Race After Technology Book Club

Last updated on December 7, 2021

In Race After Technology, Ruha Benjamin explores the concept of race as a technology and how business as usual results in racism. She challenges us to consider our norms and the structures of our society, companies and industries. Although most of the examples feature the US, Benjamin draws on examples from around the world, including the UK, Kuwait, India, China, to highlight how technical fixes and advancements encode inequity and injustice.

There are five chapters:

1. Engineered Inequity – Are Robots Racist?
2. Default Discrimination – Is the Glitch Systemic?
3. Coded Exposure
4. Technological Benevolence – Do Fixes Fix Us?
5. Retooling Solidarity, Reimagining Justice

Racism in Technical Solutions and Applications

In five short chapters, Benjamin explores how the class-avoidant, color-blind, gender-neutral approach to technology development and use further marginalizes and discriminates against the same people who are already disadvantaged in our society. This happens in image recognition, natural language processing, video game and board games design, medical diagnosis and social media filtering.

“… the default Whiteness of tech development, superficial corporate diversity efforts and the prioritization of efficiency over equity work together to ensure that innovation produces social containment.”

p. 98

Benjamin masterfully weaves a narrative that shows how Black people can be both underexposed and overexposed in racist systems and applications so that racism and marginalization are normalized. Furthermore, she demonstrates the importance of questioning seemingly benign technological systems and processes. If we insist on using predictive tools and technological solutions, we need to anticipate the impact. There are countless examples where social bias is embedded in technological systems; good intentions are no insulation from negative impact.

“… those who design the world according to their own values and biases are using “the rhetoric of “inclusion” as progressive veneer for deeply discriminatory practices.”

p. 115

To understand the negative impact of technical fixes and innovations, Benjamin presents countless examples of the disconnect between intent and impact. I found it incredible how often organizations, individuals and companies plead surprise in the face of racist outcomes. Race After Technology provides an opportunity to learn from the shortcomings of technical fixes and innovations in the past so that there really is a chance for innovation.

“[Tech fixes] offer pragmatic inclusion in place of political and social transformation.”

p. 156

Looking at Design and Design Thinking

The discussion in this book is mostly, but not exclusively, about technology. A term that was new to me is “hostile architecture”, which is the deliberate design of architectural elements to segregate people. Benjamin shares how the designers of neighborhoods and bridges may seek to segregate people within various communities.

I am very interested in the section on design thinking and its pitfalls. In my last years of teaching, design thinking was used everywhere in the school, from teacher workshops to rethinking the design of the school. There was no conversation about whether design thinking was the best approach. Benjamin cautions that design thinking prioritizes particular ways of knowing and “designers” over those who do the work.

“It is not simply that design thinking wrongly claims newness, but in doing so it erases the insights and agency of those who are discounted because they are not designers ….”

p. 179

Organizing a Book Club

The best way to read this book is with other people. I initially started it on my own and then spent months waiting for a friend to catch up. Finally, this moment generated more interest and 5 of my female friends expressed interest in reading and discussing the book. The 13 hours time range in our time zones was no deterrent.

Book Club Format

The book club met weekly for 6 weeks to discuss the book. In our initial gathering, we discussed our format and the introduction. Then we met weekly over the following 5 weeks, focusing on one chapter each time we met. As the facilitator for the book club, I read each chapter one week ahead to prepare some prompts that participants could use to think about the content. These prompts were an optional resource and we didn’t have to answer the questions unless we wanted to. You can find all the prompts in this study guide, which is a work in progress. Please let me know if you use it, and share any refinements back.

In each gathering, we started off by sharing our overall impression of the chapter, highlighting anything that struck us and why. Then I picked questions from the prepared list to generate discussion. We sometimes expanded on the content of the books with current events examples and those from our personal lives. No one had to answer any of the questions.

Different Possible Configurations

I appreciated how open and honest everyone was in our conversations. I felt comfortable doing so because we hold similar ideas about justice and equity. When there were instances where we didn’t understand something from the book, we could say that to each other. Sometimes, we gained understanding = through the explanation of someone else. We wanted to understand the issues, having already accepted that structural racism exists.

I would have felt less comfortable in a group of strangers or with casual acquaintances. That is not to say that these configurations can’t be an effective way of reading the book with others. However, I think the energy of the gatherings could potentially be different in that case. If you try it out, please share your experience.

Critical Inquiry

I think you should read Race After Technology. As you prepare to read the book, you can start noticing where inequities and injustices exist in your communities. Benjamin observes that we lack the language to challenge power dynamics, for example, underserved is a word while overserved is not. Also, you can start thinking about structural racism versus individual racism and where it shows up in society.

I said earlier that it’s a short book, and that’s true, but it’s also dense, full of references to media and current events. Race After Technology is actually a vehicle to additional opportunities to notice the inequities and injustices in our world.

One thing we’re still grappling with is how to be part of the transformation that we’d like to see in the world. Donations are one way because there are people doing the work, who have the expertise that my book club members and I do not. But we’re also trying to keep our eyes open so that we can challenge racism and discrimination in the spaces we inhabit. Reading the book is the easy part.

Possible Next Steps

The study guide that I created is incomplete. Feel free to develop it further if you use it for your book club. Other possible useful guides include:

• Conversations for the dinner table
• Conversations for everyday life
• Questions to make this more personal/extend to local environments and communities