Before our readings on Algorithms and the Long Civil Rights Movement, I had never thought that discrimination could cross over into the digitized, artificial intelligence world. Of course, as a white woman, I have been ignorant to the ways this has impacted specifically women of color. However, upon reflection I can now see even more ways this occurs than just the example, given in Safiya Noble’s work, of the google search results of the phrase “black girls” turning up unwanted pornographic searches. I have noticed when I search for makeup products the first results are always aimed at white woman, and even if these companies offer products for darker complexions, they are not nearly as advertised as much or in the same way they are for lighter complexions. That experience especially stood out to me when Noble explained that “search results reflect the values and norms of the…company’s commercial partners and advertisers and often reflect our most demeaning beliefs, because these ideas…are normalized and extremely profitable.”1 Reading this allowed me to understand better the meaning behind the Long Civil Rights Movement and why the fight for African American civil rights continues in modern America.
The 1930’s were particularly difficult for women and people of color as many of the New Deal programs were directed towards men and left out, or discriminated against, racial minorities. Although this time period provided hard times, particularly for minorities, it did shine a light on many inequalities within the United States. One example of this was shown through the Social Security Act which blatantly discriminated against African Americans. Southerners were “afraid that economic security would allow black southerners to escape the cycle of poverty that kept them tied to the land as cheap, exploitable farm laborers.” When Roosevelt agreed with this, he removed domestic workers and farm laborers, which were primarily black men from the South, from the Act.2 This relates almost perfectly back to algorithmic criticism. Just like how Southern politicians were profiting from cheap labor in the 1930s, companies are profiting from the objectification of black women, which is only amplified through algorithmic searches.
