Google so Racist?

What's the difference between being labeled an African-American and Black? Is there a difference? Will there ever be? These questions and more were brought up during a facebook discussion centered around the search engine Google and its implied distinction between the two terms. Close your eyes and imagine three black teenagers. Their activities and actions are completely up to you. So, what do you see? More importantly, how do you see them? According to the search engine, Google, it is not positively. When 'three black teenagers' is searched through Google images what appears is a yet another example of the discrimination person's of color (POC) face as compared to White counterparts. Whereas searching 'three black teenagers' pulls primarily negative, and somewhat stereotypical images, searching for images of 'three white teenagers,'  presents that there is a stark contrast to how Google sees the two groups.
Strangely, searching Google for images of three black teenagers pulls a majority of mugshots. In the above photo, a snippet of the collective images presented, only one is a staged model, unlike in comparison to the images presented when 'three white teenagers' is searched. A snippet of 'three white teenagers' search results shows a majority of staged models, smiling, hugging, and laughing; nothing remotely negative. Why the different imagery?

As the discussion continued there were, of course, those who came to the defense of Google. One facebook user wrote, "use the proper term and you'll get the proper results."  It seems when 'three African American teenagers' is searched the images are more positive, and by positive I mean the photos are of staged models. Let's be very clear, regardless of referring to the teens as Black or African-American, there is no difference or distinction, and to present two clearly different portraits for one race is racist on Google's part.

My mission became clear, obviously more had to be done besides a Facebook discussion and the first step was to call bring the discrepancy to Google's attention. I reached out on the company's official Facebook page but have yet to receive a response.

With no help from Google, I decided that the best place to find the answers to my questions was the company website. So I asked, "how does google determine what image to pull up?" It's an interesting, and short video. but here's a brief synopsis:
Google searches over 60 Trillion individual pages, where after going from page to page, they sort the material by content and "other factors' and keep it all inside The Index. Using programs and formulas to deliver the "best results possible" and algorithms to "better understand" what the user means, these clues helps to pull "relevant documents" from The Index. Google uses over 200 factors to rank the results, which are delivered in a variety of formats. Maintaining that the company fights spam 24/7 to "keep results relevant" if any spam is found manual action is taken. "And that's how search works." To watch the video visit: https://www.google.com/insidesearch/howsearchworks/thestory/

So out of 60 Trillion pages of material the best, relevant results of 'three black teenagers' are a plethora of mugshots? Not to mention there's even a noose if you scroll down past the third row of images, but that's an even bigger issue. Confused? Angered? Me too.
Google has been given the chance to respond and has yet to do so. It's time for our voices to be heard. In the past few days, the conversation has moved from Facebook to different platforms with even a youtube video being made on the topic. Google has still yet to respond, but to be honest we don't need one. What we need is for them to correct this error and acknowledge they made it, but at the end of the day you have to determine for yourself if Google is racist.