So many threads about inequity emerged from #mypokehood; I wanna pick some of them up this morning.
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So, we learned Ingress locations were set by white tech-savvy players. But why is that? Why does tech-savvy often mean not black or latinx?
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Simple. Taxpayers fund schools. Some schools get great funding and STEM from an early age.... Others get broken schools and libraries.
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You can make pretty good guesses about what an elementary school's workforce is going to look like. And that matters for
#mypokehood -
We can blame the inequity of
#mypokehood on the Ingress map alone—but it's a lot more systemic than that. This starts at pre-k tbh. -
Several people have pointed out that developers didn't know that
#PokémonGO would be so big, and that it excuses the limited pokestops. -
I STRONGLY disagree w that. It's 2016. Developers should *always* watch out for potential inequities, no matter how small or big market is.
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Of course no one sat down and thought to create inequitable pokestops. The problem is they didn't stop to think about it at all!
#mypokehood -
We must *always* assume there's bias—and we've got to be conscious about checking it or risk creating problems like
#mypokehood. -
Something else I learned about
#mypokehood is that a lot of suburbs don't have pokestops at all; they're concentrated in downtowns. -
But many of the commercial areas/downtowns that should have pokestops don't have any at all. Those are the poc ones like where I live.
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I do live close to two churches, and there are pokestops there. But I live DIRECTLY next to a school; no pokestop there.
#mypokehood -
Pokestops are also located in parks. Sadly, too many communities of color lack green space/parks, which means less pokestops.
#mypokehood -
I've noticed that lots of white commercial areas/downtown have triangle patch with a pokestop. Exactly none in my area do.
#mypokehood -
I play
#PokémonGO, so I know that I can play from home... But I can't get free pokeballs, incense, incubators, etc here.#mypokehood -
I *must* go to a pokestop to collect those items in order to keep enjoying the game. Either that, or I have to buy the items.
#mypokehood -
That means inequity built into
#PokémonGO makes it so that already vulnerable people have to pay to play what the privileged get for free. -
People of color can also go to more white commercial/downtown areas to enjoy more pokestops. But we're not always safe there.
#mypokehood -
Omar Akil wrote about his apprehensions of playing
#PokémonGO while being a black man:https://medium.com/mobile-lifestyle/warning-pokemon-go-is-a-death-sentence-if-you-are-a-black-man-acacb4bdae7f#.a2v508tgr … -
I agree with Akil, but also wonder what
#mypokehood means for black women. Women in general have a different relationship with public space -
I'm going to guess that most of the Ingress stops were created by men. What would
#mypokehood look like if it were mostly created by women? -
What if black women, who safety is always in jeopardy, could create augmented reality maps? How much better would this be?!
#mypokehood - 3 more replies
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