Black Americans’ Mobility Trap

BlackEconomics.org®

A Research Analysis Brief

Introduction

Young and old Black Americans are enjoying increased access to a wide range of communications tools that enable mobility: e.g., Laptop and handheld computers and telephones (I-Phones and Androids). The ease of communication and the volume of economic/commercial and social engagement made possible by these devices renders them to be near life essentials.

However, the duality of our world can be brought into stark relief when those seemingly wonderful devices that enable mobility are turned on us and stampede in our direction like a herd of wild elephants. Suddenly, the reach and inter- and intra-industry connectivity associated with these devices can place a lock on our lives and produce a very troublesome situation. The extent of the pain may depend solely on the extent to which we have or have not permitted all or most of the available information about our assets (nonfinancial and financial and tangible and intangible) to become resident on our mobile devices.

This Research Analysis Brief (RAB) presents a set of partly uncontrolled and partly research-oriented events that transpired over a few weeks in Honolulu, Hawaii during the Spring of 2025. While reading about these events, it will become transparent that life can/could devolve quickly from a reasonable level of comfort, confidence, and assurance to a state of discomfort, little basis for confidence, and severe uncertainty.

For most Black and White Americans, the events that are described herein may remain irrelevant during their entire lifetimes. Conversely, there could be random information and communications technology-related events that make life miserable. And if, by chance, we step to the wrong side of the field because of our political or economic leanings, then we may be thrust on to, and strapped into, a rollercoaster that has the speeds, lifts and falls, upturning and descending curves, and tunnels that force us to revisit our lunchtime or breakfast meals. Importantly, the time and effort that we expend to reorder our world after a cyber attack/intrusion may very well prevent us from attending to even more important matters that require our attention.

This RAB takes us into the nature of information and communications technology system nightmares, explores many of the related details, and outlines selected structural reasons for these horrid experiences. We conclude with suggestions about how we can consider addressing these pernicious events.

The Nightmare

The nightmare can begin, as it did for us, by noticing that our mobile device (I-Phone) and our interfacing Lenovo 7i laptop computer exhibited certain “behaviors” (suspicious inter- and intra-file cursor movements and difficulty controlling use of the cursor). By the time we believed strongly enough that an intruder had gained access to our devices, we came to comprehend quickly the import of the situation and knew that it would just be a matter of time before intruders would likely attempt to conduct a total crash of our handheld and laptop devices.

Some experts may argue that there is no need to worry about such an event because everything should be backed up in a “Cloud.” Theoretically, this is true. However, Black Americans are the products of too many unsavory experiences where our invaluable intellectual and artistic properties (literary, musical, artistic, and design works) have been pilfered by those least suspected of doing so. An informed guess is that, for a variety of reasons, the proportion of Black American Internet users have “trust” issues for the just-mentioned reason and do not backup their valuable information in a Cloud. We are not encouraging or discouraging distrust of a service offered by companies whose primary interest is optimizing their bottom lines. But it is simple logic to conclude that if information is valuable, then it is important to protect it by duplicating original files in some alternate forms and places—possibly at multiple locations. Of course, it is important to keep in mind that security breaches can be nearly inevitable. We hear about them all the time in the press.

The following are selected informational points and events that we experienced and/or researched that serve as a warning concerning the possibilities for cyber information and communications systems that are not designed with individuals’ wellbeing in mind. We will not include here all of our—or others’—recommended responses to these events. However, readers should absorb and ponder them and determine what courses of action they might take when confronted with such a turn of events. First, a few informational points:

