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At the same time, Google unveiled a "Black owned businesses near me" on Google Maps. How has that been received? We need look no further than Twitter: (the Tl;D

At the same time, Google unveiled a "Black owned businesses near me" on Google Maps. How has that been received? We need look no further than Twitter: (the Tl;Dr. racists are using this to lower all ratings of these Black owned businesses) https://twitter.com/dmetaxak/status/1362856231212212224 https://twitter.com/dmetaxak/status/1362856231212212224 Google recently added a feature allowing users to search for "Black-owned businesses near you". They're advertising it all over the place (see below). I've also already started hearing from Black-owned businesses I follow that they're seeing an influx of racist fake reviews... BLK MKT Vintage, for instance, got over 30 new, clearly fake reviews in 24 hours (e.g., calling them "a store that promotes segregation", saying their items were "broken" and "covered in dead cockroaches"). And if you look at the users writing those reviews... The users leaving those fraudulent 1-star reviews for this business are also leaving 1-star reviews on dozens of other Black-owned businesses. All this while Google pays for PR lauding this new feature. We need to ask: is it always a good idea to make marginalized groups more visible? Whom does it benefit? Have such companies thought through the consequences for those they're "helping"? Was this done at the direction of those groups or paternalistically on behalf of? This is yet another example of why app features cannot and should not replace community networks and mutual aid. Technosolutionism, the white savior complex, and paternalism towards marginalized groups lead to selfish PR efforts that actively harm those they ostensibly "help".

Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
In what will be an entirely self-serving, "everything is evidence for my existing worldview" claim... ...I would promote race-blindness as the solution to this. The more we talk about and focus on race, especially in a zero-sum context like "buy black-owned", the worse the racial tensions and competition will become. People confuse cultural power with economic power...just because many powerful people/businesses support black enterprise right now, doesn't mean the wider society will just blindly follow with fists full of cash. Racism is terrible. "Antiracism", with no regard to the actual outcomes, is hardly better. These businesses were not being harassed by awful people until Google tried to leverage them over their non-black-owned competitors.
- ttt0 6y ago
  > ...I would promote race-blindness as the solution to this. Don't you know that colorblindness is white supremacy? So good luck with arguing that. https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1267529522041282563 https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1267529522041282563 For those who don't know, this is the author of Code of Conduct and Hippocratic License.
  - Igelau 6y ago
    See, I could probably get on board with being passively opposed to about half the stuff on that triangle. The other half is either outright bs or stuff I've never heard of.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    "All lives matter" is white supremacy? That is the most tepid, centrist, mainstream view you could have. Literally the view of MLK For fucks sake, the US is lost if this continues, and I don't say that lightly.
- GavinMcG 6y ago
  Yes, antiracism must be measured by its effects. Google's campaign had antiracist intentions, and racist effects. That doesn't mean we should all give up on effective antiracism, though. This tactic/campaign/etc. was not antiracist. Others can be. It's not clear at all why this should be taken to mean that "the more we talk about race...the worse the racial tensions and competition will become." The conversation around race in the US has been ongoing for decades, and there are many objective metrics whereby things have not become worse.
  - Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
    I could have been clearer but I meant to stress "in zero-sum contexts". Not all race discussion is necessarily bad/harmful in outcomes. However it sure does appear to me that in the last five or ten years, the manner of the conversation has degraded so much that very very little progress is made per unit of "increasing tensions". That is entirely subjective, but it is how it appears to me.
leetcrew 6y ago
is "black-owned business" not an opt-in flag?
- ineedasername 6y ago
  And if it is opt-in, and happened to boost business instead of attracting racist reviews, I would fully expect non-black owned businesses to capitalize on that and opt-in as well.
- tyingq 6y ago
  Yes, it's opt-in: https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/black-owned.pdf https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/black-owned.pdf
ineedasername 6y ago
I really didn't understand why they were doing that. It seemed very strange. I couldn't quite put my finger on why it didn't seem appropriate... just that it seemed wholly irrelevant to how I would decide where to shop. I freely admit, however, that as I middle aged white male I may have some blind spots.
rayiner 6y ago
> We need to ask: is it always a good idea to make marginalized groups more visible? Whom does it benefit? No it doesn’t. And I wish people would stop experimenting with this sort of thing and treating it as some sort of fad. I grew up, as an immigrant from a Muslim country, in a white Republican suburb in the 1990s. And it was great. I can’t imagine what life would have been like today - constant reminders of the fact that you’re different, white teachers admitting they’re “gatekeepers of white supremacy,” using “whiteness” as a pejorative, etc. I’m fully developed and fluent in the language so I can tolerate it. But I’ve got kids and this is not the culture I want my kids to grow up in. Leaving aside whether this stuff is right on the merits. There is a limited number of white people who will put up with a constant drone of being called “racist” and being blamed for things that happened before they were born. As these confrontational tactics continue, people’s patience will wear thin. And if it becomes more prevalent to treat kids different based in their skin color, such as Evanston’s proposal to keep white and Asian kids behind in remote learning while letting other kids go back in person, people’s patience will evaporate in an instant. And overstepping that tolerance will have real consequences for people of color. When white people amplify this hyper-activist, in-you-face approach, they aren’t just drawing attention to a problem, they’re picking a particular solution. And because they comprise a majority and control the culture, they can impose an approach that people of color (who have to live with the consequences) don’t necessarily want. When you jump on board this bandwagon, you’re not just changing the culture for yourself. You’re not just changing the culture for activist POC you went to grad school with. You’re changing it for the blue collar worker who happens to be a POC. And you can bet that what kind of culture he wants to live in is not well represented in the academic and activist circles that dream up these approaches.
- konjin 6y ago
  You think your kids won't be white? My father wasn't white when he came here 30 years ago. Somehow magically I am. The same thing will happen to you too. I call it Schrodinger's whiteness. You are white enough to be blamed for right wing racism yet not white enough to not be the target of it.
  - refenestrator 6y ago
konjin 6y ago
You would think that (((Larry Page))) and (((Sergey Brin))) would have made a company that appreciates outing minorities is a bad thing. I guess (((they))) don't mind and will stop deplatforming people who merely point out how (((they))) represent over 40% of billionaires despite making up less than 2% of the population. Or, and hear out this crazy idea, we stop it with the racism from the left and right and treat people according to their circumstances and their character instead of who their grandparents were.
infoseek12 6y ago
I would very much like to know how much testing Google did on the “Black-owned businesses near you” feature. I know they extensively test algorithm changes to their search engine before rolling them out to everyone. It would be really disturbing if they didn’t do due diligence on this feature, to make sure it has a positive impact for businesses using it.
skinkestek 6y ago
When will corporate America learn? Keeping lists of people who have special traits should be kept to an absolute minimum. Just ask the Dutch (good people got punished and killed trying to destroy the official registers of Dutch jews as it became clear the Nazis sought them.) Pointing out the differences between people isn't going to help! In the place I grew up in Europe there were almost no foreigners. But in summer holidays we lived next to a really black family at a camp site for years. Their dad were friends with my dad and well, that was it. They were humans like the rest of us. Today it is almost like it is scarier to meet people from other cultures.

Wolfenstein98k 6y ago

In what will be an entirely self-serving, "everything is evidence for my existing worldview" claim... ...I would promote race-blindness as the solution to this. The more we talk about and focus on race, especially in a zero-sum context like "buy black-owned", the worse the racial tensions and competition will become. People confuse cultural power with economic power...just because many powerful people/businesses support black enterprise right now, doesn't mean the wider society will just blindly follow with fists full of cash. Racism is terrible. "Antiracism", with no regard to the actual outcomes, is hardly better. These businesses were not being harassed by awful people until Google tried to leverage them over their non-black-owned competitors.

ttt0 6y ago
> ...I would promote race-blindness as the solution to this. Don't you know that colorblindness is white supremacy? So good luck with arguing that. https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1267529522041282563 https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1267529522041282563 For those who don't know, this is the author of Code of Conduct and Hippocratic License.
- Igelau 6y ago
  See, I could probably get on board with being passively opposed to about half the stuff on that triangle. The other half is either outright bs or stuff I've never heard of.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  "All lives matter" is white supremacy? That is the most tepid, centrist, mainstream view you could have. Literally the view of MLK For fucks sake, the US is lost if this continues, and I don't say that lightly.
GavinMcG 6y ago
Yes, antiracism must be measured by its effects. Google's campaign had antiracist intentions, and racist effects. That doesn't mean we should all give up on effective antiracism, though. This tactic/campaign/etc. was not antiracist. Others can be. It's not clear at all why this should be taken to mean that "the more we talk about race...the worse the racial tensions and competition will become." The conversation around race in the US has been ongoing for decades, and there are many objective metrics whereby things have not become worse.
- Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
  I could have been clearer but I meant to stress "in zero-sum contexts". Not all race discussion is necessarily bad/harmful in outcomes. However it sure does appear to me that in the last five or ten years, the manner of the conversation has degraded so much that very very little progress is made per unit of "increasing tensions". That is entirely subjective, but it is how it appears to me.

