Thank you so much. Thank you kindly. Book tv continues now on cspan2, television for serious readers. Good evening. Good evening. Welcome to the john f. Kennedy junior forum. My name i am a junior studying government at college and i am a member of the jfk junior Forum Committee at the institute of politics. Before we begin, please note the doors located on both the parkside and the jfk streetside of the form. In the event of them emergency, locked to the exit closest to you and congregate in the jfk parking lot. Please also take a moment to silence her cell phones. You can join the conversation online with the jfk junior forum live and interact with our student run instagram at jfk junior forum for behindthescenes highlights. Please take your seats out and join me in welcoming our guests and director of the center on media, politics and Public Policy, nancy gibbs. [applause]. Good evening and for those of you that have not had a chance this semester to make it across the charles hotel, the center over is focused on the intersection of media, politics and Public Policy which means we are looking at the quality of information in a free society, so a lot of that means working to get the best research into the hands of journalists to help newsrooms with hard questions that they are facing. All of that is promoting good highquality information, but you will understand why at this moment in our history and a lot of our work is also focused on information contaminants, on bad information, on the ways in which information streams are polluted and a poisoned. And deleting that work for us is doctor john donovan who will moderate tonight. I think of joan as the model of the scholar who bridges theory and practice with realtime, highly relevant research. She is building a casebook of 100 case studies and media manipulation that wont only be invaluable to researchers, it will be actionable intelligence bar newsrooms and soul Society Leaders at a time of these questions could not be more and audible so the work we are doing that we are talking about in on meetings and classes and brown bag lunches is work i hope you will all engage with us on because i do believe it is critically important at this moment in our countrys history. I am so pleased our inaugural or form of an is on topic that is this urgent and with a group of people that bring so much to these questions and so please welcome joan donovan and her panel. [applause]. Thank you so much to nancy. Its been a Pretty Amazing sort of journey out of getting my work with data society in a nonprofit and ended up here where i grew up about 10 miles from here in the saugus, so its a pretty big deal. My spouse has alerted my mother that there is a live stream that you should tell your friends as well that there is a live stream tonight so i can fulfill my dream of getting out of room one and being in cambridge. Before we get started, we will do something thats not traditional within cambridge, but i think its a really important thing that we start to do here, which is a territorial acknowledgment and so luckily today we have erika violated lee who is a writer, Community Organizer and graduate student who embodies geography and d colonial of desire in the future. Are covered with many in the pursuit of indigenous feminist freedoms. She is part of the pretribe and the thunder trial nation and world in the Masters Program at the university of toronto peer violet, if you come erica, violet, lee club here and talk to us about recognition in the land acknowledgment. Thank you, joan. Ident went to turn my back to anyone, but my name is eric up by the end as a visitor from the territory of north im honored to deliver this land acknowledgment in support of this panel. Thank you to the Harvard University native American Program for their assistance with this acknowledgment. Often landed on this can knowledge can be tokenizing or upset. I tried my best to make this one different. We acknowledge the intertwined legacy of the devastation of transatlantic slavery and colonialism which contributes to the creation and continued wealth of this university and this nation. We acknowledge the reparations 02 black and indigenous communities in the impossibilities of return for generations past and the ancestors in the room tonight as we fight together for better futures. We acknowledge we are alive in an era of necessary resistance to preserve this planet and all of the beautiful creation we have no doubt [inaudible] we acknowledge the land on which harbored since his traditional territory of the massachusetts people and they place long served as a side of meeting and exchange among nations. Thank you. Thank you so much, erica. We appreciate you being here. I will talk to your bit about the workshop we held today in a minute, but first i should introduce our panel tonight. At the far end we have looked fully up peterson who is a television veteran specializing in emerging technologies, awardwinning race and culture writer for major outlets as well as a threetime judge for the world videogame hall of fame. Named one of Forbes Magazine 30 after 30 rising stars shes best known for the blog which used to pop talk about pop culture and her newest is building the future of interactive entertainment. In the center we have Khalil Mohammed did who is a professor and the seizing young professor at the Radcliffe Institute for advanced studies in currently leading a project on institutional antiracism and accountability nicknamed the iraq project. Please check out what they are doing. They have some talks coming up in the former director for research in black culture. Thank you for coming down the street. Im joking, but he has been on sabbatical and this is a very special occasion for us to have you here. And Ruha Benjamin who admittedly is one of my sort of academic idols, i aspire to be like you and i have got a lot of work to do because you are an associate professor in the department of africanamerican studies at Princeton University where she studies social dimension of science, technology, medicine, race and power. She released to amazing books, receptor technology, and Captivating Technology which is an edited collection of essays mrs. Light i say i should aspire to, but no one should expect me too publish two books anytime soon. One is ambitious. Welcome everyone here today. I want to welcome my class. Thank you for coming. Nice of you to show up, because i made you. Definitely make sure you see jen for attendance. Tonight we will talk about the politics and difference with rhetoric of