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That is all the housekeeping. Now it is my pleasure to bring in doctor benjamin and doctor roberts, doctor benjamin is associate professor of africanamerican studies and author of the awardwinning book save after technology, tools for the new gym code and editor of leading technology and founder of labs that bring together students, activists, artists and educators to develop a creative approach to data justice. Doctor door 3 roberts is University Professor university of pennsylvania with the Loss Department of African Studies and sociology. She is also the founding director of the penn program on race, science and society, how science, politics recreate race in the 20 fifth century, race, reproduction and the meaning of liberty. Shadow bonds, the color of Child Welfare. Doctor benjamin and doctor roberts, thank you for being here, happy to be here with both of you. I will get right into it. I once to begin with history. Both of you have been critical in calling attention to the deeply rooted presence of races and objective fields like science and medicine, this presence has a long history especially in this century so i would love to hear about both of your entry points into these topics. I will take it off, thank you for that introduction and thanks to haymarket for hosting this and many other great programs on abolitionist leasing. It a special thrill to participate in this one with my brilliant friend and colleague, so knowing that we begin with stating our personal history, writing about policing in science and medicine, what was my entry into this topic and last night i woke up in the middle of the night realizing i had written on the topic of policing long before i ever acknowledged in public i had never spoken about this before. I dont know why it escaped me for so long. It was 40 years ago. As a thirdyear student in 19791980 in law school when i was 25 years old. I wrote my thesis on police surveillance. This morning i went down to the bowels of my basement and found the paper entitled wolves in sheeps clothing calling uncovering the role of police as political intelligence agents, submitted may of 1980 and accorded by criminal law and this administration. I dont think i looked at this paper for almost 40 years now and i want to read the purpose of the paper, my conclusion so i wrote the purpose of this paper is to present a critical analysis of the function of police in america by focusing on the role of political intelligence agents, at best intelligence operations have been ineffective and unrelated to the stated objective of, and and destruction of innocent lives outweigh any possible benefit. Than the 70 page paper on all the harm caused by police in political surveillance and concluded all the reforms were unrealistic and i wrote a realistic approach to the problem, how to acknowledge functions to maintain the present social order through repression of political defense because of his underlying purpose is repugnant to democratic government with devastating consequences, the institution should be abolished in all its forms. First time i ever used abolition in connection with policing but i was 23. Fascinating to me, they largely reflect my approach today. If we take a realistic honest look at the function and outcomes of policing we have to come to the conclusion that abolition is the only answer to the problem. After i graduated from law school i practiced and spent a number of years organizing a group of people who dont hear much today, grand jury, people who refuse to testify when they convene to cut political activists, basically they refuse to collaborate on the prison system. I became involved in that struggle when my former husband was detained as political prisoner in new york city in the early 1980s. I had at a young age and Early Education by fire about policing in prison. At the same time i became interested in reproductive justice. My entry was personal, justice activists i knew before the term was coined because i had my first at home attended exclusively in 1982,19841986 and there were two puerto rican sisters in harlem who were political activists that i met in my work and i connected to my awareness of the commercialization of medical practice and injustices in the Healthcare System and at the same time i was alarmed by the prosecution of black women for use in crack cocaine when pregnant and when i left Legal Practice to become a professor my first project was investigating policing and criminalization of black mothers for article challenging the constitutionality of prosecutions. I realize prosecutions were part of a broader history of state regulation to the present day and the policing of black mothers was crucial to reproductive and racial politics in america and i ended up writing blackbody which was foundational for my work for women of color activist movement for reproductive justice, black women organizing at the forefront. Join families living with protecting children that left to my second book with Child Welfare published on most 20 years ago in 2001. Began reading about scientific studies that was speaking to find ways at a level and searching for generic differences between races. I began to explore the origins of the biological concepts over the last 400 years and i wrote my latest book to explain white race was invented and why its resurgence in biotechnologies reinforces Structural Racism and white supremacy. Ill explain more as we go through the program. But all these projects are ways in which biological explanations of the order. These are reinforced by science, medicine and technology. And they make any quality with childbearing and parenting in particular have been made the scapegoats for social problems that are caused by Structural Racism. When people who are deemed to be naturally predisposed to bat outcomes is not only a way of justifying controlling them , but also a way to legitimize size oppressive systems like police, prisons and foster care. Host wow, should i jump in . [laughter] thank you so much for moderating and hay market for hosting. I just want to get some virtual flowers to dorothy who has, as you just got a glimpse sort of blazed this trail in the academy and community activism. Get to bask in the warmth of that trail that she has blazed. I was thinking i should have dug up a paper too. [laughter] as i was thinking about at first i was thinking in terms of entry points. Just growing up in a heavily policed neighborhood. I didnt want to insights and a side i already, two questions of police when they look at moderna from the underside, it was not a particular insight in a way of knowing a world that has been valuable to me. And so in terms of following these entry points, for me it really started an undergrad where i was looking and comparing medicine obstetrics and particular, the policing of childbirth there. Its heavily influence at that time by dorothys words and killing the black body. And really thinking about their relationship with tween authoritative report rooms not just who is harmed by it, but one who is benefiting, as a theme in terms of whats produced by oppressive systems. And then i was comparing obstetrics to black midwives and georges were then and even now it is outlawed. And thinking about what we have these oppressive systems were reimagining always there as