Digital Redlining: the reinvention of bad habits
TOPIC
Key Terms: surveillance, tracking, digital footprint, digital identity, digital redlining.
See also: data mining, algorithm, privacy, filter bubble, big data.
Redlining and deed restrictions came to an official end with the passsage of state and federal legislation during the 1960s and 1970s. While these practices continue, the emergencer of digital surveillance has re-invented discriminatory practices in the form of what Gilliard calls "digital redlining (see reading below). This modernizes the term and emphasizes that the "how" of discrimination via the continuous surveillance of our internet use leads to unintended -- and sometimes intended -- consequences that are unjust.
__________________________________
READINGS
Backgrounds
• Birwood Wall: Overview; for images, go to images.google.com and search for "birwood wall"
• Redlining maps (check for Detroit area)
• "A Forgotten History of How the U.S. Government Segregated America." Terry Gross interview with Richard Rothstein, author of The Color of Law.
•Ta-Nehisi Coates. "The Case for Reparations"
Re-inventing Redlining: Digital Redlining
• Privacy International. "What is Data Exploitation?"
• Chris Gilliard and Hugh Culik: Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy
• Mac Schneider. "Why 23 million Americans don't have fast internet"
• Jon Brodkin: "AT&T allegedly “discriminated” against poor people in broadband upgrades."
• Cato Institute: "Stingray, A New Frontier in Police Surveillance."
• Vox: "How the internet keeps poor people in poor neighborhoods.
• Madden, Gilman, Levy, Marwick. "Privacy, Poverty, and Big Data: A Matrix of Vulnerabilities for Poor Americans."
Data, Profiling, and Opportunity
• Jeffrey Selingo: "Colleges' Endless Pursuit of Students."
• "Why Many Smart, Low-Income Students Don't Apply to Elite Schools"
• Scott Jaschik. "A Plan to Kill High School Transcripts . . . and Transform College Admissions"
___________________________________________________________________
ASSIGNMENT: Writing to Learn
• Mapping Existing Knowledge: TEQ Sheets
Begin by reading all of the material above. Select the three that seem most useful and complete a TEQ Sheet for each and for those announced in class. I strongly recommend Jaschik, Selingo, Culik/Gilliard, and the Terry Gross interview of Rothstein as starting places.
• Identifying Gaps in the Map: The Purpose & Problem Statement
After building background knowledge by completing the readings and TEQ Sheets, go to the "Purpose and Problem" (P&P) link on the "Tools" page, and create a P&P Statement that describes the purpose of the course, the relation of the assignment to the purpose of the course, and then describes something puzzling, unclear, ignored, or in need of further explanation.
• Re-Drawing the Map: the Prospectus
At this point, you probably have some clear ideas about what you would like to say about the differences between traditional redlining and digital redlining, but most important is that you can connect digital redlining to the ways students are sorted into specific types of schools. Go to the "Prospectus" link on the Tools page, and create a Prospectus that summarizes the key evidence and ideas of your (unwritten) paper. Your prospectus may include a list of similarities and differences, but most of all it will use the similarities and differences to make a statement about a larger issue: how digital redlining connects to the claims that Jean Anyon made in her work.
sample first steps toward thesis (multiple topics)
sample opening paragraphs (narrative)
_______________________
DELIVERABLES
3 TEQ Sheets
1 Purpose & Problem Statement
1 Prospectus
1 Paper
______________________________________________________________________
Other Requirements
1. The documents must avoid any form of the verb, "to be." Examples of this verb include "am," "is," "are," "was," "were," "being," "been." This verb creates vague and questionable statements.
2. The documents may not use second person ("you" or "your"). The terms confuse the reader.
3. The documents not use "one" as a substitute for second person.
4. First person ("I") is acceptable only at the sentences that state your own, most important insight, question, hypothesis, or experience.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
SUBJECT LINE: use pattern from previous assignments.
FILES NAMES: use pattern from previous assignments.
FILE FORMATS: use requirements from previous assignments.