inclusion and we had a wonderful workshop today called please do not include us, led by digital justice professor leading advocates on human rights in information security. I want to thank you both for hosting this event here at harvard and what we were able to do today was bridge product managers, journalist, data scientists, policy makers and activists to speak about the public conversations we should be having about the limits of inclusion as an unmitigated social good and acknowledging differences can be discomforting , but the recognition of difference can help us think differently about building intentional communities. One of the points of being in university sometimes is that theres a lot of inclusionary rhetoric at the same time that we traffic and a lot of exclusionary politics and so even in convening this conversation went to open with a provocation and question to think about what can inclusion mean and so when im talking about inclusion and exclusion paradigm, and thinking about some recent examples are for instance, in july there was public outcry against former governor Rick Schneider getting a fellowship here. He resigned later this summer and my key faculty and researchers were called out to respond publicly about funding given by epstein, several faculty resigned and we are also in the midst of a Culture Shift relating to technology and inclusion as well as accountability. While each of us felt some type of way about what could inclusion mean, we also are in some ways perplexed because some powerful people are being held accountable, but also that it seems pretty rare inside went to open by asking if you like to respond to this, what do you think about when you think about the politics of inclusion and exclusion within institutions are industry and where do you see potentials for a powershift . Anyone of you can jump in. I will start by saying with respect to the snyder issue that i want to acknowledge that the individual who really galvanized public attention around that was black feminist abolitionist marry him, so i went to call for the idea that people outside of the academy understand the stakes, sometimes better than we do that are situated here. For me what that entire sort of organizing effort indicates is that people are ready and willing to hold a mirror up to these ideals that we get a lipservice to to say you cant just put it on your website, you can just invoke these idea when youre at a practices run directly counter and are hypocritical essentially and so for me one of the things i took away from that was not only that we have to protest and refusing withholds support from institutions that are being hypocritical, but that i think lasting change really has to make the alternative to that motive desirable like what the alternative is with the status quo. We have to make it so its more attractive and desirable. I love that point about alternatives is a lot of the focus of our has been removing people like in media we are about three four is out from metoo an in game mean they had a wave of metoo and who gets to gatekeeper who doesnt, but what we notice as well is that you can remove people from power but the system will continue to perpetuate if there is in that reckoning that has to come with it thats the part thats been harder. There are individual [inaudible] its harder to change a system that will allow that and accept that money enough for that person a fellowship. Is harder to look at what we see as morality and i think thats been part of the conversation in terms of what types of institutions sometimes and nation do we want to be and how and what is our ethical core and we do find that in a different way that has been done its when we will see structural change. Im just glad to be included in this conversation. Really terrific thinkers. First, went to acknowledge that doctor benjamin rescinded her acceptance to be here tonight over schneider and so this isnt just about what activists do on the outside, its also about the responsibility of those of us on the end side who can be complicit in accepting certain norms that are unacceptable, so i went to applaud you because [applause]. I know firsthand that helped make a difference in the outcome the other thing i want to say is what webs epstein and snyder together and in this with limitation to the work that Ruha Benjamin has done in the work we will talk about tonight and that is that they are powerful and to some degree money shapes both politicians career as well as epstein as a donor and of the degree to which a conversation about inclusivity is really marketing for the purposes of a broader Goodwill Campaign coming much of what diversity has passed for the 20th century has led to drive consumer sales by virtue of condensing Broader Consumer base that we care about you too, please buy our products. So, when we talk about morality at think its important to remember the relationship of morality is in stark contrast to institutions that are driven by moneyed interests and of course everyone has got his salary here in mice to be paid, but where do you draw the line . Between how those moneyed interests shape decisionmaking in the degree to which inclusion runs against any kind of formal change is really i dont want to reduce it to money, but i want to suggest it plays a big part of it. Very interesting. I went to two by way of doing some general introduction to the work talk to you, ruha, about these amazing books. Race after technology is what i think fred moten would call an active fugitive scholarship which is to say its a playbook for the way technologists and activists can seek each other out so theres lots of citations and ways to connect direct relationship between research and practice and in seeking each other out they learn from one another how to evade systems of surveillance. Most of the book has this surveillance undertone were together they work to know these systems, expose these systems of the next those these systems in the collection of essays and Captivating Technology are very broad and those tend to link car several technology that is being deployed already to classify and course specific populations and the authors tend to question if there is resistance even possible or can technology liberate us what are some of the major takeaways especially about the way data is harnessed and activated that perhaps is happening all around us but we dont see them readily. Absolutely, so i have straddled different fields in the made motivation was trying to bring together conversations i saw happening in different