part of the story how it connects to the story the police that policing happens behind the conversation is to identify and to identify the broader landscape of policing is ever to narrowly focus on one institution and be obvious they were going to miss a whole slew of other sites and logics. And allow policing to continue. And so for me bringing medicine into that is important because medicine is like the dew good profession. And so we think about policing on one end, medicine has a long history of racial violence embedded in it from its origin. So what tells us we find it there we should expect to find anywhere at the end of the dew getting profession. Which leads for my undergrad thesis that im trying to jot down the title i dorothy brought her paper, it was a classic sort of undergrad title. It was a moment of conception, racism, patriarchy and capitalism converge, that was it. [laughter] sewed like no subtlety. And i love it. So i went to looking at biotechnologies and looking at some of these questions. Think again what motivates me is to question things that we are not supposed to question. And so, if we think about science in a bubble or technology as it hovers above society. Like they dont have the right or power to question it. Even those impacting your life. If you dont have some provincial or specific expertis expertise, or somehow barred from raising questions about it. They are expertise is your experience with that technology or that medicine. That is the kind of knowledge that we have to give voice to. My first book was around biotechnologies. It was looking stem cell research. Its being those questions of power and inequality to bear on the emerging technologies around data scientists automated decision systems, and again its thinking about how racism and other systems of oppression are productive. That is its not simply who is harmed but who is benefiting, not only financially but in many other ways from the maintenance of these oppressive systems. Its about thinking about the relationship between race and technology in particular. Theres more and more time to think about the ethical impact of technology whose producing it when you tell that part of the story to. We talk about the black midwives the early part of my work and dorothys as well as really understanding that imagination is a terrain of struggle. Whose imagination rains . One way to understand the inequalities and injustices we see is that many people are forced to live inside someone elses imagination. And so when we think about the Digital World crafted force, the physical socialization of racism and equality, that is the materialization of someones imagination. Someones imagination. And part of demonstrative rising and the imposition of that imagination is also cultivating our own imaginary more liberatory imagination. In the imagination is not like an afterthought its about a luxury, its not something just for the privilege. It is a terrain of action. And we have to begin to struggle and work towards materializing a world in which we can all thriv thrive. Host wow, thank you both so much i love that. I think that really you both hit on a lot of points i would love to draw out. With that said, i guess on the system i want to talk about what Role Technology plays when it comes to Law Enforcement. And kind of what are some of the parks of the system that we are not seeing . Were seeing them brutal and violent work of the system all the time. But kind of whats going on behind that. Some of the places we may not be as familiar with there may not be seeing. So yeah. Guest yeah, just, we brought up this contract between medicine and Law Enforcement, the police. And i think its very interesting to think about how racism is built into predictive tools in different ways in both those domains. So we can think about racism and predictive algorithms and policing across multiple systems. In fact willing to think about how widespread policing is and how it takes so many different forms, is it think about the role of prediction and all of these different institutions. It helps you see they are all about policing people. They are not about helping people, even systems like the Child Welfare system. And the Healthcare System that is supposed to be benevolent and supportive are actually designed to police and punish people for the reasons we were saying whose hands are they . Whos imagining the world that these systems are about to facilitate . Its actually a world that is static or becomes more oppressive. But the point of it is to keep the status quo. Not to allow imagination of something more equal and humane. Its a way in which these predictive algorithms supports imagination for social change. Because they embed within them, existing inequality. So whether were talking about predictive algorithms with family regulation education of the current racial order is not so much how the technology themselves operate. The common purpose to facilitate who we think would marginalize people in order to do lots of different things. Deny them benefits, keep them away from resources, keep resources out of their hands free deny them, deny them freedom. Finally funneling them into prisons and Detention Centers. In medicine diagnostic algorithms ive adjusted those outputs because its acceptable to treat race as a biological change in medicine. Now in Law Enforcement, and happens in a different way built into the algorithms without an explicit mention of race as a factor. And so, theres all of these different ways that happen, but whats critical and its something that virginia eubanks points out in her book on algorithms and public assistance programs, maybe someone when help me im blanking on the name parts back automating inequality. Thank you. I reviewed the book i love the book. Its remembering all these things. Spent but she points out that in the past, the risky individuals were watched. They were identified and watched her theres this time of surveillance. New database surveillance, the target emerges from the data. So the people who are targeted are people who are already have been treated unequally the inequality is embedded in the data already so state agencies ability massive amount of data for the surveillance has transferred funds the predictions of the prediction today is even more than it was in the past, a way of maintaining a racist social order. And so now, reliance on these Big Data Analytics is critical to the expansion of the regime because the state same is to control population rather than to adjudicate individual guilt or innocence. It is a managing social inequality is not aiding people who are suffering from social inequalities. And so Risk Assessment is no longer about actually determining whether an individual is going to do something. Its about whether the individual belongs to a population that the state wants to manage. And so that is why you get some of these Law Enforcement databases and algorithms that are already predicting that toddlers are going to be gang members. They havent done anything to be a risk to anybody. But it is not their individual characteristics, it is that they are in a population that needs to be managed. That is what the prediction is all about. Also, big data and algorithms facilitate the States Mission but i want to point out and this goes back to some of what im saying in my introductory comments