I've recently come across, and perhaps you have too, the viral video demonstrating the difference between Google Imagine "Three black teenagers" and "three white teenagers".
https://www.yahoo.com/news/google-three-black-teenagers-vs-144900921.html
Whilst the white teenagers are smiley and freshly dry-cleaned, the black teenagers are almost exclusively mugshots. This highlights some pretty big issues are going on.
Firstly, there's the Eurocentricism of the search and how it reinforces negative stereotypes of black individuals. It reinforces Othering as white = good, black = bad.
Secondly, and perhaps more subtly, this search raises the question why are there so many black teenagers who have mugshots? I'm sure there are just as many white mugshots out there, but considering the populations of each group, the proportion of black teenagers who have been in trouble with the law is much bigger. Some of the mugshots in the search belong to those who have been acquitted, they aren't even all criminals but their faces are used to represent them as such. Why is this? Because of institutional racism. Because 'white is right' and any white kid who commits a crime is 'mentally unwell' or has just made a mistake when a black kid who didn't want to get shot is a criminal. The same thing is occurring with the Stanford rape case There's no way that would have gotten similar media coverage if Turner was black. No. Way.
Anyway...
A question has been raised following this viral video, Is Google racist?
Yes. By putting forward these images, Google reinforces negative stereotypes. Anyone who didn't know better would assume black people are dangerous thugs and second class citizens. However, why does Google put these forward? I think Yahoo puts it best,
'Is Google racist? Yes — but only because we are. '
I saw this video the other day too and literally couldn't believe that this exists! I do appreciate though that the people who were part of the video were African American, making it known to society that they can laugh at the stupidity and ignorance of it. They way the show it in the video tells people that African Americans know that they are seen to be harmful and criminals in the media but are just stereotyped to be that way. Completely agree with your point that we, as a society, perpetuate the idea of racism and reinforce it, which means we can't really blame Google as much as we think!
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