corners of various discipline so theres two main conversations i was trying to draw together and Captivating Technology where what is happening in the field of science and Technology Studies and i went to shout out sheila, so thinking about the insights that grow out of this and putting that in conversation with critical race studies and trying to bring together scholars who thought about these things historically in terms of our contemporary moment and also speculatively in the future so the way the text is organized and the kind of take away from that structure are that there are more traditional sites of policing in prisons and even plantations where you can see more explicitly how technology can be oppressive, so that is the kind of first section and set of conversations, but then it comes into our contemporary moment looking at places you dont necessarily think our sites of karsh or Old Technology or like the Digital Service economy or florida three or retail industry, h m, forever 21, thinking about how it shows the same tools and logic that is used by Police Department are sold big retail giants in order to surveillance is, so those are the things where you see that the tools in the logic of surveillance jumped ship, scaled the prison walls in many ways and are inspecting so many of our institutions, but then through the conversations with contributors and i think this is the thing i learned most from putting together this volume is that i didnt eventually just stick with diagnosing this problem of Race Technology kars rowdy, but i was pushed by one of the more senior contributors to think about now what and if so what happened was i was fielding titles for the text and i had some really bad ones and they were honest with me like thats not work and one individual said you know when the way you are framing this text in the title, you are giving it a lot of intellectual space to diagnosing the problem that you set out to and giving almost no space for trying to envision what an alternative would be, what would a more liberatory approach to Technology Look like . What has it looked like so in that exchange with this individual where he said you know, we have in general have scholars attend to seat a lot of intellectual space to naming what we dont want to the world rather than naming and opening up conversations and space bar what we do want, actually seeking alternatives, many alternatives we want to flourish that pushed me not just in terms of the title, but to flesh out this part of the book which is about how groups that have been they have always and reimagined these practices from the top and so you will find in that last section both historically and in terms of our contemporary moment ways in which all different types of this around the world even redefine what we think of as innovation and so that especially is what i hope readers especially students will take away. Its a kind of energizing base around seating cd what we want to see. Excellent and cleo, you written extensively about the history of incarceration and talked about the transition from slavery to the cockerel estate and i can see this true line with moments where the technologies have jumped the prison wall and we are talking this morning, chris and i, and he blew my mind that said a fit to bits and and at apple watch are just an ankle monitor. We looked around the room and we would like oh, no. We love our stuff, but are we in a way creating metadata, surveilling ourselves . One of the concepts you bring up is the concept of the racial Data Revolution and you really bring statistics into the conversation about making up people and so can you talk more about this racial Data Revolution as you have understood a historically and what i have to do with the way in which our lives are turned into data today . Sure your just a basic definition of terms just because i think its important for me too sort of put my work into the context. The data is little more than administrative data that state produces by virtue of registration voter registration, getting a drivers license, god for bid you get arrested, school records, all of that stuff when you fill out those forms from Social Security application throughout the course of your life has become increasingly accessible. Used it to be literal analog or written the cards and it just took effort for people to collect that information and to do something with it, so part of the what we all be behind, the traces of our lives and the dimensions of our live from 1 degree or another with Computer Technology is essentially what we are talking about here. Now, take us back 125 years when the nation was in turmoil over immigration and all sorts of people were coming here from abroad mostly at the invitation of business to make money because they needed labor and offer can americans were making a go at their Citizenship Rights newly gained in wake of the civil war, social scientists said about the task of defining who was working he wasnt. Where should they sit in society . Who should be the middle managers, technicians etc. Etc. And in that year era demographers linked up with the predictive scientists of that age and started to compile another version of big data and they use what they had at their disposal and what they had at their disposal was largely census data, arrested data, i say particularly on crime data as a breakthrough in the reason being is because one of the paramount questions in the early Data Revolution was with population shift on the scale that was occurring in the second industrial revolution, the question of how to efficiently harness peoples labor power, but also to contain the social contagion, and their literal disease incident, all of these other social and cultural concerns about what they would bring with them meant it was simultaneously about making money from their bodies and at the same time quarantining them in segregated communities and that could be for the irish, the polish, africanamericans moving from south to north end in a nutshell Crime Statistics became one of the most durable and important technologies of difference as a way of ranking peoples relative fitness for citizenship. Their relative fitness for being truly included in society. So, the higher the crime rate the more suspicious and unworthy, labeled dangerous or part of the dangerous classes. Essentially your individuality didnt matter. Some of this led to eugenics and sterilization campaigns, immigration restriction akin to the call that is at the border today. Its a striking the parallel with which