I was grateful to be invited to participate in a day-long conversation about race and technology last week at the Unitarian Society of Germantown in Philadelphia. The morning’s discussion was centered on Clyde Ford’s wonderful memoir Think Black, which touches on family, corporate culture, race, and social engineering. Ford’s father was the first Black software engineer at IBM, and Clyde followed him into the business. You can watch a presentation he gave on the book for C-SPAN here.
My role later that day was to paint a picture of next-gen tools of enslavement, the ones finance and technology interests have been refining for quite some time. As my host noted, my talk was meant to help folks recognize the digital slave ship when it comes on shore, because it might not look dangerous at first glance.
Faith-based communities will play a significant role in privatized social-service delivery. The plan is hook them into performance based contracting that requires them to data-mine the people they serve. I am trying to get out in front of this and tell people, especially white liberals, that we all have an obligation to intervene in the structures of racial capitalism. When foundations and politicians knock on the door with “pay for success” plans, people of faith must tell them in no uncertain terms that justice will never be served putting people on Blockchain.
What is needed is an abolition movement to stop digital identity systems tied to surveillance, policing, and public benefit access. It will have to be a movement of global solidarity that centers our nation’s brutal history in genocide, land theft, slavery and forced labor.
This is the slideshare for the talk I gave on February 22, 2020.
Below are a few images that speak to the plans of transnational global capital to turn people in data commodities. As always those on the front lines who will experience the full force of these brutal programs are Black and Brown people, Indigenous people, and the poor.
Global Education Futures Forum: Go to the “Maps and Posters” Tab, Then “Future of Global Education Map 2014”
