Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !

Still working through white US history.

Q: Why are so many Black folk early adopters of tech like Uber and Amazon? Sometimes this willingness to try new tech early backfires on y'all, like the whole crypto scam. Tech companies don't always love you back. So... why so eager? Is it because of Deltron 3030 and André 3000? 🤔You're... you're going to say racism aren't you?

A: Yep! Racism. And go ahead and add Sears to that list of "technology" companies.

1/N

#BlackMastodon

Because racism is baked into so much of US society, institutions that work well for white folk don't work as well for Black folk. We often end up paying way higher fees for way worse service.

Because of this, new tech doesn't have to be better than existing tech's average case to be attractive to Black folk. It just has to be better than existing tech's bottom 5% of cases! Because that's what existing tech gives us. 🤡

And a big factor: the daily trauma of experiencing racism takes its toll. Black folk in the US aren't rich, but have always been willing to pay a premium just to avoid a little racism. This part of the Black tax is real money.

Let's start with the Sears, a Chicago company. In the South, stores in places like Alabama and Mississippi used to be off-limits for Black customers. And when Black customers were finally allowed in, they often had to wait until white customers have finished shopping.

If there was only one of an item left, store staff would take it from a Black customer and give it to a white one. Black customers were sometimes charged more for the same item. Shopping under Jim Crow sucked.

And Black clerks did this to Black customers too. This wasn't just "I as a clerk am racist against you individually." This was individual employees operating in a racist system of shopping.

Then along comes Sears Roebuck Company from Chicago, with their mail order catalog! ♥️👍🏿

Yes, mail order is inconvenient. You can't see the items before they arrive. You have to pay postage, and shipping. There was no "UPS overnight" back then.

But the US postal service doesn't ship Jim Crow. Pay a little Black tax, avoid the daily indignities of shopping under Jim Crow.

Sears was better for Black customers in the south, and 20% of the south is Black. Good for business! 🤑

Black customers helped Sears grow, and helped mail order shopping become a big thing. It also destroyed the margins of the most racist stores in the South, by providing a viable alternative. It helped drive them out of business.

Some execs at Sears wanted to lean into their Black customer base, because they realized that half of their white customers had no problem with it, and that "All Black folk + half a white folk" is a much bigger market than "No Black folk + the other half of white folk."

But racism is just too delicious, and "the other half of white folk" were over-represented in Sears executive leadership. 🤷🏿‍♂️

Let's talk about rideshare and Uber, and why I was the biggest Uber fan on planet Earth in the company's early days. Seriously. Uber folks may have been super pumped, but I was super duper pumpty dumped!

I had to travel to NYC for work, and took a cab from my hotel to midtown Manhattan. After work, I tried to take a cab back to my hotel, which was also in Manhattan.