Race after Technology

Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

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Ruha Benjamin: Race after Technology (2019, Polity Press)

172 pages

English language

Published Jan. 16, 2019 by Polity Press.

ISBN:
978-1-5095-2643-7
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4 stars (1 review)

3 editions

Race after Technology

4 stars

Benjamin's work is a powerful overview of the ways in which technology--which can give the appearance of "neutrality"--actually serves to reinforce existing inequalities. The examples given in this book are profoundly disturbing (an AI-driven beauty contest picks nearly all white winners), and point to the ways in which technology obscures underlying power structures. Technological solutions to problems involve choices, and Benjamin argues that we need a better understanding of how those choices are made and whose interests they are serving.

Subjects

  • Information technology
  • United states, race relations
  • Whites
  • African americans, social conditions
  • United states, social conditions, 21st century