Read & Repair feat. Race After Technology, by Ruha Benjamin
<http://varia.zone/en/rr-stone-throw-1.html>
Thursday, 23rd July 2020. 16:00-18:00 CEST

Housekeeping

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We have some guidelines for pad use here:
» Be supportive. Be curious. Consider that nobody knows you besides what you write. Meaning, be extra nice with your words. 
» If you have a question, ask. This is an experiment in reading together from a distance.» Don't delete text from other people, just add.

Today we are going to read parts of the chapter, Retooling Solidarity, Reimagining Justice from Race After Technology, by Ruha Benjamin
We are going to post the text from the book into the pad, and will send you a download link to the whole book at the end of the workshop.
We are not reading the whole book and we are not starting at the beginning.

Today is an experiment in distanced collective reading.
You can read at your own pace and / or we have a number of exercises prepared that we can use to start conversation.
amy, cristina and julie will add the exercises and quotes on the pad intermittently.

We will converse through typed out language here on the pad.

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Introduction coming now!

Today we are going to read parts of the chapter, Retooling Solidarity, Reimagining Justice from Race After Technology, by Ruha Benjamin
You can download it laterrr.
We are not reading the whole book and we are not starting at the beginning.

Today is an experiment in distanced collective reading.
You can read at your own pace and / or we have a number of exercises prepared that we can use to start conversation.
amy will add the exercises and quotes on the pad intermittently.

We will converse through typed out language here on the pad.
Parts of our typing will go towards stone throw, a temporary online work to share our resources and reflections.

In this process of learning together, we wish that our process is recorded as a way to share it with others, but that, like us, it takes a different shape with time. This is why the debris we gather today from the workshop will be recorded with your consent and put on a website (as a txt file), where each time it is viewed, the traces we leave today will be corrupted until eventually they will stop being accessible. The more they are viewed, the faster they fade away.
At the end of the sites life, only links to our references will remain.

Our Debris form an experimental exercise in consent giving. We will explain this again when when we come to the last exercise, but we want to highlight now that no text will be used without checking with you.
_DEBRIS_ consent
_DEBRIS_ no consent given

Exercise 1
Close Reading of the Introduction to Chapter 5 - Retooling Solidarity, Reimagining Justice

We will intermittently post 1 section at a time from Ruha Benjamin's introduction to the chapter.
As you read, you may wish to annotate or contextualise the writing in your own experience. We would like to add our comments around or inside of the text as a way to bring it closer to us.
We will remove the colour of the paragraphs, so we can see our personal colours, and recognise that other voices are on the pad. We welcome discussion.

We will be with this text for 45 minutes.

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Chapter 5
Retooling Solidarity, Reimagining Justice

• • • The power of the New Jim Code [ref below] is that it allows racist habits and logics to enter through the backdoor of tech design, in which the humans who create the algorithms are hidden from view. In the previous chapters I explored a range of discriminatory designs – some that explicitly work to amplify hierarchies, many that ignore and thus replicate social divisions, and a number that aim to fix racial bias but end up doing the opposite. In one sense, these forms of discriminatory design – engineered inequity, default discrimination, coded exposure, and technological benevolence – fall on a spectrum that ranges from most obvious to oblivious in the way it helps produce social inequity. But, in a way, these differences are also an artifact of marketing, mission statements, and willingness of designers to own up to their impact. It will be tempting, then, to look for comparisons throughout this text and ask: “Is this approach better than that?” But in writing this book here?  I have admittedly been more interested in connections rather than in comparisons; in how this seemingly more beneficent approach to bypassing bias in tech relates to that more indifferent or avowedly inequitable approach “better than that?” [and here] oops! But in writing this book I have admittedly been more interested in connections rather than in comparisons; in how this seemingly more beneficent approach to bypassing bias in tech relates to that more indifferent or avowedly inequitable approach; in entangling the seeming differences rather than disentangling for the sake of easy distinctions between good and bad tech.

The New Jim code refers to the Jim Crow laws which reinforced segregation in the southern states of the US, the New Jim Code is the authors name for continued segregation in digital technologies
Entangling seeming differences, distinctions not clear cut. 