the claim that data itself was divorced from political agenda and was just a simple articulation of the facts of the choices that individuals made that in some ways the rejection of a kind of biological argument, which in the past had been well these people are inferior because the way they look right away their hair falls on their head etc. To this is the way they behave and therefore where they behave escapes the trapping of bias in the data accumulates their behavior, but the behavior was subject to surveillance and different standards of treatment and justice etc. In the last thing i will say is with the Data Revolution there was a way out, so to use the two ruhas point about the libertarian side of the story is as much as Crime Statistics became a permanent stigma for by people as a way of disqualifying them from the fold citizenship and freedom and essentially creating the conditions of eventually getting as mass incarceration, that same data was inverted on behalf of those who citizenship was a worthy enterprise of what we would call americanization work simulation. Some of the same groups in 1850 that their crime that had been used as a reason to contain, quarantine or limit for citizenship, said irish by the 19 tens and 20s became next used to help those poor irish people because we need them to be part of hours excited, access to jobs, civil service, policing, trade, construction, etc. So in that early Data Revolution, we see the choice of what to make of the data is our choice. The data doesnt tell us what to do. We interpret the data separate and apart from what the data is a real reflection of reality or not. So, i went to invite you into this topic as well. Most of your work is more contemporary, but even in looking for current bio for latoya, yet been talking on race and Technology Panels for at least a decade when i was searching looking for your bio, but what is to say that you have been in the world of journalists and culture makers trying to struggle with this fine line between how do we put data and service of the culture and also how do we hold a different spaces online for different kinds of discussion. I want you to talk bit about the time when racial issues was one of the most preeminence outlets on the net that we are actually discussing that these real important issues of race and technology and then you can wrap up by telling us if we are doomed or not. Like how you would even respond. This was before like you saw terms that were used in the media now like racial identity, still in the middle the backlash to political correctness. We were still on that we forgot to identity politics. We started this blog. All of his writing and a real names that because we thought we be famous, but like who cares about this topic . The it turns out it was way to be very accessible about whats happening. We started eating a lot of Mainstream Media attention. A lot of our stuff is getting quoted in the New York Times when people were inside the paper were trying to establish order to think completely forget the New York Times frequently dropped the ball and still do on racial coverage, frequently did things like failed to report on lynching. Or just like obituaries that were never written for people who were notable but because of the racial background agenda background they never get the credit they deserve. There was a lot of editing within the media at the time and a lot of control of the narrative. It wasnt just racial issues. There were all of these other places that were trying to talk back to the media. All of these things at the time in 2008 when blogging was becoming prominent and bloggers try to get credentialed at the dnc, talking points memo, like all of the things are still considered very new media, very strange and we just happened to be on the forefront of people wanting to have a deeper conversation about race and accountability that they could use any media and discuss it. We wrote quite a bit the got a lot of response. There was a time when were talking to vanity fair about, talking about madonna. We talked about neocolonialism and with that look like. Really allowed us to be able to speak and influence what was happening in the Mainstream Media in way none of us participated at the same time were also did with the rise of White Supremacy online. Like White Supremacy is always been with us. Weve talked about this for years and years but like the tactics migrate. Back then it was storm front. That will it was the daily stoermer. It keeps migrating. The same tactics use over and over, whether its the ku klux klan saying we are friendly local nights, were here to help you. Two, when you go online to the medical warfare where they leave College Campuses come like its okay to be white. We watched the things migrate and morph over time, become more sophisticated, become almost more institutionalized in an interesting way. One of first article someone pointed out to us i should mention a group blog, we did not run for profit. It was everybody volunteer love of labor. It was basically some had asked as to look into something. We had one person who is very tech savvy, 2007 or eight. Before Search Engine optimization can the business it was. Can you guys do something on my supremacy . They were going through and messing with Different Things to try to reroute people who are looking for information on dr. King into his wife supremacist sites that were created to look like their sympathetic but then to tell you the truth about what was happening, the truth begin is to recruit. We saw that later. How white supremacist started working on looking at places where the wasnt good information about a place or some kind of city or type of event and then filling that gap in with misleading information. I dont know if i told you this story, its a horrifying story i will apologize in advance. One of the pieces are known for was about an incident that happened to me and some friends a long time ago, basically a group of boys that a new went to jail for for a horrific gang re that happened when i was about 14. One of the guys, one of the other guys was a person sexually assaulted me and so theres always a whole trial, a lot of things akin gump altright as adults at about 14 to 16. Theyve all been in jail for the last 20 years that they just got out. That story, i wrote about it, its in this anthology, floating around online at different places. You can find a pretty easily. Whats interesting is that rape case i wrote about all the jews go because it is happening in my neighborhood right down the street