understand the accents of some of the African American communities he was working within. This issue led him to return to school and study the systematic biases that exist in technology. He is conducting research to reveal the racial bias at work in big tech.
This is not an issue we have directly tackled in class but it relates to the broader themes of institutional racism we have discussed. Morality and ethics are important, but issues such as this one raise broader concerns regarding institutionalized racism and its pervasiveness today. What does it say about society today that some groups cannot use technologies because of their race/ethnicity?
For those interested, check back in with the post a bit later. I am going to post a link to his work once he provides me with one.
UPDATE: A link to a page displaying some people doing work and research on this topic:
https://www.netrootsnation.org/nn_events/nn-17/digital-sanctuary-combatting-bias-and-racism-in-tech-tools-and-policies/
1619 African Landing: Rewriting History
The wonderful thing about history is that while majority of it seems to be set in stone, there could be a numerous amount of documents and finding to be unearthed and some that may never be seen again. I was intrigued with this article because it’s something I’d never heard about before. The 1619 Landing Day, a day meant to honor the first group of Africans in the America’s. The article does raise the point of what exactly should be factual and how rewriting history could be seen as problematic. One is the use of the term “indentured servant.” African Americans were slaves in the simplest forms no matter how one may want to put it, and using terms such as indentured servant only sugar coats the true sad history.
The article also makes point of keeping connected to the history at hand. When revelations like this are revealed it is imperative to make note, yet many historians are still hesitant about changing history and tend to omit anything that has to do with Black history. The point of the 1619 Landing day is to showcase African Americans presence in this country from the start, and while it may be a small thing, it still matters to the overall story of African American history.