• • • On closer inspection, I find that the varying dimensions of the New Jim Code draw upon a shared set of methods that make coded inequity desirable and profitable to a wide array of social actors across many settings; it appears with the emphasis on appears because it has many subjective inputs to rise above human subjectivity (it has impartiality) because it is purportedly tailored to individuals, not groups (it has personalization/customisation), and “ranks people according to merit, not prejudice (or positioning) – all within the framework of a forward-looking (i.e. predictive) enterprise that promises social progress. These four features of coded inequity prop up unjust infrastructures (prop up, and also generate), but not necessarily to the same extent at all times and in all places, and definitely not without eliciting countercodings that retool solidarity and rethink justice. 

Has the author mentioned examples in the prior chapters? Would love some ref .Yes, she mentions a few discriminatory designs. We will link the book at the end. e.g Is it web based / networked / an app ? the book? the 'design'. I am imagining some kind of interface but have trouble thinking into what else... there is a description of an app "appolition" below as example. Yes, one other such example is "new artificial intelligence techniques for vetting job applicants" which are biased against POC or women. Cool thanks! these programs are based on data of the past and therefore have the prejudices of the past built into them. Data is not neutral but biased by previous ways of collecting precisely

• • • These forms of resistance are what I think of as abolitionist tools for the New Jim Code. And, as with abolitionist practices of a previous era, not all manner of gettin’ free should be exposed. Recall that Frederick Douglass, ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass ) the philosopher of fugitivity, reprimanded those who revealed the routes that fugitives took to escape slavery [makes me think of the dogma that all information should be free that some people profess], declaring that these supposed allies turned the underground railroad into the upperground railroad. Likewise, some of the efforts of those resisting the New Jim Code necessitate strategic discretion [[keep]], while others may be effectively tweeted around the world in an instant.
    • ahh here..
    • Thirty minutes after proposing an idea for an app “that converts your daily change into bail money to free black people,” Compton, California-born Black trans tech developer Dr. Kortney Ziegler added: “It could be called Appolition” (Figure 5.1). The name is a riff on abolition and a reference to a growing movement toward divesting resources from policing and prisons and reinvesting in education, employment, mental health, and a broader support system needed to cultivate safe and thriving communities. Calls for abolition are never simply about bringing harmful systems to an end but also about envisioning new ones. After all, the etymology of “abolition” includes Latin root words for “destroy” (abolere) and “grow” (olere).(do you have to have one for the other to exist, destruction and growth? a cycle?)
    • http://82.199.133.204/files/Screenshot%202020-07-21%20at%2015.45.24.png
    • Figure 5.1 Appolition
    • Source: Twitter @fakerapper July 23, 2017 at 2:58 p.m.
    • And, lest we be tempted to dismiss prison abolition as a far-fetched dream (or nightmare, depends)(oh, why the contradiction? fear of the unknown?), it is also worth considering how those who monopolize power and privilege already live in an abolitionist reality! As executive director of Law for Black Lives, Marbre Stahly-Butts, asserts:
    • • “There’s a lot of abolitionist zones in the US. You go to the Hamptons, its abolitionist. You go to the Upper West Side, its abolitionist. You go to places in California where the medium income is over a million dollars, abolitionist. There’s not a cop to be seen. And so, the reality is that rich White people get to deal with all of their problems in ways that don’t involve the police, or cages, or drug tests or things like that. The reality is that people actually know that police and cages :( don’t keep you safe, if it’s your son or your daughter".
    • As a political movement, prison abolition builds on the work of slavery abolitionists of a previous era and tools like Appolition bring the movement into the digital arena. Days after the original tweet first circulated, Ziegler partnered with Tiffany Mikell to launch the app and began collaborating with the National Bail Out movement, a network of organizations that attempt to end cash bail and pretrial detention and to get funds into the hands of local activists who post bail. In September 2017 Ziegler was planning a kickoff event with the modest goal of enrolling 600 people. But after the launch in November the project garnered 8,000 enrollments, which landed Appolition in the top ten most innovative companies in 2018. The whole system of bail for (minor) crimes should be reconsidered. You are not guilty yet but already paying. This targets the poor.  
    • In general, for what I can connect between this and Europe, the very fact that prisonners also need financial resources to access decent food and sanitary products also reinforces disparities in resources. The whole system accomodates better people with revenues.
    • And probably if you don't have money in prison you are vulnerable to other abuses which may lead you to the need of self-defense and new charges against you. Hhhm how do you think?
    • More important for our discussion is that Appolition is a technology with an emancipatory ethos, a tool of solidarity that directs resources to getting people literally free. In fact, many White people who have signed up say that they see it as a form of reparation, (I am not sure how I feel about 'repair', it still seems heirarchical?/fixing the racist system? but the app seems really important, I kind of feel like it is a way to make a problem visable. To establish a knowledge about how problematic the system is and showing that, as the code do not do, as a group you are able to change politics...but yeah, then the word repair feels a bit off...)(I read 'repair' differently to 'reparation')I think I am scared of white people paying off their guilt instead of doing other forms of activism, or trying to change the fucked up system. Though this is a neccessary intermediate stage for change.) so true
