Book cover of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

Book description

From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging technologies can reinforce White supremacy and deepen social inequity.

Benjamin argues that automation, far from being a sinister story of racist programmers scheming on the dark web, has the potential to hide, speed up,…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

2 authors picked Race After Technology as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Everyone has that one book that is the I-can’t-put-this-down book. Race After Technology was that book for me.

Ruha Benjamin writes in a way that is so down to earth, tackling heavy subjects like algorithms, systemic racism, and more in a way that is somehow accessible, scholarly, and whippingly smart all in one.

Race After Technology develops a crucial perspective on the ethical and political fault lines of both contemporary social media and their longer history. Far from functioning as the neutral technologies that they are often presented as, Benjamin shows how “default discrimination” is built into platform after platform, algorithm after algorithm, and therefore expressed in click after click. If you hold out any hope for technological neutrality in a racially-unequal society, this book will transform your expectations and sober your stance. It will also inspire you to redouble your commitments to building a more equal technological future.

From Colin's list on data ethics (and data politics).

If you love Race After Technology...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Want books like Race After Technology?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Race After Technology.

Browse books like Race After Technology

Book cover of W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America
Book cover of The Water Dancer
Book cover of Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,340

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Race After Technology, you might also like...

Book cover of Foxfire in the Snow

Foxfire in the Snow by J.S. Fields,

It's a time of change, between magic and alchemy.

Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…

Book cover of The Main Gate

The Main Gate by Yvonne Kjorlien,

Dr. Elise Marquette has spent years burying the past—until the past refuses to stay buried.

Hired to join Earth’s first interstellar contact team, she hopes the vastness of space will finally offer distance from the ghosts of war and the wounds left by a mother who never let her be…

5 book lists we think you will like!