Now we are encoding these biases into models built with mass surveillance. Many of us upper middle class white folks turn a blind eye. Subconsciously we know that’s not really targeting us. “We have nothing to hide” is the battle cry of the apathetic middle class person... when you trace the origin not just to law and order but the “war on terrorism” the relationship to race is even more depressing.
Maybe when we examine deeper we see those using the tools of mass surveillance look like us (heck are from this industry!). This same people working in the surveillance industry only imagine getting the “bad guys” not people that look like them!
On their face this has nothing to do with race. Examine deeper and you see, it’s far easier to take away civil liberties when it’s the “other” it’s being taken away from. Where the in group can blissfully rationalize what’s happening to get on with their day
The laws about voting (poll taxes, grandfather clauses) did claim to not be about race to pass muster regarding the 15th amendment, but the same is not true of laws concerning exercise of other civil liberties. The bulk of Jim Crow laws were quite explicitly discriminating on race.