Acknowledgements.

It’s important to acknowledge that I (and my collaborators over the years), are attempting to participate in, engage and extend upon a much larger, much broader conversation, crafted by leaders and activists and thinkers we admire today as well as generations of leaders and activists who came before them and us.

This blog could not have been conceived without borrowing, leaning on, and/or being inspired by bodies of work created and put forward by Black thinkers, people of color, intersectional feminists, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Assexual plus (LGBTQA+) community. I owe everything here to them. My early exposure to contemporary political theorists like Audre Lorde, Bell Hooks, and Donna Haraway certainly shapes this work.

I have recently also been introduced to the work of amazing thinkers and academics who have been exploring the idea of “Racism as a technology” way before I started thinking and writing about it. My excitement, and inspiration about this work has been reinvigorated by discovering and learning about the work of these BIPOC women, and the entire inquiry here at Sunset Racism would not be possible without their work. IF you are interested in taking a deeper dive, like I am, here are are some of the definitive resources on the topic.

Sheth, Falguni. “The Technology of Race.” Radical Philosophy Review, vol. 7, no. 1, 2004, pp.77-98.

Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. “Introduction: Race and/as technology; or, How to Do Things with Race.” Camera Obscura 24, 1 (2009): 7-35.

Coleman, Beth. "Race as Technology." Camera Obscura 24, 1 (2009): 176-207.

Benjamin, Ruha. “Catching Our Breath: Critical Race STS and the Carceral Imagination.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 2 (2016): 145-156.

Benjamin, Ruha. “Innovating Inequality: If Race is a Technology, Postracialism is the Genius Bar.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 39, 13 (2016): 2227-2234.

Jones, Holly and Jones, Nicolaos. “Race as Technology: From Posthuman Cyborg to Human Industry.” Ilho do Destero. v70 n.2 (2017) 30-51

I owe an especial debt of gratitude to Dr Ruha Benjamin for the very large influence she and her book “Race After Technology” has had on the project.

I also want to acknowledge the diverse group of thinkers, activists and works that have had a recent, palpable impact on the development of Sunset Racism including:

• Kim Crayton, (Profit without Oppression)

• Ta-Nehesi Coates (Between the World and Me)

• Crystal Fleming (How to be less stupid about Race)

• Ibraim X Kendi (How to Be an AntiRacist; Stamped from the Beginning)

• Ijeoma Oluo (So you want to Talk about Race?)

• Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility)

• Neely Fuller (A Compensatory Counter-Racist Code)

• Content and work developed by @absurdistwords (aka 5'9" Black Male)

• All the folks responsible for the resources at dismantlingracism.org

• The folks at the DC Chapter of SURJ

• Ron and Pat David, and all the people who participated in the 2020 project

• Landmark Education Corporation

• The worldwide re-evaluation counseling (RC) community

• My Sunsetting Racism support group

• Lastly, I want to acknowledge the community of gamers and game designers in and around CampNerdly.org, whose collective work around inclusion and safety has had a profound effect on the approaches described here.

Special thanks to my friend Benjamin Rosenbaum for his priceless help with the content here at Sunset Racism.

The purpose of this blog is to put forward a framework, strategies and tactics for the dismantling of the global system of racism/Whiteness. It is the result of a communitarian inquiry into the nature of racism/whiteness, and its intersection with the world of technology and standards.

While the inquiry is global in its intent, I am focused on the variants of racism people experience and observe and perpetrate in the United States. As such, much of the inquiry will focus on the American system of racism, particularly as it effects Black and white people.

When I use the word “racism” please understand it to mean the American system of racism, inclusive of the American system of white supremacy, which have clear, easy to understand definitions that can be found at the DismantlingRacism.org website.

It is my sincere hope that in the future this framework can be expanded on include other forms of American and global racism/white supremacy; and indeed, can also be expanded to other forms of oppression such as sexism, religious intolerance, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, etc.

I’ve released all of the content here under a Creative-Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Sharealike (CC BY-NC-SA) license if anybody wants to use anything I am creating here for your own ending racism work.