• Know that the global current information and communications technology system is designed to individuate and separate persons with the goal of making each member of the population operate as lone souls and only with connectivity to commercial authorities. But even if these commercial authorities say that they respond to government, in reality they only respond to oligarchs and plutocrats who control highly valued corporations. We see increasing evidence of this daily under the current US Presidential Administration as reports abound about the awarding of benefits under seeming indirect “pay for benefit” arrangements.
• Under normal circumstances, it is likely a random event if we experience a significant and troublesome intrusion in our information and communications technology system unless we are singled out for attack by authorities because our work is viewed as orthogonal to their agenda. In other words, if we seek to countervail the status quo by providing goods or services that will bring persons together to improve our wellbeing in a way that is undesired by the authorities, then we may find ourselves under attack. The extent and duration of such an attack will likely depend on our willingness to concede to the authorities. Do not be surprised that the only way to avoid these attacks is by halting our efforts or relocating to resume our work elsewhere. Otherwise, our family members and friends may awaken to a notification concerning a dramatic change in our health condition or concerning our demise.
• The major and minor corporate providers of information and telecommunications technology services may appear independent, but they all operate at the discretion and under the oversight of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), whose leadership is connected with the oligarchs and plutocrats that head corporate operations in the nation and around the world.
• Without any in depth analysis of fundamental flaws in the nation’s communications (mainly Internet) system, suffice it to say that those in academia, industry, and government, who decided to open the Internet for business in the late 1980s and early 1990s, must have or should have known that the Internet would become a platform for nearly untold economic activity over time: Both productive and destructive economic activity. But we should never forget that the current global economic system remains “alive and growing” primarily due to global adherence to economist’s Joseph Schumpeter’s theory of “Creative Destruction.”(i) That is, economic activity can result from the production of new and favorable goods and services, but it can also result from destructive processes that are precursors to rebuilding processes.(ii)
• Those who introduced the world to the Internet and captured nearly all of us in the World Wide Web, must have, or should have, known from the outset that it would also result in untold expenditures to solve problems created by the very vehicle that was said to make life easier. Today, trillions of dollars (an estimated $9.5 trillion during 2024 as reported by Cybersecurity Ventures) are expended annually to “secure” Internet operations, and to clean up disastrous crises that occur because the Internet can be a place for horrific, yet “bloodless and physically nonviolent” confrontations between nations (governments), firms, and individuals.(iii) For individuals, when such a confrontation occurs, it can be an almost unwinnable battle because of the overlapping operational arrangements that exist between aspects of information and communications technology systems, the companies that offer the related services, and the government itself. In fact, each of the three innovation helices (academia, industry, and government) are duty bound to preserve the status quo irrespective of inherent problems/shortcomings within information and communications technology systems so that they can continue to operate on an uninterrupted basis and produce economic returns.

We pause here to reinforce the idea that, if you view your ongoing efforts—whatever they may be—to be valuable, and if others come to the same conclusion, or if your efforts are deemed to be in opposition to the status quo, then you should make every effort to be as disconnected as possible from available but unsecured information and communications technology systems. At the same time, if you believe your efforts confront the status quo, but you now experience no blowback, then it signals that your efforts are not radical enough and/or you should prepare rapidly for a forthcoming attack. It does not matter that your efforts are consistent with the letter of US law.

Also, what may be somewhat surprising is that instead of expending tremendous resources to develop and produce very complex information and communications technology systems, it may have been possible to expend less time, energy, and resources to awaken within humans our capacity to operate as efficient and very effective “communications devices.”(iv) But adopting the latter course of action would countervail oligarchs’ and plutocrats’ interests and eliminate an important source of their wealth and that of their corporations and the governments that they control. Also, if we focus on, and dedicate resources to, advancing innate human capacities, we could increase human wellbeing by opening opportunities for all of us to experience a full life and growth and expansion of our internal human information and communications technology systems.

Nightmare Details

We provide details concerning events and activities that typically constitute the substance of information and communications technology nightmares.

• For no apparent reason, your information and communications technology device (henceforth, your device) is hacked. An intruder and/or some virus/ malware enter your device(s). For the remainder of this RAB, we will focus on the former. As for the latter, malware, key options are to hire an expert or learn how to “clean your device” and begin anew—if that is possible. You may also confront the acquisition of a new device. As already noted, information (data) on an infiltrated/compromised device will only be accessible in the desired (original) form if it has been replicated and available in some location other than the device itself.
• When an intrusion occurs, individuals may face a variety of challenges due to the configuration of their information and communications technology system. The complexity of actions required to end the intrusion depends directly on the number and type of devices that constitute the system. If just one mobility (say a cellular telephone) device is involved, then efforts to resolve the crisis are constrained. However, if one has an interlocking set of integrated devices (a telephone, a computer, a physical security device (camera), and other types of devices), then resolution of the crisis is deepened and made more problematic.
• If only a telephone is involved, then the most logical action is to pay an expert or learn how to clean the telephone so that it is no longer accessible to a culprit directly or via the Internet. This potentially includes a total reset of the device, and replacement of elements that enabled access in the first place: i.e., obtaining a new SIM card and replacing all the software associated with telephone operations (including Internet access) on the device. In a phrase, one may find it best to simply retire the compromised device and purchase a new device.
• If multiple and integrated devices are involved, then the previous advice is relevant. However, the time, energy, effort, and financial resources required to complete a resolution of the crisis is amplified. The amplification is greater to the extent that you seek to replace a system that is understood to be of the “high-quality” (high-priced) variety.
• As you undertake a process of resolving the crisis (an intrusion), your level of anxiety will be elevated significantly with worry about the location of your device(s), the possessor of your valuable information, and concerning mainly physical and/or financial injury that might be imposed by the crisis. The sleepless nights, the sickening feeling that accompanies a personal and unwelcomed intrusion, the violation of your person, and your inability to “fix” the problem efficiently (time- and cost-wise) can take their toll. You may fall back into your usual routines after resolving the crisis: However, you will be forever changed by it.(v)

Structural Reasons for the Nightmare

We have described the background, circumstances, and events that characterize an information and communications technology system under which hypothetical or actual crises may arise. Now we turn to the structural reasons why these crises arise and what empowered individuals can and/or should do to alleviate them.