is now being used by White Supremacists to recruit because of the racial makeup of what happened. It was essentially six young men of color and one white girl. Because the Washington Post and other papers put the archives behind a pay wall they created a data void and a lot of white supremacist to then refer to this case without you having to see any facts of that pain. Theyve change this nerd in terms of like this is one of many instances where the talk about lack on white crime and all the tags the use. It just keeps resurfacing, resurfacing, resurfacing. We keep seeing these tactics moving from offline to online and getting more and more sophisticated. Being on the front lines of that and looking at technology can be shaped to do now you want to wheel things has been fascinating. With david, im an entertainment, thats my profession. The amount of information, the amount of things people try to sell me as an indicator of what i can learn about my audience, what kind of tracking software can we buy for you . How much dating do you have on anyone given person . Thats what led me to a project i saw launched at the shop, a workshop at an aa conference. The whole idea, the whole genesis came out of a Conference Call the future perfect where they were talking all these different modes of understanding Artificial Intelligence and surveillance and looking out surveillance has evolved. They would talk about how taser as a company has morphed into an ai company now. Now they are excellent. I think is at the Harvard Business school tech summit which showed the ad for how their positioning their stuff in terms of whole smart police force, smart home, scanned them with id instantly, instantly correct news media reports. They have this whole campaign but this sell directly to law enforcement. This is old into law enforcement. They had this idea of this vision of the future what every cop was robocop. Are you serious . Every cop is robocop. At the time of listening to future in a weekend of learning about Artificial Intelligence for work and i was just like who in ai, who is been on the other side of law enforcement, has been physicist in way that was not positive and is look at the way in which you Design Technology . Even the whole framework of stop snitching versus Silicon Valley is now all snitching all the time now. Looking at different types of mode, juveniles that were diverted from the criminal Justice System. Use similar to a look at happen if a purchase from a different framework and what happens when you purchase from a framework of people been targeted or prosecute . You get a very different design outcome than you do if you are building from more of a bubble thats normal. Let me pick up on that about the way in which we talk about the design process even and workmen or live a few few more minutes and then well open it to q a. Unfortunately were hoping to have dated from black lights here, a provocative slogan which is abolished the data. Of course people like cringe at that, marketers are like no, you know . But the call to action is and to get rid of data science. She says she wants to quote put data into the hands of those who need it most end quote. For those who work in a culture industry, data can sometimes be turned into power. One of the things we were neglecting constantly in the way we talk about how retool and Ritual Technology is narrative. Narrative is way in which we relate to one another, the way in which you position narratives and race after technology is to say that stories is a code for culture. By way of wrapping up of love for us to talk a bit about some of the stuff thats been happening religious social media, disinformation. Everything was fine on the internet until 2015, just so everybody knows. In 2016f and the internet broke. I dont know if you heard this, like in the New York Times, right . People along our lines have always thought maybe his ability as a trap. We want to be careful when we hand over information but we also want to know when were talking to the state, like when im registering for something i want to know who is getting that data and why. And then of course there was a big everybodys brain exploded when we found out that russia was pretending to be transgender teenagers and Muslim Advocates and black feminists. There wasnt a piece of the internet that they had not really astroturf so i would love for us to conclude this portion of the discussion to talk about, if you could talk a little bit about the concept of the new jim code and then khalil, im interested in hearing from you about this information and black activism. Because either feeling the media has been lying on black people for a long time and there might be some strategies you have heard about. Latoya, i would for you to close this out by talking a bit about how you are viewing narratives in the possibilities for redesigning culture through redesigning gaming. It really picks up on the point about the sophistication of what our colleague jesse has called the fact White Nationalist art innovation opportunities. We are trained to think about racism as what happens in the backwoods as a byproduct of not knowing things. So what our work is sort of troubling is the innovation aspect of racism, the fact it is often forwardlooking. When you think about the new jim code which is invoke at the same time history of White Supremacy and racial segregation but also thinking about how the sophistication in enabling new forms of ratification and speeding up the possibility of making it easier. A quick example would be thinking about old school targeted advertisements which think about Housing Developers in the 20th century that put up flyers in neighborhoods in los angeles which is where my grandparents moved. These wires would be trying to entice white homebuyers by saying dont worry, by in this neighborhood because with beneficial restrictions. Were not going to let black people move your so your investment will be secure. This is an old school targeted ad which has enabled through the backdoor of various facebook, google in which advertisers can target and say we dont want black people to see this ad or we dont want old people see this ad. This enables this oldschool kind of discrimination but in a new form where the people who are being preyed upon or excluded dont even know so you can even point the racist realtor. Because you dont even know you were being selected out of a particular group. This is an illustration of a new jim code that is both invoking this issue but saying it enables new forms of discrimination