Acknowledging Black women for the ideas on Sunset Racism
Somebody I respect very much pointed out to me last autumn that the central thesis of Sunset Racism reminded her of a book called “Race After Technology” by Princeton professor Ruha Benjamin.
I ran to the internets, googled the book and had a copy delivered which I gave to my spouse so she could give it to me for Christmas.
My heart started beating harder when I read the section of the introduction entitled Race as Technology:
“This field guide explores not only how emerging technologies hide, speed up, or reinforce racism, but also how race is itself a kind of technology…. one that people routinely reimagine and redeploy to their own ends.”
My first reaction was joy. I’m not alone. There are amazing, brilliant people who think this is a productive inquiry! A whole community of people I realized, as I devoured the book (which anybody who finds this blog at all interesting, should read).
My second reaction was embarrassment and shame. I’ve been writing this blog for awhile now. While I had not encountered the book previously, I had heard the phrase “The New Jim Code” before. I must have encountered her work. Had I unwittingly copied it? How did I miss that there was this whole community of people already exploring the idea of Racism as a Technology?
Putting aside, my internal chatter however, what is really going on is that my white, male privilege is showing and is totally obvious to any Person of Color and many white women reading my work. Embarrassment is an appropriate reaction.
Somebody from that community of Black women reached out to me on behalf of that community and gave me some very direct, candid feedback on how the blog read to her (as somebody working on the idea of Race as Technology before me).
From that, here’s what I learned and can see (so far) needs to be addressed (after getting some very generous and direct feedback from Black women that want to see me do better):
Sunset Racism is written as if I have created a new framework “sui generis” which is not accurate, true or just. There are a lot of thinkers (including Professor Benjamin) who have been exploring this idea long before me. As written now, I am effectively erasing the intellectual labor of Black women (and other People of color) who have done the work. That can’t continue.
My ignorance of these thinkers is no excuse to for erasing their work. It’s the height of arrogance for me to be trying to do what I’m doing without studying in depth what others are doing in the domain of Racism as a Technology. I have a lot of reading and study to do.
I need to cite and write about the work of the folks in this domain whose work I’m either building on or should be in dialog with. I need to be part of the community I’m attempting to be a part of and avoid centering myself which I know happens when I fall into the temptations of individualism, whiteness, and the myth of the sole inventor to which I am so susceptible.
The blog, as currently written, is perpetrating racist harm on the people with whom I would most like to work, and whose work I am most interested in supporting, boosting and amplifying.
Here is my plan to address it and make amends.
First, I’m updating the acknowledgements section to call out especially the work in this domain that I owe a debt of gratitude to, both the things I’ve read and the things I know I now need to read.
Second, where appropriate, I’m communicating with people I’ve harmed and apologizing for the erasure. (For example with my twitter and LinkedIn mutuals who are directly impacted).
Lastly, I’m undertaking a major rewrite of (at least) the core “Racism as a Technology” and “Whiteness as a standard” sections of the blog to address these concerns. My intention is to archive the original posts so that they stop harming the community, but so that folks that want to learn from my mistakes can go see what changed in the archive.
This may take a little time, because will need to do more of the required reading. In the meantime, however, I pledge to stop promoting the posts which are currently harming people (and I’ve taken them down from the main site and archived them where Google won’t see them).
Anyway, to the person who pointed this out to me with such grace, compassion and directness, thank you so much for your candor and insight and generosity.
In our antiracist support group, we remind each other that as white people, we’re going to mess up, cause harm, and make mistakes on our journey. The reaction we’re training each other to have ongoingly is one of gratitude and humility. We make messes. We clean them up. We do the work to restore our relationship with the folks we hurt. We keep going and it’s no excuse to stop.
It’s my sincere hope that this acknowledgement, and the actions I’m taking to address the problem are restorative and reflect my deep respect and admiration for the community of Black women and other BIPOC people working in the domain of race and technology.
Warm Regards,
Jamey
P.S. The problematic content is now archived and should only be discoverable by people who have read this letter.