it's the software, tell toyota
I don't know how we could demand a better ID on the net. Black is a color not a nationality. Saying African-American or Black American doesn't work well in either case, we don't all agree with what to call ourselves and for sure saying just American means we don't exist in the context of our relationship to our ancestral past.
I am sure white folks never type "white artist" to find themselves. In that same sense why should we expect to type black artist to find ourselves? I think with us though the problem is unique because white folks comprise the dominate culture and do not differentiate themselves the way we do, have had to and often utilize to empower ourselves. Also because of them we are defined as African-Americans, Black-Americans, Blacks, Negro and other words.
So, it seems search engines or search engine authors can not define us with the words we use for ourselves. And for us, what a drag it would be if every document we put on the net had to have a race identifier on it so that folks can know who and what we are.
If the internet homogenizes us, it is like saying we can't gather in secret or in the open either. On the one hand the internet promotes each person as a faceless avatar, but each piece of info has an author who has a real face. Perhaps we shouldn't give up old school body count meetings yet. Many black groups, professional orgs and societies though are walled communities with limited membership only access. We have a lot of those and the transfer of info requires a reciprocity agreement via a program.We don't have free flow of info among ourselves.
Rumor has it, it will improve in time, look how much has happened to liberate us in the last 50 years. I just don't appreciate the institution of the institution and the institutionalization of black empowerment itself.
I think the digital divide is both economic and educational with that added racial dimension that's in the structural design. It is hard on us because we use "race" to communicate in the world. Things still happen to us as a racial group, even at the blending edges. Our using race as a self empowerment tool is hindered by the internet.