Rebecca Costa

Quick.  Go to your computer and search for images under the keyword "boardroom."  Now try the words "executive" followed by the words "success" and  "corporate."

Notice the lack of racial diversity, particularly the lack of black men and women?

The focus of this year's G20 Summit in London was "Investment in African Infrastructure."  I was busy preparing my presentation for the ministers of Africa and other nations when I noticed something peculiar: all of the images I had selected for my presentation depicted Caucasian men and women in business suits.

My first reaction was horror.

Was this one of those subtle signs of racism?  One of those prejudices that periodically comes to light as it did in the Trayvon Martin case?

How could I not have one image depicting black men and black women in business suits?

I had no explanation for including only pictures of white executives, entrepreneurs and leaders.  Sometimes we're confronted with a truth so ugly that it's difficult to swallow.

As I carefully looked over the eighty-something slides I had assembled, the evidence was staring me right in the face.  There was no hiding.

So, in tandem with looking for a large stick to beat myself with, I jumped back on Yahoo and Google Images to search for racial balance – images which reflected the real working world.  I had time.  I could fix the problem before I embarrassed myself in public.

But here's where I discovered something much more disturbing.

It wasn't me.

The first few pages of images that appeared were almost exclusively Caucasian.  Almost no black men or black women.  A few smatterings of Asians here and there.  No Hispanics.  And no physically challenged.  My computer screen filled with pictures of healthy white men and women working in beautiful offices and wearing clean cut business suits.

I called the college intern who was helping me get ready over to my desk.  "Take a look at this." I said, "Notice anything?"  She shook her head no.  "The reason our presentation to the ministers of Africa looks racist is because the images we had to choose from did not include any black men or black women."  She looked doubtful.  So I said, "Stay here, let's check other phrases."  We typed in "climbing the corporate ladder."  Then "successful business leaders."  We continued typing in other search words related to achievement with similar results.  Overwhelmingly white.  And in some cases, no representation of other races whatsoever.

But here's where things get really interesting.  On a whim we decided to search the word "ghetto."  Followed by "pimp," "starvation" and "street gangs."  I'll let you guess which races appeared ... Then we typed in "African women" and black women carrying baskets on their heads popped up.

Now, I don't like to jump to conclusions.  I hesitate to accuse the curators of stock photography of being racist.  Perhaps this was the unintended consequence of a search algorithm gone wrong, or only certain photographs contain the tags with these phrases.  Or maybe my search words weren't specific enough: I should have typed "African women in business suits."  It could have been some program that searches based on preferences I may have shown in the past – which, in effect, would mean that I was a racist.  On the other hand, I didn't have to add "in business suits" to find images of white female executives.  The word "executives" was sufficient.

You'll have to draw your own conclusions about what a simple thing like image searches tell us about society today. But if there is one thing we can agree on it is this: unintended consequences often spread like viruses.  The only antidote to becoming the unwitting proponent of racism has always been, and will always be, awareness and diligence.  I was lucky to catch the problem early.  But what about the millions of others who search Yahoo and Google images every day?  Will they notice the discrepancies in racial images? More importantly, will stock photography sites start offering racially balanced images?  Stay tuned.