S2E9: Race, Technology and Abolition - A Conversation with Ruha Benjamin

Race is coded into every aspect of our technological lives, from automatic soap dispensers to Zoom calls. In this episode, host Christen Smith sits down with Prof. Ruha Benjamin of Princeton University to her work on racial coding, how racism and technology work hand in hand, and what we can do to create abolitionist futures despite this racism. Ruha Benjamin is Associate Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, author of the award-winning book Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019), and founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, which brings together students, activists, artists, and educators to develop a critical and creative approach to data justice. Ruha is also the author of People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (2013) and editor of Captivating Technology: Race, Technology, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life (2019), among numerous other publications. Ruha Benjamin's website: https://www.ruhabenjamin.com Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab: https://www.thejustdatalab.com/about-the-lab

Om Podcasten

The Cite Black Women podcast is a periodic program with a simple message: Cite Black Women. We have been producing knowledge since we blessed this earth. We theorize, we innovate, we revolutionize the world. We do not need mediators. We do not need interpreters. It's time to disrupt the canon. It's time to upturn the erasures of history. It's time to give credit where credit is due. This bi-weekly podcast features reflections and conversations about the politics and praxis of acknowledging and centering Black women’s ideas and intellectual contributions inside and outside of the academy through citation. Episodes feature conversations with Black women inside and outside of the academy who are actively engaged in radical citation as praxis, quotes and reflections on Black women's writing, conversations on weathering the storm of citational politics in the academy, decolonizing syllabi and more. For more information about our project follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @citeblackwomen and access our website at citeblackwomencollective.org #CiteBlackWomen Producer and Host: Christen Smith Co-producer: Michaela Machicote Audio Engineer: Lydia Fortuna