TECHNOLOGY WIDENS THE ACCESS GAP
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
Summertime, and the living is
so easy that my e-mail box bulges with offers
of cheap travel. All of the major airlines offer Internet deals that can’t
be matched by travel agent or telephone. The bargains are so sweet that they
make you want to travel whether you need to or not, what with opportunities
to cross the country selling for a couple of hundred dollars round trip. But
the only folks who have access to the good deals are the ones who own
computers, and the digital divide means that more whites than people of color
have computers in their home and access to the Internet.
In this nation of consumers, the name of the game is shop until you drop..
States count on our purchases to finance education, social services, and
other essential state functions. But Internet buyers have gotten a pass at
state taxation for the past three years, and if a bipartisan agreement takes
effect, we’ll get a pass for another five years. As with catalog and
telephone sales entities, those who sell on the Internet get a pass on
taxation if they lack a physical presence in any state. This makes it
cheaper for a retailer to offer merchandise on the net than it is for them to
build a store. Those of us who shop on the net may enjoy deep discounts, but
consider this. States are going to tax to raise revenues. Those who don’t
have net shopping ability end up shouldering our burden. Like the Internet
sales, those who most need bargains don’t have access to them. The digital
divide strikes again.
Some, like Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman say they don’t
believe in the digital divide. With his tongue firmly planted in his chubby
cheek, Powell said he considered it a “Mercedes divide” because he wants a
Mercedes but can’t afford one. Perhaps he has a point – Internet access
increases with consumer income. Still, we subsidize access to telephones
because we consider phone “lifelines’ essential. Is access to the Internet
as essential? Or is the digital divide merely a reflection of the many other
ways that the poor pay more for goods and services in our society.
The poor pay more for automobile and home insurance based on redlined codes
that indicate that the risks in their neighborhoods are greater. They may
pay more to shop at corner stores, while supermarket companies ignore inner
cities. When banks close in poor neighborhoods, the poor pay more to avail
themselves of the services of check-cashing establishments. One can consider
differential access to the Internet no different from differential access to
suburban, discount, mega stores.
But everybody’s tax dollars, including those of the poor, subsidized the
development of the Internet. And many thought that technology would level
the playing field, not widen the digital divide. While the ‘net has hardly
caused the gap between those at the top and those at the bottom, it is one of
many things that have made the gulf greater.