    • also, ultimately the money is going back into an oppressive system, so it's not really repairing, looks more like damage control
    • below it is explained that the bail money can be reused as it is paid back by the system when you are not guilty or do time (indeed ta)
    • [btw are we talking about reparations in general or in this particular example?] it reads like personal reparations instead of institutional
    • [right! i was thinking of the state paying reparations] i can understand that because I also never thought of it in a personal context.Maybe I could wish that it would be more of an awakaning among white people reather than a reperation. It reads a bit like white people again do not take a close look at them selfs. But maybe it is also like a thinking "error" in a way, that within a western way of thinking we like to look for a "fix". yes and you can do this fast and easily, just donating the money, pop! (and you keep your distance still, you do not have to get to know any black people, you can just be that western, white, colonial "saviour" again):( One thing that will fix it, make the bad go away, so maybe I am curious how then the autor links this to the erliser description of looking at relations rather than comparing. good thing to remember yes. Likw what is the relations that accure for whit people useing the app?
    • one small way to counteract the fact that the carceral system uses software that codes for inequity. To date, Appolition has raised $230,000, that money being directed to local organizations whose posted bails have freed over 65 people. As the National Bail Out network explains, “[e]veryday an average of 700,000 people are condemned to local jails and separated from their families. A majority of them are there simply because they cannot afford to pay bail.” :( this part connect really well with the yes we mean literally abolish the police article.
    • When Ziegler and I sat on a panel together at the 2018 Allied Media Conference [this is a great organisation btw], he addressed audience concerns that the app is diverting even more money to a bloated carceral system. As Ziegler clarified, money is returned to the depositor after a case is complete, so donations are continuously recycled to help individuals. Interest in the app has grown so much that Appolition has launched a new version, which can handle a larger volume of donations and help direct funds to more organizations.
    • But the news is not all good. As Ziegler explained, the motivation behind ventures like Appolition can be mimicked by people who do not have an abolitionist commitment. He described a venture that the rapper Jay-Z is investing [for profit? i.e not donating to.I think Promise makes money because it charges. aargh. This is so depressing :( why is Jay-Z investing in sth like this??] i guess he hasn't heard of appolition? he could've freed lots of ppl by now :'( we should tell him! ok lets drop him an email on it! :)  Jay-Z also tried to make money out of Occupy so this guy has a record of pretending to stand for a good cause or political issue but in reality is just trying to earn more money. millions in, called Promise. Although Jay-Z and others call it a “decarceration start-up” (bleurgh) lol my thought exactlyI'm sick too. because it addresses the problem of pretrial detention, which impacts disproportionately Black and Latinx people who cannot afford bail, Promise is in the business of tracking individuals [never a good idea] [tracking them going to places that are over subscribed and underfunded. Putting your money in the wrong place Jaaaay] via the app and GPS monitoring. And, whereas a county can spend up to $200 a day holding someone in jail, Promise can charge $17.8 [holding them in another kind of jail, so this becomes the CIC toch?] This is why the organization BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100) issued a warning that Promise
    • • "helps expand the scope of what the Prison Industrial Complex is and will be in the future. The digital sphere and tech world of the 2000’s [sic] is the next sector to have a stronghold around incarceration, and will mold what incarceration looks like and determine the terrain on which prison abolitionists have to fight as a result."
    • BYP100 extends the critique of abolitionist organizations like Critical Resistance [we'll be using one of their scripts on Sunday], which describes “the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to what are, in actuality, economic, social, and political ‘problems’” (reading this makes me think abt the question 'whether destruction is necessary for growth' again, & in truth I don't see another option)destruction doesn't have to be a bad thing, pow! BOOM BOOM It depends on how you see radical change. If you want to change the education system you might need to abandon schools in their current form. otherwise it will just be small changes but still classrooms and the associated architecture that has little room for teaching otherwise Yes exactly, & I think this is the big frustration with any kind of established institution trying to make changes within their structures; they don't work, because the structures are inherently broken & unjust. Abandon & abolition is not destruction, but it's similar? mmm nice. though we can't abandon the PIC we have to take it down/apart. Yeah & maybe this is the issue with all (most) 'institutions' bc they belong to systems of oppression, abandoning a school doesn't mean the structures change? yes. But if you're a head teacher you don't want to destroy your school haha.
    • under the description prison–industrial complex (PIC). The Corrections Project[http://correctionsproject.com/prisonmaps/pic4.htm] has created a map of all these interests, with prisons and jails at the core and extending to law enforcement, prison guard unions, prison construction companies and vendors, courts, urban and rural developers, corporations, the media, and more.
