From the author of Race After Technology, an inspiring vision of how we can build a more just world—one small change at a time “A true gift to our movements for justice.”—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day. Vividly recounting her personal experiences and those of her family, Benjamin shows how seemingly minor decisions and habits could spread virally and have exponentially positive effects. She recounts her father’s premature death, illuminating the devastating impact of the chronic stress of racism, but she also introduces us to community organizers who are fostering mutual aid and collective healing. Through her brother’s experience with the criminal justice system, we see the trauma caused by policing practices and mass imprisonment, but we also witness family members finding strength as they come together to demand justice for their loved ones. And while her own challenges as a young mother reveal the vast inequities of our healthcare system, Benjamin also describes how the support of doulas and midwives can keep Black mothers and babies alive and well. Born of a stubborn hopefulness, Viral Justice offers a passionate, inspiring, and practical vision of how small changes can add up to large ones, transforming our relationships and communities and helping us build a more just and joyful world.

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, and deepen discrimination while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to the racism of a previous era. Presenting the concept of the “New Jim Code,” she shows how a range of discriminatory designs encode inequity by explicitly amplifying racial hierarchies; by ignoring but thereby replicating social divisions; or by aiming to fix racial bias but ultimately doing quite the opposite. Moreover, she makes a compelling case for race itself as a kind of technology, designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice in the architecture of everyday life. This illuminating guide provides conceptual tools for decoding tech promises with sociologically informed skepticism. In doing so, it challenges us to question not only the technologies we are sold but also the ones we ourselves manufacture. Visit the book's free Discussion Guide here.

In this electrifying medical thriller from New York Times bestselling author Robin Cook, a family’s exposure to a rare yet deadly virus ensnares them in a growing danger to mankind—and pulls back the curtain on a healthcare system powered by profit and greed. Trying to find some normalcy during the Covid-19 pandemic, Brian Murphy and his family are on a summer excursion in Cape Cod when his wife, Emma, comes down with concerning flu-like symptoms. But their leisurely return home to New York City quickly becomes a race to the local hospital as she suddenly begins seizing in the car. At the ICU, she is diagnosed with eastern equine encephalitis, a rare and highly lethal mosquito-borne viral disease seemingly caught during one of their evening cookouts. Complicating the situation further, Brian and Emma’s young daughter then begins to exhibit alarming physical and behavioral symptoms, too. Emma’s harrowing hospital stay turns even more fraught when Brian receives a staggering hospital bill full of outrageous charges and murky language. To add insult to injury, his health insurance company refuses to cover any of the cost, citing dubious clauses in Brian’s policy. Forced to choose between the ongoing care of family and bills he can never pay, and furious at a shockingly indifferent healthcare system, Brian vows to seek justice. But to get to the bottom of the predatory practices targeting his loved ones and countless others, he must uncover the dark side of an industry that has strayed drastically from its altruistic roots—and bring down the callous executives preying on the sick and defenseless before the virus can claim even more people . . .

The contributors to Captivating Technology examine how carceral technologies such as electronic ankle monitors and predictive-policing algorithms are being deployed to classify and coerce specific populations and whether these innovations can be appropriated and reimagined for more liberatory ends.

“An engaging, insightful, and challenging call to examine both the rhetoric and reality of innovation and inclusion in science and science policy.” —Daniel R. Morrison, American Journal of Sociology Stem cell research has sparked controversy and heated debate since the first human stem cell line was derived in 1998. Too frequently these debates devolve to simple judgments—good or bad, life-saving medicine or bioethical nightmare, symbol of human ingenuity or our fall from grace—ignoring the people affected. With this book, Ruha Benjamin moves the terms of debate to focus on the shifting relationship between science and society, on the people who benefit—or don’t—from regenerative medicine and what this says about our democratic commitments to an equitable society. People’s Science uncovers the tension between scientific innovation and social equality, taking the reader inside California’s 2004 stem cell initiative, the first of many state referenda on scientific research, to consider the lives it has affected. Benjamin reveals the promise and peril of public participation in science, illuminating issues of race, disability, gender, and socio-economic class that serve to define certain groups as more or less deserving in their political aims and biomedical hopes. Ultimately, Ruha Benjamin argues that without more deliberate consideration about how scientific initiatives can and should reflect a wider array of social concerns, stem cell research—from African Americans’ struggle with sickle cell treatment to the recruitment of women as tissue donors—still risks excluding many. Even as regenerative medicine is described as a participatory science for the people, Benjamin asks us to consider if “the people” ultimately reflects our democratic ideals.

So far, twenty-three thousand and ninety-six people have seen me online. Su has always been the successful sister. It's Leah who is wild and often angry. But when they go to Magaluf to celebrate their exam results, Su disappears. Su is on the run, humiliated and afraid. There's an online video of her performing multiple sex acts in a nightclub. And everyone has seen it. Their mother Ruth, a prominent court judge, is furious. Can she bring justice to the men who took advantage of her daughter, and what will it take to bring Su home? 'Read it.' Stylist 'Gripping.' Tammy Cohen, author of When She Was Bad 'A real psychological roller-coaster.' Scotsman