About Data For Black Lives
Data as protest. Data as accountability. Data as collective action.
Data for Black Lives is a movement of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people. Since the advent of computing, big data and algorithms have penetrated virtually every aspect of our social and economic lives. These new data systems have tremendous potential to empower communities of color. Tools like statistical modeling, data visualization, and crowd-sourcing, in the right hands, are powerful instruments for fighting bias, building progressive movements, and promoting civic engagement.
Data also is too often wielded as an instrument of oppression, reinforcing inequality and perpetuating injustice. Redlining was a data-driven enterprise that resulted in the systematic exclusion of Black communities from key financial services. More recent trends like predictive policing, risk-based sentencing, and predatory lending are troubling variations on the same theme.
In their most recent initiative, D4BL has worked to consolidate state level data to explore the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black people in the US. D4BL established a team of volunteer data scientists to develop a codebase for automating the data extraction from state websites and storing it into this dataset. It demands the visibility of COVID-19 data as a form of resistance, to implement programs that address available and accessible testing sites that meet the health needs of Black communities in light of the social determinants that cause racial health disparities, rent suspension, establishing a reparative stimulus plan, and transparency with data collection and contract tracing.
Hear more about their organization on their Twitter, Instagram, and website.