that racism has always been about predicting that making certain racial groups seem as if they are predisposed to doing bad things. And therefore justify controlling them. So race it self is a form of categorization that ranks people by supposedly in a trade that claim to predict their behavior and their character. And so the stereotypes have been justified or helped to justify a rationalized state control of whole groups of people based on their race. And said that is just some of the ways in which prediction operates across multiple institutions to make race seem as if itself is a predictive factor. So that it can be the basis of state control, state intervention, state and violence. All of these algorithm tools are based on the racist ideology that black race itself is a risk. Whether a time but the risk of disease, or the risk of criminality. It cuts across all of the seemingly very different domains that are tied together by this notion of prediction that just embeds and reinforces the current state of inequality. Thank you so much for that. I want to bring in doctor benjamin as well to talk about some of the things you mentioned and also maybe giving up like zeroing in on some of these technologies and giving us more on that. Absolutely. I cant emphasize the point dorothy made enough, the idea that even before you get into the hardware and software of technology, understanding race as a kind of Predictive Technology that historically has been used to control and subordinates rules up it doesnt matter if you dont understand the intricacies of some new hightech thing, you can understand your limited experience of being profiled and predicted against, what mistakes are in this conversation. With that i really hope, with this idea of the new jim crow understand that innovation goes hand in hand with containment. That often times we conflate innovation in terms of technology with social progress. But we have so much evidence to counter that conflation that we should understand it just as well produces new forms of containment. And by using this idea of the new its renaming the reality from the perspective of those who are harmed by all of these fancy new developments, right . After think about the marketing of one tool after another. And the promises embedded and the nays of these things. They really hide the reality from those who are harmed. So this is a way of understanding the power of naming. And naming things from a perspective that one experiences it. And so with that, i want to again think about the conversation last week was so crucial how their laid out how forms reproduce repression. Each reform because we are not really getting to the heart of it we are creating some new tweak and fix that does not tackle exactly what dorothy articulated. If we think about the history of this technology, the use of new tools and technology, that has always been part of the arsenal of oppression. I think about my colleague symone brown who was sort of laying out that social history. In one oldschool technologies were answered. And new york sitting having laws that force black people to carry around so they could be easily identified after dark. Thats like part of the genealogy of facial Recognition Systems now, right . Using the lantern. So that was a technology of identification. And rachels asian that goes back pretty far. So check out symones work and understand there is a spectrum from the most obvious forms of the new code to the things we can kind of see her obviously harmful. Today more insidious. The stuff that comes out his promise to be wrapped in progress with the bells and whistles of benevolence and axing social problems. We want to understand it on a spectrum, its not just the most ones i should care about whether were talking about those Recommendation Systems, when you open netflix, the last few years you probably notice all of the black movies being recommended you on netflix in this moment. That is a predictive Recommendation System thats based on the data that its collecting on you. It seems not just harmless but kind of beneficial. Like youre glad you dont have to wade through all of the movies ever. And you can have the more targeted experiences. A means of the same way you can be included and seen by this technology, you can be exploited so targeted marketing to exclude certain demographics. You see that with housing ads on facebook and other social media i dont elderly people i dont blacken latinate people to see this. There are no class action lawsuits are those who exclude you dont have a whites only sign anymore that so obvious as to the back Door Technology and marketing. Weve heard a lot over the last few weeks about facial recognition. But theres also gate recognition how you walk, emotion recognition every single biometric detail that could be an object of analysis can be used in that way. We should just focus on their been some in the last few weeks in terms of the stoppage of this kind of systems which we can talk about in just a minute. Ill just provide a concrete example of how this can go sideways very easily. One of the first schools to announce its going to automate the setting of people when you walk on the campus facial recognition system that would tell the campus authorities whether you belong to or not. Whether youre definitely a student, staff or faculty. Ucla was about to roll this out. A nonprofit called fight for the future did kind of an audit on the recognition system by amazo amazon. Used 400 photos of publicly available photos as members of the ucla campus community. Found that it got back 58 false positive matches that link students to people with criminal records. The vast majority of those matches were people of color. So now imagine that being triggered, you being a student or faculty Campus Police being called and the kind of domino effect all based on the supposedly neutral system. The last point i want to emphasize is not just big institutions adopting systems that are out of our reach. Its also about how we use every day apps and technology. We think about things like the citizen app, various Neighborhood Watch groups and apps. We want to think about how we are implicated as deputies of the police. How we perpetuate policing. Rather than just focusing on the institution, how do we internalize the logic that they actually make us favor. We went to sort of identify our responsibility and role in this. And in the process, begin to think about and imagine other alternatives that would make us safer and have a more cohesive sort of community and society we would like to live in. Host thank you so much. Theres a lot in there that i also want to pull out. But i guess before we get into some more of this about some of these technologies, i want us to dwell on the intersection around healthcare. The question of racism i medicare with doctors and racism and technology in the healthcare industry. So i wanted to hear both of your takes on that intersection. Dorothy do you want to . Guest sure. Think of me think about the way in which race gets embedded on medicine and science more broadly as if it were a biological trait. As if it were a natural risk factor. We have to go back to the very invention of race. We found as work goes its helpful to not just call race a social construction because people will think its a biological category thats constructed. But to