Framing her remarks with the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Ruha Benjamin traces the historically racist traditions of medicine and how that tradition carries on in the relationship between race and technology. Dr. Benjamin describes what she calls "the New Jim Code" as technology processes that result in engineered inequity, default discrimination, coded exposure and techno benevolence. She concludes with three action items noting that because injustice is woven into the very fabric of our society, there are many opportunities to change the patterns & systems that perpetuate it.
- Identify forms of coded inequity
- Manage new patterns of thought and action in the fine print.
- Work with others to remove inequity and enact just alternatives.
Enjoy this presentation? Be sure to read Dr. Ruha Benjamin's latest book, Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, and give it a review on Amazon.