Searching for "unprofessional hairstyles" and "professional hairstyles" on Google Images exposes a stark racial divide in what's assumed to be appropriate for business settings. Spotted by @bonkamona, the results differ somewhat by platform or query wording, but the ethnic issue remains: professionals are pale-skinned, unprofessionals dark-skinned.
Google's algorithm is a trade secret, so it's hard to tell where the bias sits between engineering, traditional SEO efforts, link-tracking, etc. The top "professional" headshots link to pinterest boards and inane listicles, whereas the "unprofessional" shots are mostly to serious, aware discussion of the issue of ethnicity, hair and professional environments.
On NPR's always-excellent Rough Translation podcast comes an incredibly complex and nuanced story (MP3, transcript) about marginalized, racialized people in public housing in Marseille who found an accepting haven in a local McDonald's franchise, and who banded together to save it -- and other nearby McD's -- in a series of direct actions ranging from […]
Garrett Hardin's 1968 Science essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" is one of the most widely assigned readings in the past ten years' worth of university syllabi; notionally, it describes how property that is held in common is prone to overuse and exhaustion, while privatization creates an owner who has an incentive to serve as […]
A leaked document co-written by 45 googlers and reported on by Motherboard details how each was subjected to illegal workplace retaliation after reporting abuse by co-workers or superiors.
We can’t all go through life with just a pair of sneakers and flip-flops. Sometimes, you have to invest in a pair of high-quality dress shoes. However, you’ve probably discovered that high-end footwear almost always comes with eye-popping price tags. You’ve got to compromise on second-hand or just suck it up and take out a […]
We have a theory about those throw blankets that are barely big enough to cover your legs. The only people who seem to make them or use them are grandmothers, and the blankets are only that small because Nana got bored halfway through the sewing job. Look, we’re sure she means well. But if you […]
Remember when the default state of your online presence was anonymity? That’s not so clear-cut anymore, and the worst part is you may not even know who is using your data or what they’re using it for. Small wonder that so many people are choosing to surf through virtual private networks. VPNs filter web access […]