    • It is important to note that there is debate about whether “PIC” is an accurate and useful descriptor. Some prefer “corrections industrial complex,” [CIC] to draw attention to probation and surveillance as the fastest growing [because most profitable] part of the industry. Others offer a more far-reaching critique by questioning how industrial and complex the PIC really is since the corrections arena is still overwhelmingly public – the budget is less than 1 percent of the GDP, less than 0.5 percent of the incarcerated being employed by private firms. It is also an overwhelmingly decentralized enterprise, run at the local, county, and state levels rather than masterminded by a central government entity, as is for example the Pentagon vis-à-vis the military–industrial complex.
    • Even so, the term “PIC” has been useful as a rhetorical device for drawing widespread attention to the exponential growth of prison and policing since 1980 and for highlighting the multiple investments of a wide range of entities. Profit, in this context, is made not only in cash, but also in political power, property, TV ratings, and other resources from economic to symbolic, including the fact that many companies now invest in e-corrections as a fix for prison overcrowding. [venture capitalist PIC]
    • If both Appolition and Promise apply digital tools to helping people who cannot afford bail to get out of cages, why is Promise a problem for those who support prison abolition? Because it creates a powerful mechanism that makes it easier to put people back in; ...promising not to let u out of their sight! and, rather than turning away from the carceral apparatus, it extends it into everyday life. I think this is a valid point. That is is also importnat to work for that people will never have to go back into jail again. Like work needs to be done on several levels at the same time. And maybe then it is important to talk about relations again. do we need systems totally outside of the current carceral system that we use?
    • Whereas the money crowdfunded for Appolition operates like an endowment that is used to bail people out, Promise is an investment and collaborates with [+extends the reach of] law enforcement. The company, which received $3 million in venture capital, is not in the business of decarceration but is part of the “technocorrections” [strong term, keeper] industry, which seeks to capitalize on very real concerns about “mass incarceration and the political momentum of social justice organizing. Products like Promise make it easier and more cost-effective for people to be tracked and thrown back into jail for technical violations. One “promise” here is to the state – that the company can keep track of individuals – and another to the taxpayer – that the company can cut costs. As for the individuals held captive, the burden of nonstop surveillance is arguably better than jail, but a digital cell is still a form of high-tech social control. all surveillance should be scrutinized as it is basically a form of distrust of citizens and seldom works for their protection. Protection against the state is necessary. or our own surveillance on the state?! the Tweede Kamer is continually misinformed or uninformed which makes the option of checking the state a lot more difficult. So the government withdraws from surveillance while at the same time surveilling its citizens more and more.
    •  Promise, in this way, is exemplary of the New Jim Code; and it is dangerous and insidious precisely because it is packaged as social betterment. Scary :/ This, along with the weight of Jay Z’s celebrity, will make it difficult to challenge Promise (actually I think he got some backlash when peopel realised people would end up with bracelets). But if this company is to genuinely contribute contribute to decarceration, it would need to shrink the carceral apparatus, not extend it and make it more encompassing. After all, prison conglomerates such as Geo Group and CoreCivic are proving especially adept at reconfiguring their business investments, leaving prisons and detention centers and turning to tech alternatives, for instance ankle monitors and other digital tracking devices. In some cases the companies that hold lucrative government contracts to imprison asylum seekers are the same ones that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hires to provide social services to these very people, as they continue to be monitored remotely. While not being locked in a cage is an improvement, the alternative is a “form of coded inequity and carceral control; and it is vital that people committed to social justice look beyond the shiny exterior of organizations that peddle such reforms. (starting to get some Foucault/Deleuze vibes) bound to happen dividuals.
    • A key tenet of prison abolition is that caging people works directly against the safety and well-being of communities because jails and prisons do not address the underlying reasons why people harm themselves and others – in fact they exacerbate the problem by making it even more difficult to obtain any of the support needed to live, work, and make amends for harms committed. Coincidentally heard a radio item about a case in the Netherlands which also discussed the bureaucracy that isn't in favor of supporting people who return to jail regularly (because they keep on finding themselves in the same circuit and quite often are also addicts unable to restrain themselves and without options thus entering a viscious circle as soon as they leave prison) with the underlying issues they need to tackle in order to change the status quo of their ending up in jail all the time. do you have the ref by any chance? I'll try to find it, it was an article i listened to on Blendle, an app to listen to news and other items. >> it's difficult retrieving the article, because I don't remember the title or the original source -_-' btw striking difference about the prison/emprisonment rhetoric in NL (though far from knowledgeable on the topic) is it seems to be far less focused on ethnicity/ethnic inequality. for anyone interested to read a little more I found this (Dutch source and language): https://demonitor.kro-ncrv.nl/artikelen/waarom-zoveel-gevangenen-opnieuw-in-de-fout-gaan-tien-oorzaken-van-recidive and https://demonitor.kro-ncrv.nl/artikelen/gevangenisstraf-vergroot-vaak-kans-op-recidive yes would also be interested, In sweden we have KRIS which stands for Criminals rights in the society, they work with this... But in the age of the New Jim Code, as BYP100 noted, this abolitionist ethos must be extended beyond the problem of caging, to our consideration of technological innovations marketed as supporting prison reform. reformist reform, not radical (as in of or to do with a root

