By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Apr 19 1998 (IPS)

More than 40 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered an end to racially-segregated public schools, there is a new divide between White and Black Americans – on the access to computers and use of the Internet.

According to a survey published in the latest ‘Science’ magazine, Whites own, and are using, computers in substantially greater numbers than African Americans, particularly for lower- income families of both groups.

White families earning less than 40,000 dollars a year were nearly six times more likely to have used the Internet in the week before the survey was taken – in early 1997 – than black families of comparable income, according to the survey – the first of its kind in the United States.

“The consequences to U.S. society of a persistent racial divide on the Internet may be severe,” according to the survey’s authors, Donna Hoffman and Thomas Novak of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. “Employment opportunities and income differences among Whites and African Americans may be exacerbated, with further negative consequences to the nation’s cities.”

Particularly worrisome is the racial divide in computer ownership among high school and college students. Almost three out of every four white students surveyed owned a home computer; by contrast, only one of every three black students owned a computer.

Ownership, according to the authors, translates directly into access to the Internet where traffic is roughly doubling every 100 days. “This is the most disturbing instance yet of when race matters in Internet access,” the authors say. “If you want to be a fully functional member of society, you’re going to have to have access to the Internet,” Hoffman said. “Anybody poor is in trouble here. But if you’re poor and black, you’re really in trouble with respect to access.”

Beyond race, income is a key variable in computer access and use, according to the survey. Black families earning more than 40,000 dollars year were actually more likely to own computers than comparable white families: 65.4 percent and 61.2 percent, respectively. Upper-income black and white households also used the Internet at comparable rates.

The fact that income makes a substantial difference in computer ownership bolsters the notion that changes in technology may be benefitting the wealthier segments of the population, leading to a so-called “digital divide” between the information “haves” and “have-nots,” the report notes. But race remains a key factor as well, because only about one third of all black households fall into the upper-income category.

Thus, among families of all income levels, 44.3 percent of white households own computers, compared with only 29 percent of black households, according to the survey.

When it came to student ownership, race also made a difference, regardless of income. Some 73 percent of white students owned a home computer, compared to only 32 percent of black students – a gap which persisted when household income was considered. African- Americans constitute roughly 12 percent of the U.S. population of more than 260 million people. According to recent surveys, about one-tenth of the entire U.S. population – or some 25 million people – have used the Internet in the past week alone.

As of January, 1997, the latest survey estimates that about 5.2 million Blacks had used the Web at some time. The comparable figure for whites was about 46 million. Whites, however, were significantly more likely to have used the Web at home, where African Americans were more likely to have used it at school.

White students without a computer at home were also more than twice as likely as similar African American students to have used the Web within the past six monmths, according to the survey which concluded that white students appear to be gaining access to the Internet at the homes of their friends or relatives, libraries, and community centres. That finding points to ways to close the racial gap, according to the authors, who urge government to create new access points for Blacks in local libraries, community centres and other non-traditional places.

The Science survey also found that African Americans are very much aware of the Internet and its potential importance and want to gain access. Its conclusion that some five million African Americans have used the Web as of a year ago – give times the number estimated by the popular press – is also reason for some optimism, if only because such a large audience will likely generate more on-line content directed toward Blacks.

The authors argue that the recent commercial success of computers priced below 1000 dollars could spur much greater ownership in the African-American community. They also call for programs that encourage ownership and the adoption and marketing of inexpensive devices designed to offer access through televisions.

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