• As already noted, all equipment, intellectual property, and operational procedures that are associated with the nation’s information and communications technology system operate at the discretion of the FCC and of related state-level public utility commissions (the regulators). Consequently, entities operating under that system must be guilty of egregious acts before they are likely to be sanctioned or their operations halted. Unfortunately, the insecurity of information and communications technology systems is not the main concern of these regulators. Rather, regulators are concerned that operators follow guidelines that they establish to “minimize” well-known and existing problems in the system. The following are selected and important regulated aspects of the system that are problematic:
  • Consider that economists contend that it is wise to exploit economies of scale to ensure the provision of information and communications technology services at a cost-efficient price. That is large firms are a naturally occurring phenomenon for the provision of such services and they should be not only tolerated, but welcomed. (Of course, there was the very important decision to “break up” Bell Telephone in ~1984 to eliminate monopoly operations in a manner consistent with extant US Antitrust Laws).
  • Certain very large corporations that operate information and communications technology systems are unwieldy, and we believe that these firms may not operationalize sufficient measures to ensure the sanctity of their customers’ privacy by imposing special requirements on their employees to uphold the highest ethical standards.(vi)
  • Certain employees (in corporate versus noncorporate operations), who engage with customers on behalf of these very large information and communications technology companies work under compensation schemes that are likely to be insufficient to enable them to meet fully their basic needs, especially in high cost of living locations. These employees are, thereby, incentivized to potentially act in their own best interest and in the disinterest of customers. This could include the capture and exchange of customers’ information that can be leveraged domestically or internationally by rogue parties and to the great consternation and disbenefit of customers.
• Not enough trained experts in the information and communications technology field exist; therefore, it is nearly impossible for those charged with keeping the system “safe” to do so effectively and efficiently.
• Also, even if one can identify an information and communications technology system violation, most law enforcement agencies possess neither the personnel nor the resources required to respond to requests to resolve such violations and prevent, halt, or fully resolve a crisis.
• Given the purposeful lack of expertise in the field of information and communications technology, let alone the security thereof, fundamental aspects of the system are completely unknown to most of the population. Just as almost no consumer can explain the process by which the flipping of a light switch magically produces light, so it is with “plug and play” information and communications technology systems. Simply put, just as financial literacy should be taught at the earliest stages of the educational process, so should it be with fundamental aspects of information and communications technology systems and their security. Our youth need to more than we do about the world in which we live.
• Given that the field involves certain physical sciences and that Black Americans (Afrodescendants) are largely excluded from these fields, we are at the greatest disadvantage when it comes to preventing or avoiding crises that result from cybersecurity breaches of (intrusions into) our information and communications technology systems.
• Given the continued and relatively high locational/geographical concentration of Black Americans (Afrodescendants) in certain US urban areas (our areas of influence) we represent ready targets for bad actors, who wish to exploit us and place our lives in jeopardy using current information and communications technology systems.
• Black America’s opposers have designed information and communications technology systems to appear fair seeming. Accordingly, we over consume such technology and are wedded to it in ways that entrap us and make us exceedingly susceptible to the full range of associated potential benefits and problems. Our “addiction” to this technology makes it difficult to rid ourselves of its related problems by either abstaining from it altogether or by focusing on designing alternative technology that can truly meet our needs in favorable ways. Interestingly, research by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation reveals that Black Americans, especially our elderly, are highly overrepresented among victims of cybercrimes.(vii)

In the introduction to this section of this important RAB we indicated that we would outline how Black Americans can respond to crises that result from our engagement with available information and communications technology systems. As is sometimes the case, statements of problems can reflect or infer complete or partial responses/solutions.

However, our concern about adverse outcomes for Black Americans, who engage with available information and communication technology systems, can only be resolved or negated in the current environment by a transformation of the personalities that develop, manage, and operate the systems. The problem is broader than information and communications technology systems. It is a fundamental problem rooted in today’s social system, which is widely known as a capitalist system.

