Software Updates and their Blind Spots of Black Value
by Rothsaida Sylvaince
Mentor: Dr. Roslyn Satchel; Student Editor: Anu Zaman
How do we see ourselves?
You couldn’t catch me with dog ears and flower crowns for the longest. Snapchat filters just didn’t work for me. New technology never excited me the way it did other folks because I knew I wasn’t part of the equation to begin with. I was even scared to get an iPhone. Why would I expect face ID to work for me? No matter how hard I tried, Snapchat wouldn’t even notice my face once it came into frame; I was too dark. Then “the update” came out.
I was finally able to use what white folks were using, albeit months later. For a girl in hand-me downs, beauty flowed from flower crowns. For the first time in my life, I had access to the relatively new smartphones,, and with that came Snapchat. Eventually, an update came out and I could finally use the filters. Now, my eyes were glossed over with a tint of grey and blue, my face was chiseled, my negro nose (including the Jackson 5 nostrils) were slimmed, and I was way lighter. Retouching my photos in this way brought a fleeting image of what I would look like if I was a little whiter, a little skinner, and a little prettier. It hurt, but I played it off to my white friends. I told everyone it was because I was cute anyways, my phone was old, or the lighting was just off.
When you took away my phone, I was left with nothing but myself, dark skin and all. I thought I was finally being included when in reality, camera companies just made me into the “norm”. This problem didn’t begin with Snapchat. Take a look at the colorized photos of Black artists before the late 70s. “Shirley Cards”, where photo companies used a reference photo of a beautiful white woman who smiled widely and became the standard of photography. Doing this meant folks who weren’t “Shirley’s” were often over or underexposed and would look ashy. Chaka Khan, Donna Summers, and the Jackson’s didn’t get the exposure they deserved, both literally and socially, and thus the biggest stars at the time had to remain captured in black and white when everyone else moved on in color. Even when companies had “Shirley’s” of different races in one photo it was all about setting the standard for what beauty is. Black folks are not included when these new technologies, which actively dehumanize, devalue, and disrespect them and their culture, are created. In response to their exclusion, folks create innovative “fringe” sub-cultures to foster community and their work is stolen without any forms of compensation.
But beauty is only skin deep — value goes deeper than that.
Soap dispensers have always been one of my biggest gripes with using public restrooms. Not being able to wash your hands is disrespectful in any case; Whether the soap container is empty, the snob on the sink is broken, or it’s clogged is rude. But not being able to do so based on the color of your skin being too dark is even more upsetting. Soap dispensers had to catch a few passes of my hands before I realized that I would not be getting any soap. This phenomenon is prevalent in a multitude of places. Google searching “Black girls” was banned on my school computers. We only existed in a hypersexualized vacuum. Our appearance, personalities, and sexual expression were “inappropriate”. Black women were criticized in every way they expressed themselves and thus we couldn’t exist outside of racial caricatures of what Black women looked and acted like. Even if Black women fit these stereotypes they were still shamed. There was no right way to exist if it wasn’t under the white gaze. Unfortunately, it seemed time and time again as if no one thought to test this out on Black skin. I am a ghost in facial recognition software, a nameless smiling face that no one saw. These constant oversights of the inclusion of Black folks in the developments of new technology does not simply erase Black folk from the technology sphere but tells Black folk that inclusion doesn’t bring in revenue. Inclusion can’t be sacrificed. Inclusion and an “addition” to technologies are not interchangeable.
Despite Black folks being one of the most likely groups to use smartphones and various social media platforms, they are just 7% of the high-tech workforce, including companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter which essentially run life as we know it. This leaves the burden of inclusion on the shoulders of non-Black folks to do the heavy lifting to include Black folks in tech but more often than not they miss the mark. But Black folks don’t miss.
