Tailoring

Targeting In examining how different forms of coded inequity take shape, this text presents a case for understanding race itself as a kind of tool – one designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice as part of the architecture of everyday life. In this way, this book challenges us to question not only the technologies we are sold, but also the ones we manufacture ourselves. For most of US history, White Americans have used race as a tool to denigrate, endanger, and exploit non-White people – openly, explicitly, and without shying away from the deadly demarcations that racial imagination brings to life. And, while overt White supremacy is proudly reasserting itself with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, much of this is newly cloaked in the language of White victimization and false equivalency. What about a White history month? White studies programs? White student unions? No longer content with the power of invisibility, a vocal subset of the population wants to be recognized and celebrated as White – a backlash against the civil rights gains of the mid-twentieth century, the election of the country’s first Black president, diverse representations in popular culture, and, more fundamentally, a refusal to comprehend that, as Baldwin put it, “white is a metaphor for power,” unlike any other color in the rainbow.

The dominant shift toward multiculturalism has been marked by a move away from one-size-fits-all mass marketing toward ethnically tailored niches that capitalize on calls for diversity. For example, the

Netflix movie recommendations that pop up on your screen can entice Black viewers, by using tailored movie posters of Black supporting cast members, to get you to click on an option that you might otherwise pass on. Why bother with broader structural changes in casting and media representation, when marketing gurus can make Black actors appear more visible than they really are in the actual film? It may be that the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite drew attention to the overwhelming Whiteness of the Academy Awards, but, so long as algorithms become more tailored, the public will be given the illusion of progress.