really emphasize it was invented and it keeps getting reinvented. So it was invented during the enlightenment age. Largely by scientists, by european scientists who classify human beings based on a racial hierarchy that they wanted to say was natural. But it was in order to justify european dispossession of Indigenous People and enslavement. Or talk about innovation. We think about all the innovations that have gone on in medicine from the enlightenment age to today, there been lots of them. But they have held onto this basic premodern concept that some Natural Force divided all human beings into races. And that science can predict all sorts of things about people based on their race. And so enlightenment itself wasnt innovation, theological thinking that god created the races. So its it kneejerk reaction of the races. Today Scientists Say evolution create the race. Those are all innovations. Those of the same concept all they did was reinforce this idea that now weve got more enlightened, more advanced technologies for Samuel Martin prove this racial hierarchy he said by advanced technology of craniotomy. And collected thousands goals from all over the world. I measured the volume and said oh well this proves that white people. [inaudible] they must be the most intelligent black people have the smallest theyre the most ignorant. Today, neuroimaging can look at the brains of children who grow up in poverty. And they cant escape poverty because her brain has been physically damaged by the effects of poverty or socio genomics. Claiming that genes can predict things like educational attainment. Now, more accurately and precisely because of big dna databases and computer the same basic idea with no technology. And also, jumping off point hiding oppression this is what medicine does so perfectly because, and scientists latch onto that. To improve minority health. Training patients by race their particularities of the diseases are tentative that would give the right diagnosis, the right treatment. While that is embedded into technology thats called rice correction. As i said before, they dont hide it. Because in medicine its supposed to be for the altruistic reasons that because of they have good intentions, they are supposed to be exempt from any scrutiny about how they are using race. So race correction actually is embedded into all sorts of critical calculators that automatically adjust the output by race. For example a Risk Assessment tool for cardiovascular disease. After cesarean. Has Reproductive Health and birthing these technologies for hypertension, its an automatic adjustment. Since mainly black patients are treated differently they steer medical call ill talk one briefly to give you an idea about how embedded this is an how harmful it is and how to based on a racist ideology that doctors dont want to see. That is something called filtration rate its the estimate for this really important indicator of kidney function. And it automatically gets adjusted upward for black patients prayed whatevers in the blood, whatever that amount is. I was a black patient African American patient its adjusted upward. Any other human being is a different number. This has serious implications. Because the higher the estimate goes, the less likely you will be referred for specialty care. And, the more likely you will be ineligible to be waitlisted for a kidney transplant. There are these concrete black patients i could go on for every single one of them. That is just one example that our results of this technology that embeds within it, the belief that race is a biological trait. And that black people have bodies that are peculiar and different from any other human being. So, antiracism in madison requires more than just reading minds of individual physicians it also requires abolishing these ways in which a medicine is structured to promote racist ideas, policies, and practices. Again, ill emphasize in medicine and we can talk about this acrosstheboard with these predictive and total latex, its racism, not race that puts black people at risk. Host what i think is so crucial about what you shared dorothy in this intersection is often Times Technology is invoked as the antidote for dealing with human bias and prejudice. Identify can perform. It grows out of it acknowledgment that racism exists, we know for example that medical students think that black people feel less pain than white people. So when you get a study like that that demonstrates that, for many people the go to fixes lets find a technology that can do it because it will be less biased, not understanding someone had to create that comment stated that had to be fed that to teach any kind of Automated System how to make a decision. So just last folsom colleagues of mine did a study on the healthcare algorithm that affects millions of patients around the country. Its basically like a digital triaging system strength identify patients that are predicted to be more likely get sick and his team the racial bias white patient over black patients. The algorithm using method of cost to much we spent on people in the past, we dont been based on need. Whether its insurance structure, everyday racism in the Healthcare System, people who often need are often not getting the resources. If youre using that cost metric to predict the future, then you are essentially reproducing the securities that existed in the past for the danger now is it is hidden behind this veneer of neutrality. Cant boyd and chan point to the racist doctor, you are looking at a computer screen that says you dont measure up. You dont get this particular outpatient treatment. And so what does that mean in the context of the pandemic . Many Healthcare Organizations are using algorithms of all sorts for more old school types of algorithms to more automated advanced types. And with these we know that for example the basis of that algorithm is designed, many are for example on whos going to get a ventilator or not. And if that algorithm is designed to ensure the person who gets the ventilator is someone who is more likely to survive by giving them the ventilator. So you are using the person who is healthier and more likely to survive. You are building that understanding into this algorithm that is essentially automating eugenics. Its ablest its racist its wealthy are lighter able patients are more likely to get that scarce resource. Went to be very aware, now more than ever that when we are automated and automating decisions and those decisions are predicated on the value of some kinds of people over other others, we are essentially reproducing very dangerous status quo. In this case at mutagenic understanding of predeserted care and you have to understand this is really, the stakes are even higher now. Host absolutely part i want to go back to the idea of techno benevolence. That is very important. I went to get both of your car more thoughts on that. And also particularly to talk about the family regulation system as you called it, doctor roberts. So thinking about that idea of techno benevolence, but also how that is kind of intersecting with the system. Guest i just have to Say Something about what you are just dogma ventilators because i just finished working on an article i am a nephrologist at penn and bio emphasis on that question. You are absolutely right and guidelines that are already being used