8 - Afrotechtopolis

Summary

This chapter examines the way digital technologies reinforce racialized social hierarchies. Charlton McIlwain argues that cultural histories of the internet typically exclude black history, and that such an oversight makes it difficult to grasp how racial representations and institutional structures have long-shaped computing systems. Sketching a history that extends back at least to the 1960s, he shows that governments and corporations have long sought to develop technologies that would thwart any attempts at challenging racialized hierarchies and that such efforts can be seen today, as in the revelation that IBM used New York Police Department surveillance footage to develop technology that uses skin color to search for criminal suspects. He argues that any effort to challenge racialized social hierarchies have to consider the technological grounds on which their struggles are waged. While acknowledging that digital tools have been immensely useful for recent movements like Black Lives Matter, he argues that any effort to address technologically enabled racialized hierarchies, which he terms “Afrotechtopolis,” must develop its own technologies.