Modern-Day Slavery in Tech: A Juneteenth Reflection
Written on
Chapter 1: Understanding Juneteenth
Juneteenth is often misinterpreted as the day marking the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared freedom for slaves in the Confederacy by President Lincoln. However, it actually commemorates the moment, two and a half years later, when the news of emancipation finally reached Galveston, Texas.
Despite the historical significance of this day, forms of slavery persist in the United States. The country continues to exploit prison labor, particularly affecting communities of color, who are often incarcerated at disproportionate rates. Prisoners are compelled to work for meager wages, sometimes as low as $0.23 to $1.15 per hour. In states like Texas, Georgia, and Florida, inmates may receive no compensation at all.
According to the End the Exception campaign by Worth Rises, the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865 to abolish slavery, includes a clause that permits slavery as a punishment for crime. This provision has historically facilitated the criminalization and re-enslavement of Black individuals, particularly during the Reconstruction era.
Section 1.1: The Role of Corporations
Worth Rises maintains an updated report identifying companies that utilize prison labor, with their most recent data from 2020. This report includes a downloadable, filterable Excel spreadsheet that lists over 4,100 corporations profiting from the exploitation of prison labor.
The following are notable companies from the internet and telecommunications sectors that have been identified as participating in this practice. While I cannot vouch for the dataset's completeness, the names listed caught my attention, and I encourage a thorough review of the entire dataset. It's essential to also consider which of these companies publicly support movements like Black Lives Matter while simultaneously benefiting from exploitative systems.
Surprisingly, some well-known names emerged from the dataset: Adobe, Snap, Zoom, ESRI, Rackspace, and Google, to name a few.
Notable Companies:
- Accenture
- Adobe Systems
- Akamai
- Amazon
- AT&T
- Blackberry
- Blackstone Technology Group
- Blue Tech
- BMC
- Capgemini
- Chainalysis
- Charter Communications (dba Spectrum)
- Cincinnati Bell
- Cisco Systems
- Deutsche Telekom (which owns 48.4% of T-Mobile)
- Dun & Bradstreet
- ESRI
- Frontier Communications
- IBM
- Konica Minolta
- Kyocera Group
- MTM Technologies
- NetApp
- Nexcom
- NTT Data
- Onix
- Oracle
- Palantir
- Polycom
- Rackspace Government Solutions
- Salesforce
- SAP Concur Technologies
- Snap
- Softlayer
- Symantec
- T-Mobile
- Time Warner Cable (dba Spectrum)
- TransUnion
- UNICOM Global
- Venture Netcomm
- Verizon
- VMware
- Zoom Video Communications
Chapter 2: Juneteenth and Technology
The first video, Juneteenth Fireside Chat: Taking Tech Back to Family Culture and Community, discusses the intersection of technology and cultural heritage, emphasizing the importance of community in tech initiatives.
The second video, JuneteenthTech Summit NYC, showcases the efforts to bridge technology with social justice, focusing on empowering communities through tech.