>Requiring that a utility provide equal service to everyone within a reasonable standard of feasibility is not racial discrimination.

That's right, but that's not what the rule says. The rule says that if your business decision, totally unbeknownst to you, has a disparate impact on a particular racial/ethnic/religious/income group, then you're in violation.

> totally unbeknownst to you

If you have enough data to reliably identify your most profitable neighborhoods, I guarantee that data tells you something about their demographics. Any ignorance of disparate impacts, whether on racial lines or wealth or anything else, is willful.

Mandating every business decision is made with a racialized lens is a path to rebuilding systemic racism, not a means to end it.

The FCC rule mentions several attributes, race being only one:

> The rules define “digital discrimination of access” as “Policies or practices, not justified by genuine issues of technical or economic feasibility, that (1) differentially impact consumers’ access to broadband internet access service based on their income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion or national origin, or (2) are intended to have such differential impact.” As the law requires, the FCC will consider arguments that legitimate business impediments preclude equal access to broadband service in particular communities.

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-398477A1.txt

I doubt people would have the same reaction if they realized it was primarily about income and not race. But everyone loves to talk about race.

That's not how this works. It's not about income any more than it is about race. Racial disparate impact is enough for the FCC to fine you to oblivion. The fact that it's listed after "income" does not change that.

First, let's be real here: it's not a mandate that every business decision be made with a racialized lens. It's a mandate that business decisions consider their potential impact on systemically disenfranchised groups that we no longer wish to have systemically disenfranchised.

I think your claim that this is a path to rebuilding systemic racism and not a means to end it is a misunderstanding of the "systemic" aspect of systemic racism. Because it is systemic, the system itself will naturally reinforce the impact of the racism unless significant counter forces are applied against it.

The fact that a business making decisions to deploy resources geographically to maximize revenue (for services that ought to have nothing to do with race) might reasonably worry that they might unintentionally lead to an impact that has a discernible racial bias, is a demonstration of exactly this phenomena.

So no, you're not going to end it by making decisions ignoring systemic disenfranchisement. To end it, you are definitely going to have to be mindful of how the system might have impacts that reflect (and thereby amplify) the bias of the system, not the decision.

If Kroger and political parties can get that information, they can get it too. They probably already have it.

I don't see the problem with this kind of affirmative action, but reasonable people could vote out the US administration that supports this if it's important to them.

There is no reason that a large corporation can't pay for a disparate impact study before prior to decisions.