If you’ve been on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or Facebook recently you know that Black folks don’t miss. We often say that social media “has allowed” creators to share their talents with the world, when in reality social media creators allow companies to take over the world. The now defunct social media app, Vine, exploded due to the creativity of Black Viners who created Vine’s infamous 6 seconds of fame by making them worth watching. Folks like Jerry Purpdrank, Max JR, King Bach, Khadi Don, and Allicattt got to reach the comedic status of Monique, Richard Pyor, Eddie Murphy, and Jamie Fox. Although Vine was defunct within a year, these Viners created a social revolution with creative home-grown comedy videos. The platform is only as iconic as these creators are. Through their commemoration in YouTube compilation videos, they have outlasted the platform. Folks use these apps in ways the creators hadn’t even conceived of, and later their creativity became the reason they could monetize their apps. TikTok follows a similar trend but instead of non-Black folks resharing content by Black folks, instead, appropriate it. A white teenager, Charlie D’Amelio, stole the popular “Renegade Dance” from a Black teenager, Jalaiah Harmon. D’Amelio was able to launch her career and platform off of her watered down digital plagiarism. This trend is not just limited to the visual media field.
Let’s take a look at one of the most popular social media sites, Twitter. Revolutions and uprisings have taken off on Twitter by various groups. When most folks think of groups who have had huge Twitter communities it’s Black Twitter. I mean, Black Twitter has a Wikipedia page. Black folks are ubiquitous to Twitter’s culture, where millions of users come back everyday to hear the musing of Black folks. Black Twitter isn’t intended to be accessed by white culture, but it is easy for white people to enter the space. People worldwide were always able to access Black folks for comedic purposes where folks (terribly) appropriated African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and performed digital Blackface. Digital Blackface is when non-Black folks use gifs, memes, or photos that almost exclusively used Black folks as the punchline or reaction picture when it wasn’t a reaction that the non-Black user would use in real life. Examples of this is the use of Annalise Keating, Tiffany Pollard, Mariah Carey, and the many anonymous Black folks used as punchlines everyday. Black folks are synonymous with comedy. Corporations like Wendy’s go viral by replicating the use of AAVE in their tweets and sell an immense amount of products by appropriating the culture. Everyone wants an invite to the party that is Black Twitter. But some non-Black folks come to take notes on Black folks work and flip it and resell it.
Fashion brands, like technology and social media platforms are often called out for copying the designs of Black Folks. Khloe Kardashian, Good American, clothing brand copied styles from a Black-owned company, d.bleu.dazzled. The story of Dapper Dan and Gucci is another clear example of Good ol’ American disrespect of Black art. At the advent of Hip-Hop culture in America, most fashion brands refused to dress Black musicians. Dapper Dan cut up and recreated fashion for Black folks from the logos and prints of these overwhelmingly white institutions and turned them into something that was uniquely Black. Unfortunately, Dapper Dan’s shop was raided by the NYPD and personally by Sonia Sotomayor, who then worked at the behest of Fendi as a corporate Layer, to seize all of his creations for copyright infringement. Dapper Dan’s business was then forced to go underground to sell his creations. When you look at the now iconic and trendy 90s Hip-Hop culture and fashion, you’re looking at what Dapper Dan accomplished even when corporations tried to shut him down and steal his work.
In 2018, Gucci tried to use Dapper Dan’s designs in a new collection, but Twitter didn’t let it happen. After acknowledging that the designs were stolen from Dapper Dan, Gucci invited him to join the brand in a partnership with the brand. His designs out in the open legally for the first time in 20 years. This all happened because of the swift backlash from the Black community on social media. Although the platform wasn’t built to elevate and includeBlack voices, the Black community was able to make it clear the value Dapper Dan brought to the culture and applied pressure.
Dapper Dan, Jalaiah Harmon, Jerry Perpdrank, and d.bleu.dazzled. Think back to Shirley Cards and Snapchats where Black folks weren’t included in the visions of beauty Black folks Even though Black folks time and time again have to use platforms that weren’t built for us and actively disrespect us as individuals and as a culture we still find ways to make it for us.