However, Black Americans are well on our way to addressing capitalism as a way of life through the research of “Black Nationalist,” who urge us to move toward more communal systems in an environment that is independent of the thinking and ways of our opposers. Black Nationalists value and support “Afrikan” centric economic systems that feature the greater good for the total society (a leaning toward “welfare economics”); to include meeting the full range of society’s inherent needs. In other words, if Black Americans (Afrodescendants) do not awaken to our precarious predicament and opt for withdrawal from the broader nation and begin to shape our own society from the ground up, then we will suffer the pain, injurious indignities, and a suppressed level of wellbeing than would otherwise prevail. However, to the extent that we work to separate, build, and rededicate ourselves to producing a more favorable life on the planet, then we can achieve a high-level of success in not only resolving information and communications technology crises that are discussed in this RAB, but we will also be able to enjoy our Earth as a paradise that it is intended to be.

However, if we do not follow the just-described course, then we leave ourselves open to numerous potential injuries to include loss of income and wealth due to:

• Cyberfraud and theft that are associated with illegal access to financial assets—the records for which are maintained in the cybersphere.
• Royalties that accrue to stolen intellectual property that is seized illegally or whose ownership rights are muddied due to illegal access to cyber locations where this intellectual property resides.
• The theft of nonfinancial assets (especially residential property) when a cybercriminal executes an elongated set of strategies to gain access to real property and sells it without the notification of rightful owners.
• Incarceration when cybercriminals falsely implicate an individual as a criminal using the cybersphere.

We end this short list of potential methods that cybercriminals use to injure Internet users. Black Americans should hasten to educate ourselves concerning information and communications technology systems so that we can preserve our growing incomes and wealth. We can least afford to experience setbacks given our current position at the bottom of most socioeconomic metrics, including income and net worth. What doth it profiteth Black Americans to become millionaires, nay billionaires, as entrepreneurs, sports or artistic entertainers, or through the awarding of long-demanded and awaited Reparations, if significant amounts of that income or wealth is siphoned by cybercriminals. Given the current state of affairs, it could be that such cybercrime may go undetected for so long until when it is detected, the cybercriminals have already packed their bags, disappeared, only to reappear elsewhere to create HELL for unsuspecting individuals all over again.

Conclusion

This BlackEconomics.org RAB has brought a topic to the surface about which not much is heard in the course of everyday events. The nearly magical benefits of technology and artificial intelligence are widely touted, with seldom a word concerning pernicious problems that are wide ranging within certain technological systems broadly. In this case, we have discussed information and communications technology (mobility) systems and emphasized their nightmarish nature; how such nightmares unfold; structural reasons for the crises that these systems produce; along with the realization that a solution or resolution of such crises is tightly linked to a fundamental requirement to reorient our society from a Western World (capitalist) mentality to an “Afrikan” centric mind set.

Given Black America’s position as a nation within a larger nation, we resurrect calls for, and teachings of, great minds that appeared throughout our sojourn in America that directed us to extricate ourselves and depart from the larger society so that we can fashion our own nation and world that reflects the absence of the problems that produce the injury, pain, and suffering that Black Americans (Afrodescendants) now endure daily.

We must realize that conditions and situations that produce information and communications technology (mobility) crises are correctable/resolvable. However, we must exercise our faith (Imani) in our power to make this so. The Long-Term Strategic Plan for Black America is a starting point.