right under our noses and we need to Pay Attention to that. So much more to say. Ruha has done some really great work. So disinformation. Well, of course, the law of black inferiority may be the greatest Disinformation Campaign of the last 400 years, as some of us have been talking about. Whats fascinating is that one of the key elements of that Disinformation Campaign has been as latoya has talked about is the use of black Crime Statistics as a mobilizing tool to simultaneously stoke white fear of a mexican racist class of immigrants flooding the borders, building on an old and entrenched notion of black criminality and at the same time these tropes were used to discredit black lives matter activists itself which became a lightning rod for supporting the republican candidate in the 2016 election who made a platform they saw one in order. None of us on this stage can overstate the case that the disinformation about black lives matter, not only was coordinated by some of the same people that latoya has described but also by russian bots are used the fragmentation, the legitimate critiques against the state as a way to create a wedge which as someone really described attractive indigenous blackface which was to caricature of the black activist as unreasonable, crazy lunatics who hated white people, and at the same time to create a legitimate federal response in the black identity extremist report. So you have these ripples of actual every, every strand of her society, if we just stop, take one step back from the accretion of a black identity extremist report, linked to the digital blackface of russian bots and White Nationalist threaten the black and brown people in this country ever think about the overall outcome in our electoral arena, you could not center the consequences of this anymore significantly. You cant pick any other aspect of our society and say, well, with that whole race and crime thing, its not really important. We should be talking about these other issues. So the question of how our black activist baby with us and what she would be doing about going forward, just one other quick point, the attack of White Supremacists on innocent people also meant that disinformation this enabled our federal officials from seeing the real problem that faces us, created a fake problem. So what do we do about it . It turns out some of the resistance to what was going on was only made possible i virtue of black people being in front of social media spaces and sing what was inauthentic language, fake vernacular, like literally seeing the court sludge on the digital face of these white actors and say no, no, no thats not us. The question for us is what role do we play in insisting upon the very people that latoya has described needs to be at the table, are newsmaking, our digital platforms, our Tech Industry which remains some of the most exclusive arenas. If those people are actually there to see whats happening on these platforms, we could expect greater scrutiny and more vigilance on the front and rather than on the back and. So the answer is include more black people in newsrooms and in the tech speedy go figure, right . I know. I want to say very plainly because it brings true, right, every time it happens, every time you introduce a different voice into the room that says wait, why are you doing it that way . And do you see this other thing . Its like, wait, what . Is a different story. Although not just inclusion of power. They have the room but they dont have any power. Your inclusion consider can sas nothing to see here. Thats very true and that goes back to some of the points we were talking a changing the system and the structure so it isnt just the one person in that room and in that arena. I think social media also in some instances introduces a kind of clap back which had to create such a massive wave to do that authentically, that it sometimes feels like an insurmountable problem and its exhausting. So latoya, i wanted to close that and then will go into q a, just asking about Narrative Strategies in changing the way in which gaming culture and the culture is recognizing itself. Before i go and that i want to quickly talk about the work of a colleague of mine, a fulbright scholar who lives parttime in ukraine and you wrote extensively about russias tactics of Ethnic Division when they were in crimea. Its amazing because hes an africanamerican writer and scholar so like hey, if youre looking for some of who lives parttime in the region, has experience in this, to be on air or to right for you, i am here. Its been six years now hes been talking about these issues and still not mainstream and being passed over for others who dont have his experience and this is very common in media. Anyway, such as everybody knows. From a narrative perspective one of the things to think about, and not just in gaming but where culture wars like to live. People like to see culture wars thats why College Campuses are such prominent sites for trying to show racial division, do these types of activities. Thats why gaming became such a hot topic. People didnt realize essentially it was attracted to people who wanted to start the culture war because they felt like there was a lot of young men who could be radicalized in the same space. You see this in varying spaces. A lot of the tactics the use is tactics that isis uses to recruit. Its interesting to look at patterns of radicalization and Sowing Division and see if some of the arctic in the gaming space it then considered like a young white man space for a long time, even though it hasnt ever been true. There have been quite a few people whove been here. We were looking to change narratives because we deserve to be represented in the things we play. I i gave a talk back in 2012, i played as a leaf, i played as an evident all kinds of stuff but 30 years of gaming, i want to play as a black woman like six times. Six i have been a white man countless times, thousands. I dont want to think about anymore. I can be a nonhuman way more often than i can be a black woman. I found that interesting. We came up with 17 in like 32 years. Theres a lot of change that can be done but the whole idea is watch the narrative. What if somebody selling your . These people really are not you. They are not real gamers. They are justice warriors. Theyre trying to use all these weird tactics, all this feminism, all this crap we dont need. We dont need that in our games. We dont want a black lead character but the psyche, this narrative theres an us and ate them and we need to keep them out of