Copyright © Ruha Benjamin 2019
The right of Ruha Benjamin to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2019 by Polity Press
Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
101 Station Landing
Suite 300
Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2643-7
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Benjamin, Ruha, author.
Title: Race after technology : abolitionist tools for the new Jim code / Ruha Benjamin.
Description: Medford, MA : Polity, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018059981 (print) | LCCN 2019015243 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509526437 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509526390 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509526406 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Digital divide--United States--21st century. | Information technology--Social aspects--United States--21st century. | African Americans--Social conditions--21st century. | Whites--United States--Social conditions--21st century. | United States--Race relations--21st century. | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Demography.
Classification: LCC HN90.I56 (ebook) | LCC HN90.I56 B46 2019 (print) | DDC 303.48/330973--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018059981
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Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
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All my life I’ve prided myself on being a survivor.
But surviving is just another loop …
I should constantly remind myself that the real leap
consists in introducing invention into existence …
In the world through which I travel,
I am endlessly creating myself …
I, the [hu]man of color, want only this:
That the tool never possess the [hu]man.
I spent part of my childhood living with my grandma just off Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles. My school was on the same street as our house, but I still spent many a day trying to coax kids on my block to “play school” with me on my grandma’s huge concrete porch covered with that faux-grass carpet. For the few who would come, I would hand out little slips of paper and write math problems on a small chalkboard until someone would insist that we go play tag or hide-and-seek instead. Needless to say, I didn’t have that many friends! But I still have fond memories of growing up off Crenshaw surrounded by people who took a genuine interest in one another’s well-being and who, to this day, I can feel cheering me on as I continue to play school.
Some of my most vivid memories of growing up also involve the police. Looking out of the backseat window of the car as we passed the playground fence, boys lined up for police pat-downs; or hearing the nonstop rumble of police helicopters overhead, so close that the roof would shake while we all tried to ignore it. Business as usual. Later, as a young mom, anytime I went back to visit I would recall the frustration of trying to keep the kids asleep with the sound and light from the helicopter piercing the window’s thin pane. Like everyone who lives in a heavily policed neighborhood, I grew up with a keen sense of being watched. Family, friends, and neighbors – all of us caught up in a carceral web, in which other people’s safety and freedom are predicated on our containment.
Now, in the age of big data, many of us continue to be monitored and measured, but without the audible rumble of helicopters to which we can point. This doesn’t mean we no longer feel what it’s like to be a problem. We do. This book is my attempt to shine light in the other direction, to decode this subtle but no less hostile form of systemic bias, the New Jim Code.