in other contexts. The idea is that it is more efficient, its more utilitarian to give the scarce ventilators to people who are more likely to survive. In the way in which they measure that, or determine that isnt algorithm that puts in these factors that systematically disadvantage black patients. And in working on it though, i had to keep emphasizing that it is not just the technology, its not even just the factors that are going into it, its the very value of number one thinking utility and equity are opposing and you have to choose one or the other. And utility should win. And then even thinking what is utility . Why is a just society a benefit for everybody . It is actually. But so often, our arguments about social justice, especially in the state of medicine and science, get seen as just pure ideology that is not important. We have to deal with the more important questions. And fax and reality. As if science of the very beginning totally synced in these value judgments. Its an ideology that science is filing. It is so infuriating. [laughter] they say that social justice youre just unmet ideology of sociologists. We get back to to the questions i should be answering and talking about family regulation system which, i did not coin that term but i think it is a very helpful term to replace Child Welfare or Child Protection or even foster care which i understand that these systems are not designed at all to care for anybody to protect anybody or for anyones welfare. They are designed to police and regulate and punish. I think family destruction system would also be a good term for it. And i want to just, for a moment i have a tendency to do this, is go back and look at the origins of these ideas. And i could talk for a long time about the origins of the socalled Child Welfare system in the united states. But i want to point out, just one aspect of the origin of policing black mothers in particular. Because black mothers and also indigenous mothers are at the most risk of having their children taken away from them. By the system. I think its important to note, the Ideological Foundation of the state policing of black mothers. So one thats clearly with the race is one of the very first laws in the colonies path and 62 in virginia that gave children born to enslaved black women who were raped by white men the status of their mothers so that the children also could be enslaved. A lot of people say will of course that would happen, but they could have also been given the status of white people since her fathers poor whites. Also used to now the idea the status of black children. It was a law that created this idea that black women gave birth to enslaved double children. Even if their fathers were whites. And i think that law caps black womens move as the producers of their children subjugated condition. And that ideology still supports race, poverty and institutions today. So politicians and researchers, and the media have treated black womens childbearing as an urgent social problem that has to be fixed and all the ways they talk about fixing social problems. So they routinely circulate the stereotypes about black irresponsibility to support policies, Birth Control policie policies, welfare, Law Enforcement policies, theyre all designed to police and punish black women, childbearing and child raising. As i mentioned is one of the very first issues i wrote about, was active around with the prosecutions of black mothers being charged with fetal crimes. And the way that Child Welfare authorities took newborns from thousands and thousands of black women because they tested positive for drugs. The images of the mythical black wealth i was so powerful it fueled congress entitlement to welfare allowing states to now pass laws that are deliberately aimed at determining women receiving public assistance from having more babies. And all of these policies, pretend that its black mothers who are the caucus of whats actually structurally inequalities. And that is what the heart of the family destruction system. Its blaming parents, mostly single mothers living in poor neighborhoods for not being able to care for their children instead of dealing with, addressing and ending the structural inequality there actually whats harming their children. And there is, the idea of benevolence this failure to understand that this system is an integral part of the u. S. Partial regime. Because i think many people still think that it somehow a system that helps children and families in some way. Even if it is terrible, its better than where the children came from. But in fact, regulating and destroying indigenous families in the name of Child Protection has been essential to the white supremacist nation from its very origins, as much as prisons and police have been. Like the prison Industrial Complex, the softer Industrial Complex is a multibilliondollar government apparatus that regulates a millions of marginalized people to the most intrusive investigations that was someone knocking on your door, sometimes accompanied by police in taking your children away from you then monitoring families. Forcibly keeping them in foster care in whats called therapeutic Detention Centers were recently black teenagers have been killed. And the vast majority of these investigations, by the way over half of black children have been subjected to these investigations. They solved the allegations of neglect with poverty. Black families and indigenous families are as i said targeted the most for this disruption. And just as police dont make communities safe, Child Protective Services, affirmatively harmed children and their families and does not address the structural causes. So the hardships to meet their needs. Residents of black neighborhoods live in fear of state agents entering their home, interrogating them and taking their children as much as they fear Police Harassing them in the streets. And i just want to say one more thing because it was said lets not be deputies of the police, Child Welfare system and mandatory reporting make people deputies of the state agents. Mandate them under penalty of law to turn people in it they suspect their parents are now treating the children so that the children now get sucked up in the whole family sucked up into the system. We really need to rethink what is supposed to be a benevolent system. And the ways in which it props up all of these other aspects of the types of the system as well. Host one other thing i was thinking about dorothy connecting to last weeks conversation is what you just outlined is not a call to ignore harms that are done. It is about completely coming up with the new paradigm in which to address those harms. Exactly. Soon i can understand the origins of them is not the sort of origin of individual deviance and benevolence. But to understand what produces it in a much broader set. So its a more accurate diagnosis so we can actually offer a more is something that actually works and that requires changing the paradigms. So quickly i will just say, you asked me about techno benevolence. And so adding to the conversation about benevolence with Technology Fall in . I think you have two main stories that we are taught about technology. That we need to continue to reproduce and again come up with a new story, new paradigm in which to understand our relationship with technology. But one story is