The Social Dilemma does a deep disservice to the complexities of racism and technology by ignoring the depth of issues that arise when examining the role big tech plays in the marginalization of BIPOC. By Manaal Farooqi This year, Netflix released The Social Dilemma, a documentary exploring the numerous negative effects of social media and...
Tag: surveillance
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Abolition Cannot Wait: Visions For Transformation and Radical World-Building
Abolition is the practice of building a radical vision for the end of imperialism, cis heteropatriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy—and it is very possible. By K. Agbebiyi, Sarah T. Hamid, Rachel Kuo, and Mon Mohapatra Abolition means a world with zero police, a world without prisons, and a world where we build life-sustaining systems of...
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Why We Cannot Trust DNA Companies Like Ancestry and 23andMe
Biometric identification — of which DNA testing is a form of along with fingerprinting, facial recognition, etc. — was not created in a race-neutral vacuum. By Vanessa Taylor With the popularity of at-home DNA tests rising, the idea of companies using their databases to conduct medical research is noble on its surface. Earlier this month,...
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Muslim Americans Don’t Have The Privilege of Forgetting Bush’s Crimes
By sanitizing George W. Bush into a harmless old man with different political views, we dishonor the people who lived through or died by the injustices that he caused. CW: war, torture, death, racism, Islamophobia I envy those with the privilege to forget, to sanitize the horrors of the past. I can’t imagine the comfort...
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Surveilled and Harassed For Playing Malcolm X Speeches: Mikisa Thompson’s Resistance
“I’m just trying to survive as Black woman who wants to do the work to help dismantle white supremacy,” says Mikisa Thompson. Content note for anti-Blackness and descriptions of police surveillance and harassment. “It seems like we cannot do anything that brings us any joy or peace without being interrupted by white supremacy.” I listened...
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These Are The Companies Profiting From Detaining Migrants At Border Concentration Camps
It doesn’t do migrants and refugees a service to pretend that white supremacy, capitalism and other forms of oppression aren’t intertwined. Today Wayfair employees walked out to protest the company’s sales to the U.S. government and its contractor’s concentration camps (let’s call them what they are) based in Texas. 547 Wayfair employees signed a letter...
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You Cannot Be Pro-Cop and Pro-Black: How ‘BlaKkKlansman’ Fails Us
BlacKkKlansman isn’t a story of infiltrating hate, but a harsh reminder of how easily pro-police propaganda can disguise itself in radical Black aesthetic. This essay contains spoilers for Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman” and mentions of racist violence, police brutality, sexual assault. By Vanessa Taylor With the tagline “infiltrate hate”, Spike Lee’s latest joint, “BlacKkKlansman”, boldly burst...
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Your Protest Selfies Are Dangerous
Protest selfies might seem harmless, but they make it much easier for police, alt-right folks or government officials to make your life miserable. I get it. You’re out at the protest, the weather is nice, you’ve got your cutest revolutionary shirt on, and you want to snap a selfie to show the world that you’re...