The Ending Racism Committee sponsors a day of examining racism and technology at USG beginning with a video from author Clyde Ford about his new memoir, Think Black. This will be followed by a Q and A and discussion led by attorney and activist, Michael Coard, who will challenge us to consider how technology has been and is being systematically employed to keep those in power, in power, and one step ahead by offering unsuspecting consumers ‘conveniences’ which are an intentional part of global economic racial oppression by design.

Michael Coard has a criminal defense attorney for more than 25 years and has received numerous prestigious awards. As a community activist, he is a founding member of Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC), the organization that helped lead the historic, successful battle to force the federal government to commemorate the African descendants enslaved by President George Washington at America’s first “White House,” located at the site of the Liberty Bell Center. He is an adjunct professor in the African Studies Department at Temple University and volunteer instructor of Criminal Justice in the university’s Pan African Studies Program. In addition, he is a radio host at WURD and a columnist for the Philadelphia Tribune and Philadelphia Magazine. (Unfortunately, Clyde Ford is unable to join us as previously advertised.)

After lunch, we will hear from Alison McDowall, who will speak on Big Data, Blockchain and Bonded Life. She will share that we face a disruptive future brought about by climate catastrophe, militarization, wealth inequality and the automation of labor. Those in power intend to manage global disruption profitably and brutally.

Alison McDowell, a Philadelphia activist, independent researcher, and blogger at wrenchinthegears.com, will speak to ways in which settler-colonial violence and structural racism are being coded into self-sovereign identity and digital public benefit systems. Following her presentation we will have an open conversation around what it will mean to live in the “Internet of Humans” era and if we need to consider an abolition movement to oppose Blockchain identity as a new tool of bondage.

Schedule:

 9:30 Doors open

10:00-12:00 Racism and Technology presentation and Q & A

12:00-1:00 Books available and lunch

1:00-2:00 Alison Hawver McDowell:  Big Data, Blockchain and a Bonded Life

2:00 2:30  Q & A 

Closing