that technology is going to save us. That is the techno utopian version that Silicon Valley produces day in and day out. There is the story that technology is going to slay us it is going to take all the jobs as a source of all evil. As the terminator story. Hollywood loves to tells that story. And although on the surface the seemed like opposing stories, one is helpful, what is harmful in terms of technology. They shared an underlying logic which is technology is in the drivers seat. We are just affected by it righ right . We are harmed or helped. So we need to push those two stories to the side and actually look at whats happening behind the stream. The technology but we have is a product of human agency. Nevertheless their people working overtime to sell such technology we have is inevitable. I we just have to either live with it or find ways to tweak the edges. But that we cannot demand a fundamentally different set of tools that actually are lifeaffirming and create a more habitable world. So together we have to begin to articulate more than just one alternative, but a myriad of stories that are put into power analysis and back into it. The agency of people back into it, and to recognize that right now, only a small sliver of humanity is imagining and materializing the world that they want. And the rest of us are living in that. So what we are talking about is a much more democratic participatory, fundamentally different way of Understanding Technology that it cant be produced by this concentrated wealth and power. The kind of silicon next is my colleague has rightly written about. Which avoids up to what is at 155 billion worth of taxes ruha the responsibility of investing in the public good. And so when it comes to Public Health and covid19, this is actually created a context in which the purveyors of anti democratic tools, the same, its disinformation. These are producers of, of the system that are jumping in and are going to save us from the pandemic and police violence. And through contract tracing. And we dont have the track record to back that up so we need to work to something fundamentally different as to whether it is would be the source of health and wellbeing rather than the tactics of getting us out of this. Basics i wanted to ask another question of where you are heading there. We do have a number of the expert questions that i want to get to very soon. But before we get there. Given the moment we are in, the pandemic. The facts that we are using Technology Much more, and we normally would. And we know that these technologies are made by people who are in some cases, like actually doing harm and getting profit. And theyre looking at biases and certain levels. So i guess i am wondering in this specific context, strategies for pushing back on that and how we kind of exist in this moment. Knowing that technology is a large part of her life but also we are pushing back at the same time. What are some strategies that we can kinda do that or at least questioned the technologies we are using. Ruha so i think one way to begin that again in that conversation where it is really thinking about every route in which harm is produced, that is also a potential site for thinking about alternatives. So at the community level, in terms of the wider policy politics. I will mention three buckets of things we can be thinking about and contributing to. And a lot in terms of the policy context. We can think about it in which technology is developed. Just do pricing and what tools really not going to help us. Although that may be useful. For example, a few weeks ago, zoom and asked the people who coulwho are using it for free. And people obeyed, there information could be corrupted and protected. And within a few days there was such outcry with that. So that is an example of a very specific tool that every one is using now. And people can say no no, it would be mass exits for it is a very quickly, we reverse course. So that has its place. But we have to think about the larger ecosystem in which profit over people. We keep saying the exploitation of data. These of data. So the whole idea that policy in the echo, theres a lot of great things happening that people can plug into. I think about in new york, theres a win just a couple of weeks ago, the new york City Surveillance technology process. And actually, they just voted on the council for new bill that requires in my cd to disclose whatever surveillance tools they are using an oversight system. This is something that process was working towards it several years. But again, in this climate and mass protests. It works. The council finally passes bill. And la, there is an amazing that people should support. And plug into, lapd funded coalition. One of the things i love about them as they are popular education model. This is not just for a select few people. It is affecting you and your community, then you get to be involved in get to have a say. One of the great tools in this Fine Coalition has developed, is what they call the stocker state. So hopefully we will and that in the chat here pretty but it shows you all of the ways in which people are surveilled and corrupted. In their developing an updated version that is specifically the Contact Tracing and the data shared in terms of Contact Tracing apps. So these are two places in new york and la but also in the midwest. Theres a lot of Great Community and policy from happening like insight st. Paul and minneapolis. If you years ago it was innovation project. Public schools and police join forces to basically at risk children in the city. And galvanized and within a year they shut the thing down. And we saw justin past few weeks, their success in defining police and moving resources. Saw across the country and america, convinces kind community, sort of initiative happening. And the data for black lives. If you are intact and again, rather than thinking youre going to come up with some new solution, the ideas to plug into the ecosystem. Support organizations that are all working on social justice. And then for black lives, is it wonderful Umbrella Organization that allows looks collaborations to happen. The last thing the bucket of things that we can think about pretty contributing and supporting our trainees and subversive uses of technology. So as not just that we kind of refuse technologies the harm is that we can create Digital Tools that are working for communiti communities. Data justice tools. One example that i was book is the Early Warning system, whitecollar. It takes a heat map of city blocks of financial crimes are likely to occur. It even has a facial recognition system based on the profiles of 500 ceos or Something Like that. And again to get us to question, what are the assumptions and the scribes prayed were leaking and when we protecting. This is a very subversive way to begin to question that. In another version of that that is actually helping with housing, of discrimination is the type mapping project. This is user Digital Tools rather than to dictate the most vulnerable, but somebodys going to default or not pay the rent or mortgage, it is looking at 40 owners and taking the digital lands and turning back on those actually have power and authority in his mapping in different cities of the election process. And updating that for covid19 evictions. Is not just about giving up the data but