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Race after technology : abolitionist tools for the New Jim Code / Ruha Benjamin.

By: Publisher: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2019Copyright date: ©2019Description: x, 285 pages : illustrations ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781509526390
  • 1509526390
  • 9781509526406
  • 1509526404
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Online version:: Race after technology.DDC classification:
  • 23 303.48/330973
Contents:
Engineered inequity -- Default discrimination -- Coded exposure -- Technological benevolence -- Retooling solidarity, reimagining justice.
Summary: "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. Far from a sinister story of racist programmers scheming on the dark web, Benjamin argues that automation has the potential to hide, speed, and even deepen discrimination, while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to 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 tool a technology designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice that is part of the architecture of everyday life. This illuminating guide into the world of biased bots, altruistic algorithms, and their many entanglements provides conceptual tools to decode 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 manufacture ourselves"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Date due Barcode
Book - training Training Library Non-fiction 303.48 Ben (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available

Includes bibliographical references (pages 240-273) and index.

Engineered inequity -- Default discrimination -- Coded exposure -- Technological benevolence -- Retooling solidarity, reimagining justice.

"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. Far from a sinister story of racist programmers scheming on the dark web, Benjamin argues that automation has the potential to hide, speed, and even deepen discrimination, while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to 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 tool a technology designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice that is part of the architecture of everyday life. This illuminating guide into the world of biased bots, altruistic algorithms, and their many entanglements provides conceptual tools to decode 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 manufacture ourselves"-- Provided by publisher.