B Robinson
053025

Endnotes
i Joseph Schumpeter (1942). Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York. Harper: Harper and Brothers.
ii Note that consideration of destructive and related rebuilding efforts should not be constrained to tangible nonfinancial assets, but can also extend to intangible nonfinancial assets like “health” (our human capital). Concurring that “Our health is our wealth,” it is becoming increasingly transparent that all around the world, governments have permitted corporations to sell “foods” that are poisonous to the human body for consumption (a destructive process), and then taxed the polity to organize financial resources to provide medical care for those who cannot pay for their medical treatment, and for those who do not qualify for “free or near free” medical care to also pay directly for their own healthcare. One might argue that all of this is imposed in the interest of minimizing the nation’s unemployment. However, in our view, it is consistent with a May 27, 2025 New York Times front page opinion piece, “Sports Stadiums Are Monuments to the Poverty of Our Ambitions.” In other words, the nation’s economic planners’ willingness to practice “Creative Destruction” with respect to our own voter-taxpayer-citizens’ health, is a “monument” (sign) that a dearth of creativity exists in our society. Accordingly, we echo Prof. Na’im Akbar’s contention that the Western World has always had difficulty generating truly new, productive, and favorable ideas. We should all ask: How far has our society descended when we purposely permit the imposition of injury, pain, and suffering on our fellow humans just to ensure that the economic wheels of society continue turning? Of course, given the focus at BlackEconomics.org, we would be egregiously remiss if we did not remind you that Black Americans are very much overrepresented among those who incur the disbenefits of being destroyed health-wise and undergoing rebuilding/reconstruction efforts—too often unsuccessfully.
iii Steve Morgan (2024). “2024 Cybersecurity Almanac.” Cybercrime Magazine. June 24; https://cybersecurityventures.com/cybersecurity-almanac-2024/ (Ret. 052925).
iv Ancient “Afrikan” culture, lore, and science point to our ancestors’ development of human and nonhuman tools to communicate efficiently and effectively across great distances without having to build—as firms do today—separate infrastructure systems to facilitate speedy and clear communications around the globe. However, today’s scientists only concede that such communications capacity, to the extent that it existed or exists, operates on a nonmaterial plane. Most of today’s scientists have not concurred definitively on the scientific nature of telepathy.
v Interestingly, a cybercrime victim may also be injured in connection with efforts to resolve an information and communications crises using temporary “pre-paid telephones.” It appears logical to acquire prepaid communications devices for temporary use while working to address the crisis. We believe that all major telephone carriers include prepaid devices in their inventory of items for sale, and other producers of prepaid telephones and airtime service plans are sold by certain big box retailers. However, these prepaid communications devices can be fraught with their own set of problems. Our experience with acquiring prepaid communications devices is restricted to purchases from two big box retailers. (Neither prepaid telephone production companies nor big box sellers of these products are named here). The following are statements about how the acquisition and use of prepaid telephones proved to be problematic from our perspective:

• The producers and sellers of prepaid telephone equipment and the related “airtime” rights to use telephone services appear to be small operators (receipts and capital assets wise) when compared with behemoth-like major telephone carriers. Therefore, our experience is that the former wittingly or unwittingly appear to organize sales so that unnecessary confusion can reign and delays can occur before these devices and their airtime plans are fully activated for use. We believe that such delays help generate receipts that are not matched immediately by related costs. Therefore, depending on circumstances, this revenue-expense timing mismatch can enable the earning of non-trivial returns for these producers even if they can only invest mismatched funds in REPO securities.
• Because big box retailers may have little incentive to ensure that members of their sales teams are fully informed about the nature, proper activation, and successful use of these prepaid communications devices and their airtime plans, consumers who purchase these devices and plans may be literally “left to their own devices” after purchasing these products. Consumers may be left to struggle alone reading and interpreting websites, seeking answers to activation and operation questions through chat sessions, and engaging in telephone conversations with producers’ staff members who appear to be trained to adopt hard lines in favor of their employers, and to be as least forthcoming as possible. [An employee of one big box store from which we purchased a prepaid telephone and an airtime plan stated at the outset of our conversation leading up to the purchase (paraphrasing): “We just sell these products. Once you buy them, any concerns that you have must be resolved with the producer of these products.”]

vi Whether operating in corporate-owned or franchise stores of well-known and established information and communications companies (especially firms that sell communications devices and airtime plans), the compensation of employees of these firms may be tied directly to their sales. Accordingly, there are two important considerations:

(1) Is the compensation level sufficient for employees to support themselves adequately—especially in high cost of living locales. If the compensation is insufficient, then employees may form incentives to violate ethical principles by leveraging customers’ information to the former’s advantage and to the latter’s great disadvantage.

To our knowledge, certain firms in the industry require that the names of employees responsible for sales be recorded as part of the transaction information that enters the system. Hence, a starting point for investigating an information and communications technology crisis begins with the product sold by the firm; and afterwards, with the employee, who conducted the sale.

(2) Recording the names of employees responsible for conducting sales as part of the transaction record is not much of a security measure at all. A needy employee may come to believe that he/she has access to leverageable information (even if only temporarily) precisely because of their inconvenient position, and they may conclude that they are justified in leveraging a customers’ “information.” Such employees may come to benefit substantially not by direct, but by indirect, actions using customer information to which they have access. The employee may simply pass important customer information on to a wide range of bad actors and receive compensation in a variety of nearly undetectable forms.

It is worth noting that similar conditions also exist in other industries.
vii Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI, 2024). Internet Crime Complaint Report 2024. https://www.ic3.gov/AnnualReport/Reports/2024_IC3Report.pdf (Ret. 053025). While this report does not include statistics on crime victims by race and ethnicity, earlier FBI reports reflect Black Americans’ severe overrepresentation in crimes generally, and as victims of cybercrimes.