Thursday, February 27, 2020

Human Capital Futures: Racial Capitalism on Blockchain – A Presentation Given at the Unitarian Society of Germantown – Wrench in the Gears

Human Capital Futures: Racial Capitalism on Blockchain – A Presentation Given at the Unitarian Society of Germantown – Wrench in the Gears

Human Capital Futures: Racial Capitalism on Blockchain – A Presentation Given at the Unitarian Society of Germantown


I was grateful to be invited to participate in a day-long conversation about race and technology last week at the Unitarian Society of Germantown in Philadelphia. The morning’s discussion was centered on Clyde Ford’s wonderful memoir Think Black, which touches on family, corporate culture, race, and social engineering. Ford’s father was the first Black software engineer at IBM, and Clyde followed him into the business. You can watch a presentation he gave on the book for C-SPAN here.
Think Black
My role later that day was to paint a picture of next-gen tools of enslavement, the ones finance and technology interests have been refining for quite some time. As my host noted, my talk was meant to help folks recognize the digital slave ship when it comes on shore, because it might not look dangerous at first glance.
Faith-based communities will play a significant role in privatized social-service delivery. The plan is hook them into performance based contracting that requires them to data-mine the people they serve. I am trying to get out in front of this and tell people, especially white liberals, that we all have an obligation to intervene in the structures of racial capitalism. When foundations and politicians knock on the door with “pay for success” plans, people of faith must tell them in no uncertain terms that justice will never be served putting people on Blockchain.