Jesse J. Holland, Associated Press, May 4, 2018

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The National Urban League is highlighting this new technology gap in its 2018 State of Black America report released Thursday, and pushing social media and technology companies to put in place safeguards and corporation solutions to make sure minorities don’t get left behind in the digital revolution.

{snip} Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League: “Only increased representation from top to bottom will drive corporate change that prioritizes equity.”

Morial said that the latest Equal Employment Opportunity reports filed by Google, Facebook and Twitter showed that only 758, or 1.8 percent, of their combined workforce of 41,000 employees, were black. And their own research showed that in the majority of tech companies, fewer than five percent of the workforce is black, while at least half of the workforce is white.

The organization introduced a “digital inclusion” index that is supposed to answer the question: “Are the new job, business and educational opportunities created by increased digitization of our world being equally shared?”

With 100 percent being full equality with whites in digital skills and occupations, digital access and digital policy, Morial said African Americans are at 74.1 percent.

“Historically, while great industrial breakthroughs have profited our nation, African Americans have often been exploited, rather than elevated by these advancements,” he said. {snip}

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