Along with making life for grocery workers unhappy, and making paying customers do work that should be done by checkers and baggers, self-checkout machines, which are in the same economic category as shareholders (useless and/or detrimental), entirely lack something that many humans at checkout stations (and also around the city and country) have: black English. The machines can speak in Spanish, true, but when it comes down to the main language of the US, it is, like so many other talking and announcement machines, white American. And so the removal of humans from the checkout experience is also the removal of black and other forms of English. The more machines that enter a supermarket, the more white English we hear. Why isn't there an option for black English on any of these machines?

I'm writing a long piece about self-checkout technology and would very much like to talk to people who have worked or are working in a business that uses them. Please e-mail me at charles@thestranger.com. Your identity will be protected.