It’s become clear to me that there’s an increasingly rising tension “between White and Black people.” I’m sure you might be accustomed to hearing this a lot by now if you live in the U.S. There is a caste system that places White people on top and Black people on the bottom. But what about all of the others that fall in between? How are they affected by this? Well, the Supreme Court recently allowed federal agents to detain people in Los Angeles, California, who speak Spanish or who appear Latino – in other words, brown. In Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble, she focuses on the kinds of search results that pop up when you type in “black on white crime.” It leads to multiple sites that promote white supremacy and contain racist imagery of Black people. But any official information from the government, census or Department of Justice are hidden from the immediate sight of many who search up “black on white crime.” Why? Google focuses on pushing out information and articles that are not only largely sought out but are paid for to be promoted.
I wanted to do my own research and see what pops up when you search up “hispanic on white crime,” “latino on white crime,” and “asian on white crime.” The results are drastically different but a key component is that the results come from my computer in my area (Allentown, PA). The search results for Noble were collected from computers in Los Angeles, California and Madison, Wisconsin. My searches immediately bring up government websites and databases with statistics. Additionally, articles speaking on the myths of crime statistics of Latinos as well as rising hate crimes committed against Asians. I wonder what kinds of articles would appear if I was in a more conservative area? I wonder if they would spew the same kind of hateful speech toward other minority groups? Why are these groups not as widely talked about in comparison to Black people? The kinds of algorithms that are used to provide information catered to you and your needs that have allowed my search engine to produce these results are off-putting. I do research on many race-related topics as a way to educate myself but why does it take me looking for that kind of information for Google to provide me with accurate information? Why are people’s experiences being suppressed?
Additionally, I took a look at Google Trends which is a website that shows you how frequently a specific word/phrase has been searched up. You can see results as far back as 2004. I wanted to see how often “black on white crime” is searched up on Google and I limited the searches to the past 5 years. There is an average of 10 searches every week from 2020 to today. There are also graphs that showcase where these searches occur most, most of which were in Southern states. There is even a list of similar searches which focus on a minority group vs. white people and the crime rates between the two opposing races and also, between their own groups. The results are indicative of the sort of racial tensions that exist. From September 7th, 2025 to September 13th, 2025, there were 100 searches which makes the largest peak on the graph throughout the past 5 years. Charlie Kirk, a known conservative, was assassinated on September 10th, 2025. His death made national news and had many of his followers trying to find the culprit which they vehemently believed was a person of color.
These trends allow us to see that accurate information is being kept from many different communities which contribute to misinformed ideas about others and lead to laws discriminating against people of color. And it’s a huge problem when white supremacists take it upon themselves to murder people of color because they believe they’re ‘cleansing’ America from a group that they believe intended to hurt them first. It’s a direct result inaccessible information hidden from those would fight for the white supremacist agenda. Even those who do go to educate themselves on the internet will stumble across hateful messages and you have to wonder if there’s any limit to the kinds of things Google can show you as long as it’s paid for. Do you know what Google is being paid to show you?