For 50 Years, Tech Companies Have Tried to Increase Diversity by Fixing People Instead of the System

In February, Google announced that it was committing to training 100,000 Black women in digital skills. This announcement arrived as a PR Hail Mary amid the ever-growing industry and academic outcry over Google's firing of prominent, brilliant, respected A.I. researcher Timnit Gebru and recruiter April Christina Curley, both Black women and both exceptional contributors at the company. The backlash occurred during a year of widespread protest against the centuries-old violence of racism and racialized capitalism in the United States. This is not the first time that a prominent tech organization has attempted to "train up" Black Americans. From 1968 to 1972, at least 18 programs to provide computing skills training to Black and brown Americans were established in the United States. They were located in East Coast and California cities, with one in St. Louis, Missouri.