I had the opportunity recently to attend a solidarity rally in support of the Charleston 9 at First A.M.E. Church in Seattle. The room, though packed and sweltering, was filled with an overwhelming sense of a community unifying for change. It was powerful.

Among the speakers was Dr. Sheley Secrest with the Seattle- King County NAACP. Dr. Secrest’s work focuses on economic development, and she spoke of a meeting at Boeing in the wake of significant recent layoffs. When she asked about data on who was being laid off – by race, hire date, and so on – she was told “Boeing doesn’t track that information.”

For me, Dr. Secrest’s observation resonated as another example of data (or in this case, its absence) being used as a weapon. In The Current we recently reflected on the weaponization of data as part of a conversation with our friends and colleagues, Vu Le and Dr. Jondou Chen. Data can be weaponized, as well as the absence of data – and in some ways, this latter form is more insidious.

When we don’t have data on who’s getting laid off and who’s getting arrested, which students are being disciplined in school and which are ending up in foster care or homeless – we don’t fully understand the problems, and thus we can’t act as effectively to solve them.

Refusing to collect data (or ignoring the need for it) is another way of denying that the problem exists. If data is available, at the very least all sides can engage in conversation about it. It’s not a panacea, and we may disagree about how to interpret it or whether it’s flawed or incomplete, but at least there is some common ground. In this way, data can be a tool to raise awareness and empower change from within communities through illuminating their stories.

Black lives matter – and as Dr. Secrest pointed out, if black lives are to matter, they have to count (and be counted). When we intentionally fail to gather data on issues affecting inequality, that failure perpetuates injustice.

Unfortunately, this lack of data is widespread across a number of social issues. Gender inequality is another. To shed light on the lack of gender data, the Bread for the World Institute created an amazing interactive data tool that makes such unavailable information “visible” so that you can visualize the missing data on gender worldwide. Again, because data is unavailable, the pressing issues women encounter are often missing from the picture.

So what do we do about it? A good place to start is to get in the habit of asking the data question. In a discussion about a social problem, make data part of the picture. If data that would illuminate the issue doesn’t exist or isn’t publicly available, ask why – and push for that to change. If you have other thoughts, we’d love to hear them – leave us a comment!