actually organizing tool for people to have that data to be able to then be part of it with various kinds of laws and things on the ground. And theres so many buckets and the last thing that i will stay in his in education. Equitable internet, working in detroit and new york and other places. Building a community power. To quote Digital Equity and a great case study that was just published. People should take a look at it and adapters. To the lookout. You can take a look at the resources page of my personal website and offers a lot more. But essentially theres so many different ways to get involved depending on what you are passionate about. So everyone has a role to play. Host so are we kind of wrapping up now. I want to shift, by closing thoughts rated. I was going to take audience questions of that is okay. And i definitely can spend time for closing thoughts as well. Host while in terms of thinking about the family regulation system and how it relates to some cause to defund the police. I just wanted to make a point about that and make sure i got that out and i dont know if a good time to do it. Ruha absolutely. Host i have been concerned about a small me say that everything that they recommended, was also be beneficial to organizing abolishing the family relation system. It isnt as technological sophisticated are as longstanding or organized as some other movements are. But it is all about creating a different way of living or meeting peoples needs. Dorothy and it doesnt rely on removing children from their homes and putting children in Detention Centers, locking up adults in prison. So everything that they mentioned would also be beneficial to the movement to abolish foster care or family regulation. But i do want to make a point about the way in which some people have been recommending and defining the police, the money be transferred from police to helping Human Services because helping Human Services agencies are the ones that handle Child Protective Services. And i think we have to be very careful not to take money and resources and authority from one oppressive institution system and put it into another one read first of all police and Child Protective Services work handinhand. So youre not really moving it to some separate benevolence system at all. And also already billions of dollars that are spent on taking children away from their families and putting them down in some kind of substitute government custody. That is not going to benefit anybody. Its our way to achieve on what we want to achieve. So to the welfare authorities, and the power would result in even more state surveillance and control and black and indigenous communities. So, there a small but growing movement. They will radically transform the or abolish the family regulation system for it is been ignited by black mothers who have been separated from their children. Enjoyed by former foster youth, an activist, legal services, provided nonprofit organizations and scholars. I do want to contrast that from libertarian calls to give the government out of families. This goes to her point that this is not a moment to ignore the hardships to children. It is a movement to deal with them in a way that actually makes families safe and provide for the needs. The libertarians dont want that to happen. They just want government out there not thinking about a radically Different Society that supports families. Our goal is not to dismantle the Current System but to imagine and create better ways of caring for children and meeting families needs. And ruha talk about these things. So wide defend these policies include governing the billions of dollars spent on separating children from their families to cash assistance, healthcare, housing, and other support provided directly and on coercively to families. To those who need them. So again, kinds of networks and movements that we see happening in the movement to abolish Industrial Complex are very much in tune and are collaborates and cooperate with rated descent a point where its hard to say is that the same movement. But at least i would say it is the same vision to collectively build a new society that supports rather than destroys families and communities. And it would hold up as to organizations that are doing great work in those areas. People should connect with. Oneness movement for family power. And they just issued a very important report on how the war on drugs is connected to this. Also National Coalition for Child Protection reform which collects a lot of really useful information and can ask people who are working in this area. I hope that people want to know more about this movement. They will look to those sources. Host thank you so much for bringing that up. I think there is a really important question about reforms and actually sort of appear but actually exacerbate the very problems the very things that were trying to dismantle them to sort of rebuilt elsewhere. I guess i just wanted to talk about that for one second. Vw anything else to say about other examples for the may be the case. Reforms that are opposing than ours are sort of keeping us within the same paradigm and sort of oppressive framework. Without. Ruha i think a lot of the examples they pointed to in terms of tech media. But also, when we think about the protests like no money for police money in schools. The schools are another site of personality. We think about that School Police and resource officers many places are funded by the department of education. So you take money for police and give more to the department of education. Theres nothing preventing them to hire School Police so again, psychologies institutions are affected with his imagination and these tools for opponent imposing these racial control point is not just about shifting money around. It is about completely offending the foundations and reimagining. So of course we want education in the course of what healthcare. And of course we want families. So part of what we need to do as collective, and is a movement. It is devote as much energy into receiving those alternatives as we do in terms of critiquing the status quo. Not just imagining them but experimenting with them. In many ways what we are saying that this relations of mutual aid groups allowing the world, and many cases. But all but in many cases, those are experiments with mutuality sprayed with solidarity. And completely re analyzing the source of harm and therefore the source of lifeaffirming practices. We are actually building roles right now where we are experimenting with alternatives is in many ways with mutuality. Many of them does require some fancy new tactics. That is part of it. What will be the new paradigm. This is what were promised a new shiny thing will be. Many times going back to some of our roots. In terms of mutuality. Mutual aid wasnt invented in the last ten or 100 years. Its something that is grounded in indigenous communities. And all of the world that is been smothered by a capitalist paradigm. So partly its allowing but is been there to flourish again rated celeste think about not discounting the small again is experiment. Not waiting to talk down thanks but that ecosystem policy is important but theres something that we can do yesterday. And it can begin to grow and feed the world where we want. But even in our own imagination, we could adjust in front of it. Its