 or foundation).

• • • Coding people as “risky” kicks in an entire digital apparatus that extends incarceration well beyond the prison wall.[same logic to the tracking apps that were proposed as a way to tackle COVID infections] Think of it this way. Yes, it is vital to divert money away from imprisonment to schools and public housing, if we really want to make communities stronger, safer, and more supportive for all their members. But, as Critical Resistance has argued, simply diverting resources in this way is no panacea, because schools and public housing as they currently function are an extension of the PIC (how can we get society to accept this?): many operate with a logic of carcerality and on policies that discriminate against those who have been convicted of crimes. Pouring money into them as they are will only make them more effective in their current function as institutions of social control. DESTRUCTION IS THE ONLY SOLUTION But maybe we need something else, now I am saying it a bit more in general; like the differece between revolution and reformation. Maybe we need like something totally differnt...destruction of that which is controlling? That is different for everyone ... and very discriminatory, I retract that idea. We have to look beyond the surface of what they say they do to what they actually do, in the same way in which I am calling on all of us to question the “do good” rhetoric of the tech industry. Some social anarchy is needed where education depends on enriching yourself mentally, socially and practically. A non-competitive system without grades but with a strong sense of collectivity from a diverse perspective. 
    • For prison abolitionists, “we don’t just want better funded schools (although that might be an important step). We also demand the power to shape the programs and institutions in our communities” and to propose a new and more humane vision of how resources and technology are used. This requires us to consider not only the ends but also the means. How we get to the end matters. If the path is that private companies, celebrities, and tech innovators should cash in on the momentum of communities and organizations that challenge mass incarceration, the likelihood is that the end achieved will replicate the current social order.
    • Let us shift, then, from technology as an outcome to toolmaking as a practice , so as to consider the many different types of tools needed to resist coded inequity, to build solidarity, and to engender liberation. Initiatives like Appolition offer a window into a wider arena of “design justice” that takes many forms (see Appendix), some of which I will explore below. But first allow me a reflection on the growing discourse around technology and empathy (rather than equity or justice).