leetcrew 6y ago

is "black-owned business" not an opt-in flag?

ineedasername 6y ago
And if it is opt-in, and happened to boost business instead of attracting racist reviews, I would fully expect non-black owned businesses to capitalize on that and opt-in as well.
tyingq 6y ago
Yes, it's opt-in: https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/black-owned.pdf https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/black-owned.pdf

ineedasername 6y ago

I really didn't understand why they were doing that. It seemed very strange. I couldn't quite put my finger on why it didn't seem appropriate... just that it seemed wholly irrelevant to how I would decide where to shop. I freely admit, however, that as I middle aged white male I may have some blind spots.

rayiner 6y ago

> We need to ask: is it always a good idea to make marginalized groups more visible? Whom does it benefit? No it doesn’t. And I wish people would stop experimenting with this sort of thing and treating it as some sort of fad. I grew up, as an immigrant from a Muslim country, in a white Republican suburb in the 1990s. And it was great. I can’t imagine what life would have been like today - constant reminders of the fact that you’re different, white teachers admitting they’re “gatekeepers of white supremacy,” using “whiteness” as a pejorative, etc. I’m fully developed and fluent in the language so I can tolerate it. But I’ve got kids and this is not the culture I want my kids to grow up in. Leaving aside whether this stuff is right on the merits. There is a limited number of white people who will put up with a constant drone of being called “racist” and being blamed for things that happened before they were born. As these confrontational tactics continue, people’s patience will wear thin. And if it becomes more prevalent to treat kids different based in their skin color, such as Evanston’s proposal to keep white and Asian kids behind in remote learning while letting other kids go back in person, people’s patience will evaporate in an instant. And overstepping that tolerance will have real consequences for people of color. When white people amplify this hyper-activist, in-you-face approach, they aren’t just drawing attention to a problem, they’re picking a particular solution. And because they comprise a majority and control the culture, they can impose an approach that people of color (who have to live with the consequences) don’t necessarily want. When you jump on board this bandwagon, you’re not just changing the culture for yourself. You’re not just changing the culture for activist POC you went to grad school with. You’re changing it for the blue collar worker who happens to be a POC. And you can bet that what kind of culture he wants to live in is not well represented in the academic and activist circles that dream up these approaches.

konjin 6y ago
You think your kids won't be white? My father wasn't white when he came here 30 years ago. Somehow magically I am. The same thing will happen to you too. I call it Schrodinger's whiteness. You are white enough to be blamed for right wing racism yet not white enough to not be the target of it.
- refenestrator 6y ago

konjin 6y ago

You would think that (((Larry Page))) and (((Sergey Brin))) would have made a company that appreciates outing minorities is a bad thing. I guess (((they))) don't mind and will stop deplatforming people who merely point out how (((they))) represent over 40% of billionaires despite making up less than 2% of the population. Or, and hear out this crazy idea, we stop it with the racism from the left and right and treat people according to their circumstances and their character instead of who their grandparents were.

infoseek12 6y ago

I would very much like to know how much testing Google did on the “Black-owned businesses near you” feature. I know they extensively test algorithm changes to their search engine before rolling them out to everyone. It would be really disturbing if they didn’t do due diligence on this feature, to make sure it has a positive impact for businesses using it.

skinkestek 6y ago

When will corporate America learn? Keeping lists of people who have special traits should be kept to an absolute minimum. Just ask the Dutch (good people got punished and killed trying to destroy the official registers of Dutch jews as it became clear the Nazis sought them.) Pointing out the differences between people isn't going to help! In the place I grew up in Europe there were almost no foreigners. But in summer holidays we lived next to a really black family at a camp site for years. Their dad were friends with my dad and well, that was it. They were humans like the rest of us. Today it is almost like it is scarier to meet people from other cultures.