just this little thing. Its just me and my friends doing x, y, and z. So partly what they think is to feel that out of our own thinking. And not discount what it means to build worlds. These small worlds based on a different set of values. In different way of saying one another. A different way of understanding what is power. We are that a different notion of power. And therefore we have adjusted. But other formed forms of power because putting play was wealth. If we only only associate with certain things. We have to redefine im starting everything in it. And this is the time to do it. We have to rethink all of our exciting categories and principles to ensure that whatever we create is not infected with these ways that continue to be reproducing again again because we couldnt do the change without actually looking with what is inside. Host thank you so much. I think that is an incredible point. And to bring in a couple of audience questions. There is number of different threads. Going to bring them into one question. Ruha do it, do it. Guest so couple of different fields, people are wondering how to sort of operate abolitionist framework. Someone had maps and fields in this case. Specifically some bills dont directly contribute to tax rely chemistry and physics. In that field and how to do research and ensure that the work is not reproducing. In terms of ideologies, and then the other side, workers and tech. And thinking about a knife now that you both have already pointed to other great resources and organizations. But i kinda wanted to draw this out a little bit in terms of what folks were watching him maybe in this particular industries can think about and do the work. Ruha will i should start with maybe a different kind of industry that are most familiar with. And that is biomedical research. I get the question a lot which is very similar to this question from biomedical researchers are medical students also who are being trained by people who believe in the biological concept and think it is essential to doing medicine or the understanding human bodies. You shouldnt possibly do that without providing people into biological bases and predicting everything about them that is relevant to the study of the disease. Based on the race. What can medical students or in a genomics lab or Something Like that. What can they do and sometimes they are also confused about how do we do with race. All we know is this biological concept. I think that one thing that is important is to keep in mind that race is invented. And reinvented into think about how it is being used in a particular context. And it is being treated as if it were a biological natural category. Ours is being used for what it is. A system for governing people that is always been promoted in higher logical action by dominant science. And people in power also to realize that you cannot do this on your own or in you have to have solidarity with other students, and try to find people and again i am thinking in the academic context. It is different in the corporate world. But there always going to be people who are higher ups and who have more authority that you can work with. I will just give you an example of race correction now. With her a note about four or five hospitals that have ended it. In every case, it is because of students organizing to indent. In the context of an insight racism, demands for a new kind of education about race. And racism. Takes into account Structural Racism and it doesnt rely on these biological concepts. They won so many exciting things lately. It can be done. Sometimes you have to form a group outside of the structure that you are working in. Whether its a working group or more of an activist group. Thats important as well. It can be done and has to be done if we dont change the way in which these paradigms are being reproduced by people who have bought into this yes, there is no hope. But there is hope. In the students. I dont want to say is all just young people and old people are helpless. I found it is the students, the people coming in and who are willing to change the very values of the paradigms that can make a change. Nisha so i would add to that, whether youre in industry, or tech industry. A moment in history, we are not the first be concerned about this prayed and build on the history, organizing and in your particular locale. All of the organization. And when they excavate that history, engineers and technicians and going back so long in terms of understanding they are not just individuals. Theyre not just the titles of the profession but they have a larger responsibility. If you are the first one saying the development of some theme or the ignoring of some harmful thing. If you have a response ability to actually blow the whistle and work with others. And also something about the relationship between people and the professions and communities that are ultimately impacted. And how to create part of the ecosystem. The connection between, be for something as an event. I am thinking that i want to recommend the Design Justice Network and the design justice principles as one of those guides for people in different sectors to use. To think about how to cultivate those relationships, way upstream. Any process. And then finally, begin to understand the hirer sees in t your own backyard. So much easier to see a problem in the distance. If youre not condemning it, the higher knowledge in academia, that makes it so the people can graduate and have no historical literacy and yet they are producing things that are going to have these impacts. That knowledge, the makes it so that you can think that you are educated and proficient in a particular field without some basic insight print from other disciplines, the spill into the structure but the knowledge is not valuable enough. Likewise, in that companies the fact that most of these places have their residence. But again, who has the last say. I was really thinking and actually given the most value so they can flip. You can have all of the diversities in the world. But you can do it you want to do. But its not higher knowledge actually creates an ecosystem that allows these conferencing to be reproduced. Do that homework in your own backyard. Learn your history. Nisha unfortunately we are out of time and i want so much more to ask you did. Ruha like this went so fast. This is been an incredible conversation and i feel like there is so much more to say and just like gratitude to both of you to share such critical perspectives. Before we close, i have met few announcements. Thank you to everyone for joining us right we appreciate your Great Questions and for being here with us. I want to let you know about events coming up. Tomorrow for schools and equitable reopening. Thats at 6 00 oclock eastern time. In the next week, on july 14th at 5 00 oclock eastern. And then on july 25th. We have the u. S. 5 00 oclock eastern so check this out. And then sign up on the event site. I want to think again for life captioning segment. And want to thank haymarket books for organizing this. Thank you both so much for joining me and everyone to the call. Ruha thank you everybody. Dorothy thank you. Looked to be continues now on cspan2. Television for serious readers. Welcome to gun line series with jewish heritage. I am manager of the public programs. And will be explaining the story, the p