Author: Seeta Peña Gangadharan (London School of Economics and Political Science)

Changes in our technological infrastructures are deepening inequalities and intensifying systemic racism. As society becomes more reliant on computation-hungry technologies such as cloud or software as services, computational service providers are hollowing out public institutions and diminishing their ability to administer basic democratic duties and to serve populations. For members of marginalized communities, this transformation adds to the challenge of getting the state to adequately address economic disparity, cultural violence, and political power imbalances, further obstructing paths to racial justice and equity. This paper argues that the rise of computational power warrants new ways of demanding racial equity and justice above and beyond familiar interventions focused on equitable access, diversity, and inclusion. To build out this argument, the paper looks at historic ways that race intersects issues of technology governance and identifies blind spots that overlook the outsize influence and wealth of technology companies. The paper then explores Big Computing, differentiating between computational power and the kinds of power associated with networked or platform technologies. Computational power often works around democracy, and its problems encompass more than the typical ones of access, bias, privacy, or free expression. Advocates for racial justice and equity face a unique opportunity to lead debate on computational infrastructure and its broad implications for equity and justice.

Author: Nicol Turner Lee (Brookings Institution)

Structural racism and discrimination have seeped into the aspirations of the digital revolution, perpetuating systemic inequalities against historically marginalized communities and excluding them from the benefits of the online economy. Mass video and data surveillance, algorithmic oppression and biases, and technology companies’ unfettered access to online consumer data perpetuate digital inequities while depriving people of access to opportunity. These realities are worsened by the absence of clear policy guardrails on technology and the lack of current and future interpretability of existing civil and human rights laws. This paper calls for policymakers, industry, and civil society leaders to establish a comprehensive civil rights framework in the digital economy that prevents the regression of progress that historically disadvantaged and other vulnerable populations have made in civil rights.

In September 2022, the Convergence Partnership released the first-ever report to focus exclusively on the funding of narrative change, Funding Narrative Change, An Assessment and Framework. The new report was written by two leading experts in the field, Rinku Sen, executive director of Narrative Initiative, and Mik Moore, principal and founder of Moore + Associates. Narrative change has become a popular focus with growing urgency to change public narratives around issues like racial justice, health equity, abortion rights, and rights for trans people. But because this area of work is relatively new for funders, the work is often siloed, leading to a lack of meaningful results. The report’s authors propose a framework for funders and practitioners to shift narratives via mass culture, mass media, and mass movements.

“We will not make significant change without building all three kinds of narrative power, hopefully operating in concert with each other for maximum impact. Our audiences should not be able to go anywhere without encountering our ideas and stories. That kind of saturation, combined with clear paths to action, will change the environment and make more ambitious policy achievable and enduring.”

It’s a must read for funders and practitioners who want to ensure greater efficacy in their narrative change efforts. 

Nashville’s strong and sustained growth has helped make it Tennessee’s largest city and the state’s biggest economic powerhouse, but racial inequities in the workforce threaten the region’s future prosperity. This report, produced in partnership with the Urban League of Middle Tennessee and Lightcast, with support from JPMorgan Chase, offers a comprehensive look at the racial inequities in workforce outcomes that have long persisted in the Nashville metropolitan region. It also underscores how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting these dynamics and how automation is projected to affect industries and workers in the area. Our in-depth analysis of disaggregated equity indicators and labor market dynamics found that only about 41 percent of the region’s 915,000 workers hold good jobs, that white workers with only a high school diploma earn higher median wages ($17/hour) than Black workers with an associate’s degree ($16/hour), and that eliminating racial inequities in employment and wages could boost the Nashville economy by $9.5 billion a year. The report concludes with actionable solutions to advance workforce equity across the region, informed by these findings and shaped by local leaders. Download the report.

Media: Here's a Blueprint for How Nashville Can Achieve Workforce Equity (The Tennessean)

In response to the passing of the IRA, we put together a short summary of how the compromises embedded in the bill reflect a national approach to climate policy that has long focused on incrementally reducing emissions without centering environmental and economic justice.