The Problem With ‘Innovation’ Without Inclusion
The truth of Tesla’s technology is that it’s predicated on the abuse of Black working people.
Editor’s Note: This essay is a companion piece to a Q&A with civil rights attorney Kimberly Fayette on what this racial discrimination case against Tesla means, and if it will alter our collective conversations around workers’ rights, America’s long history of bigotry, and our justice system.
It’s almost surreal to think about my experience working in tech over the last decade. There’s something about the speed in which technology has taken over our lives that is inspiring — and downright horrifying.
It’s fundamentally transformed the way we find (and understand) information, interact with people (virtually and IRL), and share our stories (with newfound immediacy and intimacy). And in the next breath, we remember the tech industry is riddled with every ‘ism that we’re up against, and most pointedly, treats Black people like expendable cogs.
It’s dizzying to ponder the duality between the fantasy and the fact of Silicon Valley.
When I moved to San Francisco, the tallest building in SF wasn’t Salesforce Tower; Google didn’t have a Pixel and Facebook didn’t feel so Meta. And while I lived the fantasy that all big tech companies offer their workers (free food, massages, a pool, a haircut, you name it) — the fact is, being a Black woman in tech is nothing short of courageous.
From folks asking to touch my hair (which is illegal by the way, learn more from our Fellow Kimberly Fayette here) to my white male manager telling me code-switching is just, “something I should do,” it was exhausting living in the golden handcuffs of working in big tech, locked up in the polarity of free food and stock options — things designed to make me feel “valued” and “special — while simultaneously working through oppression and discrimination on a host of levels on the daily.
I should be able to get a check, speak African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and have my hair left alone — all in unison.
All the while I worked in tech, it promised a progressive future, something better than the past, which makes my reality even stranger and more bitter still.
When I decided to leave my corporate tech job in 2020, it was hard; I felt like I was losing a piece of myself, a slice of my identity. I’m passionate about technology — studying how it works, creating products, and helping other people understand what it can do for them. My entire career leading up to my time at Public Rights Project was building and growing myself in the promise and confines of tech startups — it took up the majority of my personal and professional focus. But before I am a tech worker, I’m an advocate for Black lives.
In many ways, that very journey shaped how I think about marketing and communications and storytelling in public service. The fact that we need to share our stories the same way Apple markets its products. And we need folks promoting fair treatment of Black people in tech jobs with the same energy they line up for a new iPhone. I love technology. But I demand equity too.
And I believe both of these things can co-exist — innovations and inclusion alike. And that’s the vision many tech companies have proffered to the world.
But the truth of this technology is that it’s predicated on expending Black lives.
Two weeks ago reporters Margot Roosevelt and Russ Mitchell at the LA Times reported on “horrific allegations of racism” in the Tesla factory; the N word, abusive slurs and graffiti, segregated factory areas, wage theft and punishment, humiliating menial tasks — like scrubbing floors on hands and knees — asked only of Black workers; it’s the stuff of nightmares made all the more disturbing because it’s been going on for years.
In an interview, The Department of Fair Employment and Housing Director Kevin Kish told Roosevelt and Mitchell they investigated 744 racial discrimination cases just in 2016; by 2020, that number had grown to 1,548. But like many companies now, “Tesla requires its directly hired employees to sign arbitration agreements, relegating any complaints to secret proceedings with private judges and without any option to appeal.”
It’s infuriating to know that just 30 or so miles from my house in Oakland, Black working people at the Fremont plant are being denigrated, assaulted, cast aside, and ignored; I feel stunned that our justice system is failing so badly that laws like Title 7 and the 13th amendment — laws codified more than 60 and 150 years ago respectively — are being flagrantly violated. I often hear folks talking about the need for new laws. The truth is, we’ve got lots of laws. We need companies like Tesla to follow them.
(This concept is called ‘equitable enforcement’ and you can read all about it right here.)
Time and time again, innovation, the free market, the promise of generational wealth, the ‘American dream’ that anyone with a good idea and a strong work ethic can thrive on American soil — come one come all! — consistently overshadows the rampant abuse of Black people, physically, emotionally, and spirituality.
We have to hold these people — scamming corporations and their leadership — accountable. We shouldn’t have to choose between innovation and inclusion. In fact, they should work in concert. Black friends working for Tesla. Black friends driving Teslas. Both realities should be able to exist without one person enjoying unprecedented technology, an electric car with a gleaming glass roof — and one who greets the day with the N-word carved into a breakroom table.
If we’re going to celebrate burgeoning “transformative tech” and the people behind said tech (it’s impossible to separate the product from its accompanying celebrity “man of the year” founder worship) — then we must treat the workers who make these products possible with care and respect.
And take those to task who make a product that’s predicated on dangerous, predatory, and racist behavior.
Just because you’re fighting the good fight in one aspect of your company (and in Tesla’s case, we’re not even convinced this is entirely true re: the environment) doesn’t mean you get to abuse people — and conduct your business illegally — over here. In fact, I would argue that treating the humans who make your business possible ethically is the first thing to celebrate a company for, not the last, and abusing your workforce is never something that should be considered “the cost of doing business.”
As a person who can purchase a Tesla …ask yourself this: what have you been afforded in that power?
What is the human cost that underpins this purchase that grants you some kind of climate change halo signaling? Where is the human cost of having that extra $12,000 to pay for the Tesla autopilot add-on?
White men comprise 83% of leadership but the Fremont factory has “a majority-minority workforce.”
Tesla owners have a median age of 54, are 87% white and 71% are owned by men.
Look. I want us all to have nice things. And I recognize that even I could possess this particular nice thing should I want it — and I acknowledge the accompanying honor of that privilege as a human, a worker, and as a Black woman — but our possessions don’t operate in a vacuum.
It’s important to understand the real costs of this technology and these products and how you may be able to play a role — even through your own awareness — in calling for change and a better way forward.
We can’t ignore the past and we can’t ignore its effects on the future. This case is on a continuum — we exist in an economy that has been predicated on Black people being used as expendable resources to reach ‘the future,’ the same future they’ve always been denied. Black bodies as a means to further industrialize our society and make money for white people and this Tesla case is just more of the same.
And perhaps most complicated of all is that many folks in my circle hold Musk up as an American hero. As an enviable man. A genius. A scientist. A savior. A visionary. Someone who bucks the status quo. When in actuality he is perpetuating some of the most dangerous human rights’ violations that continue to haunt this country and our workforce.
As a technologist, an activist, and as a Black woman that bore witness to the racism embedded in the tech industry, I’m calling for us to think critically about our unadulterated acceptance of Tesla and what a brighter future means if this is what it looks like.
As civil rights attorney Kimberly Fayette points out in her companion piece, sometimes the most powerful role we can play in countering injustice is remaining engaged and vocal.
“We have to remember that a lot of corporate social politics is performative, so people may be playing to their audiences without actually doing the work to challenge oppression.
I think as advocates and as people who really want to see justice done, you need to remain vigilant. Public advocacy can shift the tone and the conversation on a topic and then push the legislative change.”
There is power in the people. Don’t let big tech dictate the narrative. I’d love to hear from you too — tweet at me @madisonrjacobs with your thoughts.
