Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code is a 2019 non-fiction book by Dr. Ruha Benjamin. Benjamin is a trained sociologist and anthropologist and professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. Race After Technology received several awards, including the Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award (2020) from the American Sociological Association Section on Race & Ethnic Minorities; Honorable Mention for the Communications, Information, Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) Book Award (2020); and the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize for Nonfiction (2020). Race After Technology is about what Benjamin calls “the New Jim Code.” These are new technologies framed as benign and pure but that reinforce, perpetuate, and accelerate social inequities. The book explores the forms that this coded inequity takes and offers practical suggestions for combatting it. This study guide refers to the 2019 Polity Press edition. Please note that this guide references police violence.

Plot Summary

In the introduction, Benjamin explores the social and political implications of names. Job applicant filtering technologies frequently dismiss applicants with Black names, an example of the “New Jim Code,” where technologies that appear objective reproduce, reinforce, and speed up social inequities. In the names of diversity and multiculturalism, some algorithms tailor content to viewers. However, this can also target them for hyper-surveillance by law enforcement. Benjamin insists that race is itself a technology for injustice and asks us to consider the human consequences of unchecked technological advancement.

Chapter 1: “Engineered Inequity: Are Robots Racist?” describes the overwhelmingly white results of a 2016 international beauty contest judged entirely by artificial intelligence. When designers’ bias gets into technology, it can have broader consequences in areas like healthcare or prison. Chapter 2 also describes how robots can reproduce human biases the more we program them to be like us. Benjamin suggests we be conscious of race when designing AI, as well as considering how optimizing technologies for some can lead to worse experiences for others. Because people’s lives are so affected by technological innovation, we must be more mindful about the technology we design.

Chapter 2: “Default Discrimination: Is the Glitch Systemic?” explores how glitches, though perceived as small errors, reflect widespread social biases. Glitches in predictive policing software, for instance, have made incorrect predictions that overestimate criminality in Black and Latinx communities. Architectural design has also historically reinforced social hierarchies. While design may intentionally or unintentionally target certain populations, these inequities affect everyone. Far from pure, glitches in algorithms are indicative of greater systemic issues.

Chapter 3: “Coded Exposure: Is Visibility a Trap?” describes the discriminatory ways that technology has rendered Black people both invisible and hypervisible. Some technologies are designed without Black people in mind, leading to unequal access. On the other hand, some excessively target Black people, like the Polaroid ID2’s enhanced flash feature designed to better photograph Black South Africans for passbooks that restricted their movement during apartheid. Being hypervisible means being stereotyped. Between eugenics, forensic DNA, and facial recognition, the government has weaponized new technologies for surveillance and control. 

Chapter 4: “Technological Benevolence: Do Fixes Fix Us?” explores how tech fixes to social issues often reproduce other inequities. For example, ankle bracelets “solve” prison overcrowding by extending the reach of the surveillance state. Likewise, technologies designed to predict which communities have more medical need can negatively code these communities as costly and needy. Benjamin insists that we be vigilant against technological fixes that claim to address a social problem but present another dilemma.

In Chapter 5: “Retooling Solidarity, Reimagining Justice,” Benjamin encourages resistance to coded inequity. For example, virtual reality tech has been framed as a tool for empathy through perceiving someone else’s reality, but is inadequate because perception is more than seeing. Benjamin suggests that our solutions need not always come in the form of new, trendy design. She advocates for a more inclusive society and a slowing down of technological advancement to leave room for race-conscious design. Activist groups like Data for Black Lives fight for data justice and encourage a democratization of data. Benjamin insists that we not be distracted by new technologies. Instead, we should explore alternatively creative methods for abolishing the New Jim Code and building just systems.