[ [link removed] ][IMG]

John,

A better future is possible—one where Google prioritizes the safety of
Black people. Because of support from Color Of Change members like you,
John, we are one step closer to pushing more Big Tech companies
to conduct racial equity audits. In early March, Apple shareholders
approved a proposal for the board to “conduct a third-party audit
examining company policies and provide recommendations to improve its
civil rights impact.”^1 This progress comes after we forced Facebook to
undergo a civil rights audit, disclose the results, and publish its
progress. Now it’s Google’s turn.

As more Big Tech companies are taking steps to install safeguards to
protect Black people, we must continue to pressure Google to do the same. 

[ [link removed] ]TELL GOOGLE TO CONDUCT A RACIAL EQUITY AUDIT NOW

Last month, a Google executive, Urs Hölzle, tweeted that there is
financial merit to buying and selling people—which is, in a word,
slavery.^2 As if unknowingly making an argument for slavery isn’t
concerning enough, Hölzle was hired by the Google founders themselves,
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as the eighth employee of the company.^3,4
This means that his tenure has shaped Google’s technology, and that
technology has not centered racial justice. Such has been clear from
Google’s history of returning hypersexualized and pornographic results and
advertisements for an Images search for “Black girls,” and Google Photos
tagging Black people as gorillas on the platform.^5,6 Because of the
leadership of people like Hölzle, Google’s Black workers must contend with
a hostile work environment, lower pay, and limitations to their
professional advancement.^7 As workers organized around ethical concerns
and tried to hold the company accountable, Google fired them.^8 Problems
like these would start to change by conducting an independent racial
equity audit, which would highlight specific areas where Google can
eliminate discrimination in its products and workplaces.

[ [link removed] ]JOIN US IN CALLING ON GOOGLE TO GO #BEYONDTHESTATEMENT

We must force Google to prioritize and center racial justice, and address
the racial bias issues in its current services and technology to prevent
issues in the future. Last year, Color Of Change sent a mobile billboard
to the Google campus calling executives out for their inaction, and we are
continuing to find new ways to keep the pressure on Google to conduct a
racial equity audit, which is long overdue. When we hold tech companies
accountable for their products and practices that harm Black people, we
will have real opportunities to thrive.

[ [link removed] ]A truck that says "Google, do a racial equity audit now" outside the
Google San Francisco office. 

Until justice is real, 
—Jade Magnus Ogunnaike

References: 

 1. Kif Leswing, “Shareholders vote for Apple to conduct a civil rights
audit, bucking company’s recommendation,” CNBC, March 4, 2022,
[ [link removed] ][link removed]
 2. Martin Coulter, “A longtime Google executive provoked criticism from
colleagues after posting and deleting a tweet about buying and selling
people for profit,” Business Insider, March 16, 2022,
[ [link removed] ][link removed]
 3. Ibid.
 4. Hugh Langley, “A Google executive apologized to employees after
tweeting about the merits of buying and selling people for profit.
'The connections to slave trading that should have been obvious to me
simply weren't,' he wrote.,” Business Insider, March 16, 2022,
[ [link removed] ][link removed]
 5. Safiya Umoja Noble, “The Enduring Anti-Black Racism of Google Search,”
OneZero, July 14, 2020,
[ [link removed] ][link removed]
 6. James Vincent, “Google ‘fixed’ its racist algorithm by removing
gorillas from its image-labeling tech,” The Verge, January 12, 2018, 
[ [link removed] ][link removed]
 7. Guardian staff and agencies, “Google gives Black workers lower-level
jobs and pays them less, suit claims,” The Guardian, March 18, 2022,
[ [link removed] ][link removed]
 8. Lauren Kaori Gurley, “Google settles with 4 engineers over complaint
it fired them for organizing,” Vice, March 21, 2022,
[ [link removed] ][link removed]



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