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This is the end of the Introduction to Chapter 5.
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For Exercise 2 
First we have to make a Collective Decision.
There are 5 more sections of this chapter:

• Selling Empathy +1+1+1+1
  • In this chapter, Ruha Benjamin discusses the claim that tech can promote more empathy, and the way it has been used to promote business growth. She mentions notably questions which arose from Mark Zuckerbeg's tone deaf Virtual Reality visit of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. These questions include for instance the politics of VR technology construction, whether empathy necessarily relies on "seeing", turning dramatic events into entertainment, but also who are we prompted to develop empathy for through immersive experiences.
• Rethinking Design Thinking +1+1
  • In this extract, Benjamin asks which humans are prioritised by "human centered design" approach. She questions definitions of design and design-speak, leading her to think about design as a colonising project "to the extent that it is used to describe any and everything"...
• Beyond Code-Switching +1+1 +1+1+1
  • In this excerpt, Benjamin talks about code switching, which consists in adapting to the norms of the dominant class. This applies for instance to situations where afro american children are confronted with "standard" English. Taking the example of Yik Yak, an app that allowed to post anonymously while voting up or down and commenting on other posts within a geographically constrained area, Benjamin explores how coded speech reflects certain power dynamics. She then argues in favour of code rewriting rather than code switching before discussing the limits of expecting the tech industry to self regulate on the basis of sympathies.
• Audits and Other Abolitionist Tools +1
  • Here, Benjamin talks about auditing experiments, which have been used to demonstrate continued discrimination in real estate and hiring practices in the post civil rights era, in relation to AI. She argues for justice-oriented, emancipatory approach to data production, analysis, and public engagement.

With the time we have left, can you write +1 next to the chapter you would like to read. You can add +1 to multiple chapters, if you are interested in more than one.
We will choose the most "popular" text to read.
Depending on group size, we may split into smaller groups and we will go to different pads, each with its own questions and chances for discussion. The exercise will continue similarly to this pad, but we made new ones for the different chapters, links to them are coming down here ...

For now the most popular are
Selling Empathy: https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/abolitionist_tech-selling_empathy
and
Beyond Code-Switching: https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/abolitionist_tech-beyond_code_switching

Let's split into two equal-ish groups (5 and 6 people) to read these texts.

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Exercise 3 (10 minutes)
This exercise is adjusted because we are going over time!
We wanted to go over our notes, on all 3 pads.
We want to skim through the conversations by others in the text, and see what resonates with us.

If we are not happy for a comment to be published then we do a strikethrough DEBRIS and we will not use it as DEBRIS.
We want this to be a practice of consent giving from you all.

Our debris will be presented on a temporary online site, stone throw, which will be a way to share aspects of this workshop with a secondary audience - but not forever.

Thank you all so much for visiting us here and learning together, we really appreciate your energy and thoughts!
Ruha Benjamin's epub can be downloaded here: http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=9383965BB44F1EEAA77666F30B89D447
it's nice to have the epub but we should all think if we can also afford to buy the book and support the authors work if possible. We collectively own 1 copy but yes we should buy more! (yeah we were thinking about it as a loan for the few who joined as if it was a physical copy but it's true it is better to try to buy it if you can)
yes, a good point. for those who can afford it, you can buy it from: https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/race-after-technology
(just please NOT AMAZON!!):)

__PUBLISH__