our stuff is a thing you see in housing policy, in criminal justice. When we talk about narrative and talk about what narratives are being allowed in different spaces of these other things yet to watch because gaming now rules the world just like comics will the world, all this geek stuff has come to center. Bringing a lot with it the people didnt anticipate or people didnt expect. The id idea of look at narratie and there to change isnt just about greed and more equitable outcomes but actively confronting the folks who try to twist this and the whole idea of racism and innovation, like racist innovation. It produces things. Right. A lot of times there trying to go where we are not. That is a huge conversation right now like an stringy. Its a whole different culture of watching somebody else play again for four hours because you want to talk to them. A lot of the stuff can be the most toxic, this unfiltered, and edited string for four hours. The question we have now is sounds like like a golf out. It can be like a golf outing. We have a couple more minutes for questions so i know my friend here in the front want to ask one. If you go up to the microphone over here. Yes. I just want to say that is professor doctor evelyn one of the leading scholars of science and technology. So i very persuaded by the conversation that resistance is not futile, but what i really want what i really have gotten out of this conversation, but is the resistance visible . All the Different Things you all are speaking to, i dont know if my 16 year old son and all his friends or are most of the stus i teach at harvard no about the reality of resistance. Because what i hear as i drive my son and his friend around is, but mom, loss of privacy is the price we pay for progress. Whats the problem with losing privacy, right . What you all have explained, the price we are paying for losing privacy, losing control, having other people correct so much information about as, the price of david. Who knows about this resistance . I mean, thats really, its interesting away from the question but i realize as you frame it that that is what motivated me to write face after technology because of wanting to make visible not just the problem but all of the Community Organizations, all of the national networks, the various pedagogical interventions that are trying to coalesce around the movement to address various kinds of coded in equity. I do think they can all be happening under our noses a part of it is to bring it to light and also to connect the dots so that the various scholarship in cambridge are connected with the Community Organizations that are doing tech justice work that are working with the artists that are reimagining our relationships to technology and connecting the dots around this so that the generation who lands in my class every year, for the for the first time think about the relationship between race and tech as a language to critically engage. I feel like we spent a few years hyping up all of the coding for marginalized groups, girls who code, black girls who code, so building of the technical proficiency. But what we really need to a company that is a critical language, a critical conceptual tool that go along with the technical prowess because just knowing how to be a called in the machine without being able to question it is not going to serve us. I will say quickly i met ruha and data at data for black lights before their tech emphasis, an entire ecosystem of resistors who are building capacity and community. And just on the note about that, i did find out the data for black lights conference col happen next year in the summer in new york city. So two of my least favorite things together with one of my most favorite things, so do look out for that because the registration actually moves wasy quickly. Its usually two or three days and it will be closed because a lot of people want to support the organization so they buy tickets even if theyre not going to go. But i agree we should understand theres an organizational logic to resistance and joining organizations that have some durability and some infrastructure and some principles are something that the moments of 2011, 2012 may be underserved different populations online because it was so easy to activate, so easy to get people in the streets. It was like every week like shutdown chickfila, occupy. Then it was, so its easy to mobilize the people were not building the infrastructure and the durability and the needs to be return to some of these organizational logix. Anybody can start that and thats the thing about the internet that is still readable in that way. I also wanted to up in the back, you have a question. My name is liable, im a junior at the college. Im currently in the class on the history of technology, and weve talked yesterday about the psyche of technology as a social construction in that like its role and used bins on the social context in which it is great and disseminated. I just noticed a lot of indirect connections tonight, like showing our countrys history and our Current Society influences data and internet and gaming issues and constructed today. Im curious to hear your thoughts as to whether the Technology Going forward as simply reactive to our society and its values, good or bad, or do you think theres a Way Technology can be used to drive social change for the better . I mean come to me its always both. Technology tends to migrate so even people who great something, they were like we want the stop motion video. Buying became is totally different ecosystem which has its own pattern language and speech. Even with people who Great Technology feel like theyre shaping it, as soon as it hits society to become something completely different. It can be used to push but in the same vein its always also used to pull. Talk to fitbit being like ankle bracelets, is a wild article in wired about someone who got prosecuted based on fitbit testimony and a nest video. They the prosecutor a guy like s daughter inlaws and murder over basically over that information. Nobody set out to create the fitbit to use this in criminal prosecution. Technology always takes on a life of its own. It decides what its going to be based on the user base. There are some collective action people feel like if we limit facebook, we can restrict the big tech companies, rake up big tech. But the way these things implement into society and we see people using it, its a much more complicated and hard to police issue. Does anybody else want im give you all the last word because its 7 00 and