this is weekly 2:

Everyone Watches, Nobody Sees: How Black Women Disrupt Surveillance Theory

Selected Quotes:

“Discussions of stolen celebrity selfies often miss the “by force” aspect of the breeches, instead focusing on salacious details. Surveillance is part of the information age, but it has always been part of abusive dynamics. As opting into surveillance becomes increasingly mandatory to participate in societies and platforms, surveillance has been woven into the fabric of our lives in ways we can not readily reject.”

“Media collects the data of black activity and media production as a weapon, without black participation. The lack of black participation can be unintentional or intentional, but usually ends in gross appropriation, clumsy “admiration”, willful erasure or a troublesome combo of all three.”

“Mann and Elahi – credentialed, well-known professors – have a much easier time of saying they agree to be watched than those on the margins.”

“The problem is not that they can’t fight back, but that their fight and the record of what they were fighting is erased and sanitized for easier consumption.”

Discussion Questions:

• How do we create spaces that allow for representation, especially ones that allow and push for the dismantling of these systems of coercion, force, and surveillance?
• What else is allowed to be “erased and sanitized for easier consumption” that is detrimental to communities, and how do we create the transitions in order to combat such behavior?