A replay of this conversation is available here.
Our expert panel discussed strategies and implementation for creating a workforce skilled in the different aspects of digital equity and how to build connections between disparate groups. Here are a few highlights from the informative panel.
Michell: Define digital inclusion and digital equity.
Dr. Morris: I think it’s still being defined. Just last year we were talking about the digital divide. Now it’s digital inclusion and digital equity. I do think inclusion means we’re included and equity means we’re there in the space in an equal way. I don’t think inclusion is there yet and I don’t think equity is there yet. But I think it’s what we strive for and, as a solutions-oriented researcher, I really am very much about the solutions. I like defining it in this way, as opposed to defining it in terms of a deficit, which is the divide.When we talk about digital inclusion and digital equity, it’s like a vision statement that is always aspirational.
Dr. Wilson: We have national organizations like the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) who have taken on the task of creating some foundational definitions. I think of all the definitions that they have created, I like the phrasing but I also have challenges with it. It says, “Digital divide is the issue, digital equity is the solution, and digital inclusion is the work.”
That is a concise way of saying what we do. To Dr. Morris’s point, I do not think we have digital inclusion yet. I think we understand how critical the issues are. Those who have not necessarily been doing the work as long as Dr. Morris and I understood it more acutely during the pandemic. You can understand how the digital divide became myth-making now. How children were in parking lots and they didn’t have devices. But they didn’t have devices before there was a pandemic. I understand the type of anguish we felt collectively as a nation and so we understand the digital divide as an issue-based moment.
Digital equity can literally take the weight off of communities of color, women, and other marginalized communities by getting them access to high-speed Internet that they can afford or at no cost.
The digital inclusion piece, we are not there at all. I know you asked for a definition but it’s easier to talk about it in the now. When I look at what states are beginning to do now, I have worries because there are so many amazing national organizations, think tanks, and nonprofits who are descending on states with recommendations upon recommendations to help guide the planning. But many of them do not have relationships on the ground with people of color who have been doing this work pre-pandemic. I can simply say they’re not engaging community organizations as they should. Primarily because community organizations can’t scale up quickly in the way that national organizations can scale down.
Michell: What are some of the pathways for those who have been doing this work for a very long time and how do we bring them to the table? Especially, making sure that those who are trusted members of the community are the leaders in creating these plans and making sure that they are not being excluded from these conversations.
Dr. Wilson: I would love to see the same amount of money that has gone into broadband mapping applied to digital adoption mapping. Why is that important? To identify, within cities, who are the practitioners doing the work. There should be a digital map to find this.
To identify all of the practitioners on the ground so that we have the thought leaders at the table to help with our state planning, I would do a Genius Grant for each state. For example, provide $10,000 to show their plans and their work. I would give micro-grants to be able to suss out all the folks on the ground doing the work. They will say we cannot find the leaders on the ground. We don’t know who the digital advocates are. Because they have not put in the resources to find them. I feel like most of the work I do in this space even at the national level is writing Black people into existence. We are here.
Michelle: How should organizations show up in communities and what questions should they be asking to really get at what’s needed or how they should be using the funding?
Dr. Morris:
I think that an excellent solution would be to create a set of digital asset maps flowing money through the community foundations in each state. This provides a counterbalance to the state having all the control over deciding where to deploy funds because not every state is going to do the work.
As tribal nations and as part of the family of governments in the United States, we’ve always dealt with the federal government first, and states often ignore us. So in this new process by which funds are getting administered through the states. There is not a working mechanism. Most states working with tribes just don’t. The federal government has tribal consultation policies but there are not state tribal consultation policies. There’s a real problem right now with this. In fact, I believe that this week at the National Congress of American Indians they are discussing some of this as an issue with states administering the money. We’ve seen it fail with the library money in the past. The idea of community foundations being a counterbalance to the states administering all the money is a great idea that would work for tribes as well. Because we are on their radar, tribal nonprofits, at least in this state and in New Mexico, have affiliations with the community foundations. The Hopi Foundation works with the Arizona Community Foundation, for example, and that is a great counterbalance to the states administering everything.
