Race After Technology

Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

(Polity 2019)

FREE DISCUSSION GUIDE

2020 WINNER OF THE OLIVER CROMWELL COX BOOK AWARD (for anti-racist scholarship) from the American Sociological Association Section on Race & Ethnic Minorities
2020 HONORABLE MENTION FOR THE COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES, AND MEDIA SOCIOLOGY (CITAMS) BOOK AWARD
2020 BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY LITERARY PRIZE FOR NONFICTION (here)

Buy Now

Reviews

“What’s ultimately distinctive about Race After Technology is that its withering critiques of the present are so galvanizing... This is perhaps Benjamin’s greatest feat in the book: Her inventive and wide-ranging analyses remind us that as much as we try to purge ourselves from our tools and view them as external to our flaws, they are always extensions of us. As exacting a worldview as that is, it is also inclusive and hopeful."

— Stephen Kearse, The Nation

“This book is worthy of the widest readership, leaving us not only with a deeper understanding of the mutual and shifting roles of race and technology, but also, importantly, with the manageable and doable tools with which to create alternative, equitable, inclusive and prosperous futures."
— Shakir Mohamed, Nature Machine Intelligence

“Race After Technology is a brilliant, beautifully argued, engagingly written, and groundbreaking work. Ruha Benjamin is that rare scholar whose sophisticated understanding of science and technology is matched by her deep knowledge of race and racialization. Here she guides us into fresh terrain for understanding and tackling the persistence of racial inequality. This book should be read by everyone committed to creating a more just world.”

— Imani Perry, Princeton University, author of Vexy Thing and Looking for Lorraine

“Race After Technology is essential reading, decoding as it does the ever-expanding and morphing technologies that have infiltrated our everyday lives and our most powerful institutions. These digital tools predictably replicate and deepen racial hierarchies — all too often strengthening rather than undermining pervasive systems of racial and social control.”

— Michelle Alexander, Union Theological Seminary, author of The New Jim Crow