im bound by house rules for iop to shut it down. So i guess by way of closing, this conversation and brought up for me a lot of hope and promise that even though we do have sort of a technological monopoly going on related to some of the larger platform companies, there are people here creating new culture, creating and being part of different circuits of power. I think our greatest hope when the internet was designed that it would be centralized some things at the same time that operations and money would figure out to centralized other things. And so rather than inspire you to leave and become the next youtube star, right, the point years ago what an experiment with technology, a lot and try some new things. Look at technology critically, understand that Technology Uses you as much as you use it but at the same time its not going away. Its not going to be a boycott. This is a slow revolution, right . We are in the midst of a information revolution. The Printing Press turned us all into readers. The internet has turned us all into office. With that i would like to say go forth and read and write and learn, and dont go work at one of those companies. Know, and we talked about that. [applause] that sound like such a great ending but she still wants us to chime in. Just a little bit. My closing sentiment would be oftentimes when you hear these ideas, the first impulse is to think about what you can do individually different. Thats fine but the impulse to only think at of the level of individual change, i want to push you to think about corrective action and organizing. One of the most heartening thinks of me is the organizing happening among tech workers themselves . Others organizing and collective action happening all around. You think writer in cambridge, think about the Design Justice Network at mit. Professor shock, the justice league. Rather than try to invest something new as part of the solution, connect up with was already happening. One of the not so heartening things ive also noticed is tech pros are trying to establish standards of ethics. So take the ideas that have been there in terms of sts and imagining fasten themselves as offering the solution to the problems they have created, rather than linking up with those tradition disciplines, organizations that have long been in the trenches. Rather than try to come up with your new startup for tech ethics, connect up with organizations that already exist and support them. Let me give you a round of applause. [applause] closing sentiment. I wanted to close on thinking about a cautionary note, about the glamorization attack. So many of you are here for reasons because you have concerns, questions but a lot of people are not here. Theres a lot of sexiness about turning to technology and innovation, an expression of thought some of the world cup okada problems. I wanted to mention that, to come full circle, that venture capitalists are not going to make you rich off of your antiracist feminist app to root out all of the white supremacist men in your life. So you have to make a choice about this kind of work. You have to figure out how to measure success that is not dependent upon some economic metric, because you picture the idea and some rich person or even a wealthy philanthropy is not invested. That may not be the measure of whether its a good idea or not. And the more of you come to document of people who can collaborate and share resources to get those apps off the ground or whatever happened to be, the more likely we are to move the needle. Something like top watch, and about the app cop watch, some people may be never downloaded it, but it was an expression of the role of cell phone video in documenting Police Violence and abuse over the last several years so cop watch it make anybody rich but it did empower people to be ready, and this is not about the shooting of an unarmed person. This was simply roughing up a 16yearold roughing up i just wanted to and that we cant let the markets continue to dominate your own agenda and ethical code about whats valuable or not in our society. [applause] i think for me the one take what i will look for a what this room to take would be in time you encounter a new committee, technology, ask yourself, what am i not seen . What is something that is underlying here that i am not seeing . If its a new technology, whats the weight is actually works . Whos benefiting me doing this, the whole like take this test and then well steal your face, like that to me assassinating. Same thing with think you may not come like who is missing from the space . When people talk about cataloging 4chan, look at the internet history of memes. There are no black faces in any other memes they put it. Thats not an accidental oversight. If you look at this like the memes of the unit you miss all of everybody is not white because its been excluded intentionally. What am i i not seen in this space . What is being hidden from the . How does this work . If you start asking questions you end up in some really odd places ill tell you from experience. This is basic journalistic training. Keep finding. You find out all kinds of things you never thought you would know. [applause] with that i really appreciate everybody can out tonight, and thats a wrap. [applause] [inaudible conversations] on a recent episode of booktv is monthly callin program in depth we were joined by author and wall street journal columnist jason riley. In this portion of the program he offers his thoughts on race and the criminal Justice System. I think the criminal Justice System is an improvement today over what used to be over what my father and grandfather experienced in this country but its still not perfect. But i would caution against taking these examples and saying they are typical versus exceptions. Or saying the reason so many blacks are involved with the criminal Justice System is because its a racist system per se. I dont see a lot of evidence for that and i think oftentimes we have discussions about, say the racial makeup of prisons and jails, but we dont talk about the racial makeup of people who perpetrate crimes in this country and i dont think you can really have one discussion without the other. So as imperfect as the criminal Justice System is, has been and continues to be, i still think that there are behavioral differences among groups that lead to something overrepresented in that system and others being underrepresented. To watch the rest of this integer ed to find more episodes of in depth visit
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