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Speaker
Monday, May 3, 2021 - 16:00 to 17:30
Advance Registration Required: bit.ly/newjimcode
Categories:
Abstract:
From everyday apps to complex algorithms, technology has the potential to hide, speed, and deepen discrimination, while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to the racist practices of a previous era. In this talk, Ruha Benjamin, Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, presents the concept of the “New Jim Code” to explore a range of discriminatory designs that 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.
This presentation takes us into the world of biased bots, altruistic algorithms, and their many entanglements, and provides conceptual tools to decode tech promises with historical and sociological insight. Dr. Benjamin will also consider how race itself is a tool designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice and discuss how technology is and can be used toward liberatory ends. In doing so, she challenges us to question not only the technologies we are sold, but also the ones we manufacture ourselves.
Bio:
Ruha Benjamin is a Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Founding Director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, and author of the award-winning book “Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code,” among many other publications. Her work investigates the social dimensions of science, medicine, and technology with a focus on the relationship between innovation and inequity, health and justice, knowledge and power. Dr. Benjamin earned a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology from Spelman College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from UC Berkeley, and she completed postdoctoral fellowships at UCLA’s Institute for Society & Genetics and Harvard’s Science, Technology & Society Program. Dr. Benjamin is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including from the American Council of Learned Societies and National Science Foundation, the Marguerite Casey Foundation 2020 Freedom Scholar Award, and the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton. For more info, please visit www.ruhabenjamin.com.
Advance Registration Required: bit.ly/newjimcode
Co-Sponsored By:
American Studies Program, Science and Technology Studies, the Milstein Program in Technology & Humanity, Africana Studies & Research Center, Computing and Information Science, and Computer Science