If wealth is uneven, so are labor demographics. Automation is unfolding in industries that are already racially stratified. […] Historically, as sociologist Mignon Duffy notes, “dirty people” do the dirty work. Indeed, despite the massive transformations in the past from servitude to service, the link between dirty work and women of color has remained consistent. Humanity is not sprinkled evenly across all the available employment positions. What we see instead is “occupational crowding,” argues Price—the “unnatural packing of people into certain jobs.” When we look at the past, we can witness a double move taking place: people of color were excluded from certain occupations and relegated to others. For workers in the automotive industry, for instance, it was clear that the adoption of high-output technical systems was accompanied by highly selective hiring practices. As the assembly line sped up and labor pressures increased, African Americans were funneled into these high-intensity roles. “In Detroit, they haven’t got automation but negromation,” quipped Malcolm X. Accelerated and mechanized work was matched with a labor force “best suited” to take those conditions.
– Luke Munn, Automation is a Myth (2022)