Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging technologies can reinforce White supremacy and deepen social inequity.

Benjamin argues that automation, far from being a sinister story of racist programmers scheming on the dark web, has the potential to hide, speed up, and deepen discrimination while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to the racism of a previous era. Presenting the concept of the "New Jim Code," she shows how a range of discriminatory designs encode inequity by explicitly amplifying racial hierarchies; by ignoring but thereby replicating social divisions; or by aiming to fix racial bias but ultimately doing quite the opposite. Moreover, she makes a compelling case for race itself as a kind of technology, designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice in the architecture of everyday life.

This illuminating guide provides conceptual tools for decoding tech promises with sociologically informed skepticism. In doing so, it challenges us to question not only the technologies we are sold but also the ones we ourselves manufacture.

Visit the book's free Discussion Guide here.

Author: Ruha Benjamin
Publisher: Polity Press
Published: 06/17/2019
Pages: 172
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781509526406

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 06/14/2019 pg. 1
Choice 06/01/2020

About the Author

Ruha Benjamin is Associate Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University