Google adds "Black-owned" business attribute to local listings

On the other hand, veteran ownership is a common thing to see advertised. I guess I have no problem with businesses self-advertising their own values. I take more issue if Google has a short list of business attributes, and only causes they deem worthy make the list. I don't know if that's the case though.

Congratulations, you're perpetuating racism.

Glad to see it, reading though the comments here really makes new feel like many commenters don't know the history of why black Americans are so economically deprived (in general, obviously there are exceptions).

Black wall Street is a piece of history to look up or reading seriously about the case for reperations (freakonomics had an interesting, multifaceted episode on it recently)

The spread of US internal issues to the rest of the world is quite frightening to be honest. A social unrest in North America has way, way more influence in Europeans countries than our own local issues (I'm in the EU), and both our news and politicians react quickly to it, even though US problems are mostly irrelevant here. Even without living close to America, or try to be only consuming local content, it is impossible to avoid whatever is happening there. This country has really too much impact over the rest of the world, which wouldn’t be necessarily an issue if not for the fact that it is widely dysfunctional.

Not sure when, but eventually the shoe must drop and people realize this so-called "Anti-racism" is an incredibly racist ideology. This is not progress.

Yes! You’re getting it!

> Google said it has seen “a surge in online searches for Black-owned businesses” in recent months

So it seems like a feature Google decided is useful for its visitors in the same way that a business' address, operating hours, and reviews are useful for its visitors.

Without saying that white-owned businesses have it easy (no one has it easy these days), I believe that black-owned businesses face additional, unique challenges that white-owned businesses don’t. Some of those challenges are new (eg communities of color being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19) and others have been around for much longer (ranging from black communities being historically disenfranchised to the the mental overhead of code switching when talking to the majority of the country). Taken as a whole, I feel they contribute to a reality where owning a business is harder for a person of color than a white person.

That appeals to my sense of fairness in business: someone shouldn’t have to work 10%, 20%, or 100% harder to achieve the same outcomes. I feel ill-equipped to address this unfairness systemically (volunteering my time to teach code is the only example I can think of at the moment) but letting the reality of a black-owned business’s challenges factor into my purchasing decisions feels like a valid way to tip the scales back a bit closer to equilibrium.

Taking feedback or offering a customizable experience isn't really Google's way so I guess you'll just have a small icon to ignore until they decide to silently kill the feature

Racism is a hierarchical caste system based on a pseudo-scientific classification of people into races. The dominant form of racism, invented in Europe and exported all over the world via colonization and slavery, is built on the concept of a biologically superior "white" race. This form of racism, also known as white supremacy, is deeply embedded in the societies and institutions of European countries and their former colonies. The United States are no different.

In the United States specifically, Black people are in a special position, because their very existence as a group is the result of colonization and slavery. Their existence is a physical reminder of the racist origins of the US. And the injustice they continue to endure in the United States today - including of course police violence, but also housing discrimination, discrimination in the workplace, excessive incarceration, restricted voting rights, restricted access to healthcare and education, etc. - are a reminder of the fact that racism is still, today, deeply embedded in US institutions.

One consequence of this, in the US, is that there are few Black-owned businesses relative to the population, and as a result, Black people have less access to equity. Because equity is the primary mechanism for wealth increase in the US, and is taxed very favorably compared to wages, this means that Black people are not able to benefit from economic growth at the same rate as the rest of population. This is a self-reinforcing problem because a Black entrepreneur is much less likely to receive an investment from a bank or VC than a white entrepreneur of similar experience and risk profile.

This is a widely known problem, and one commonly proposed solution, if the US finance system won't invest in Black businesses, is for Black people to "invest in themselves", so to speak, by choosing to buy from Back-owned businesses whenever possible. So this is primarily about helping Black people support each other, in the absence of US institutions not supporting them appropriately.

Really? Do you have evidence that right wing violence exceeds that of any other political affiliation? Anecdotally, looking at current events, the opposite seems to be true. I'm not looking for a fight, I'm genuinely curious if there are sources for this claim.

A few percent of people believe themselves to be superior due to race. Some people will always be like that but it was certainly a less and less prominent political orientation.

But the conquest for more state control, against freedom of expression, against open dialogue put more and more people against activists. I don't think there is anything more to it and overall pretty simple.

There are people making millions with esoteric bias training which are basically just bullshit jobs that certainly don't improve understanding. This industry needs a constant supply of racism.

Correct. The problem right now is that prosperity around small businesses tends to be stumbled-upon by people with the necessary networks and safety nets. Said people largely tend to be White, and as a result, there's a bias in the number of White-owned businesses which succeed.

Affirmative Action and other policies (including this move by Google) recognize this and realize that the only way to level the playing field is to artificially boost the signal on Black-owned businesses, Black attendance in higher-ed, etc., because with policies that completely remove all handicaps, momentum is sustained, and momentum right now is in favor of sustained systemic racism (even after the protests).

That's also why policies like this generally aren't considered racist: because they act to level the playing field when a certain group has an outsized advantage.

> The only thing I don’t like about this social pattern is that it can over time lead to people becoming more prejudiced. Filter by white-owned, Chinese owned, etc. The worst version of it was when Germany labeled Jewish owned businesses.

To this point, it's also a difficult balance to strike. How can we get to as close to level as possible without instilling the wrong search practices long term? I don't think anyone knows the answer yet.

BTW, it's the height of passive aggressiveness to use this rhetorical trick of naming things (antifa, anti-racist) in such a way that you use the very name to shame people.

I mean, meet my new group: the anti-evil collective. What's that? You're don't agree with us? Well, you're against evil, aren't you? Are you some kind of a demon, or a devil?

That sounds like bullshit honestly. I haven't seen any evidence that white people specifically have "invented" racism instead of being a position of power for the most part. There's plenty of evidence that racism existed throughout the history in all parts of the worlds and all the races are susceptible to it, it's just white ppl historically ended up being on top for the most part.

To suggest that non-white people are somehow different and could not have possibly be racist or "invent" racism is to deny human nature and perpetuate the myth that the color of your skin makes you special albeit in a negative way in this case, and therefore is racist.

> In the United States specifically, Black people are in a special position, because their very existence as a group is the result of colonization and slavery. Their existence is a physical reminder of the racist origins of the US. And the injustice they continue to endure in the United States today - including of course police violence, but also housing discrimination, discrimination in the workplace, excessive incarceration, restricted voting rights, restricted access to healthcare and education, etc. - are a reminder of the fact that racism is still, today, deeply embedded in US institutions.

I like how readily every measurable statistically significant difference between races is readily attributed to racism without any attempt to explore multiple other possible explanations. Sure, the only possibly reason that the racial minority that that has been historically economically disadvantaged and repressed from advancing over generations has been poorer educated, engaged in more crime and less economically involved today would be racism.