Fwd: Automating Inequality event Mon 4/16, 6:00 PM

[Stevie Lewis]

Hi all, 

There's a great event coming up this coming Tuesday at Octavia Books. Meet the author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor at 6pm!  Pass along the invite. 

Best,

Stevie

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Virginia Eubanks <virg...@digitaldeadend.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 2:35 PM
Subject: Automating Inequality event Mon 4/16, 6:00 PM
To: sha...@publiclab.org, del...@publiclab.org, ste...@publiclab.org

Dear Shannon, Delaney and Stevie (if I may):

I’m writing to let you know about an event that might interest Public Lab members, contituents, and allies. 

On Monday (Tuesday April 16), at 6:00 PM, I’ll be appearing at Octavia Books (513 Octavia Street, New Orleans) to discuss my new book, Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor. 

I’d appreciate it if you could forward this announcement to your networks and extend the invitation to join us for a powerful conversation about data-based discrimination—and how technology affects civil and human rights and economic equity. 

In Automating Inequality, I systematically investigate the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America. The book is full of heart-wrenching and eye-opening stories, from a woman in Indiana whose benefits are literally cut off as she lays dying to a family in Pennsylvania in daily fear of losing their daughter because they fit a certain statistical profile. These stories are crucial to organizing today — the new digital tools I discuss automate and rationalize the politics of austerity, roll back hard-won civil rights, and act as barriers to shared public services and resources.

Here’s what people have been saying about the book:

• Naomi Klein: "This book is downright scary.”
• Ethan Zuckerman, Director of Civic Media, MIT: "Should be required reading.”
• Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body: "A must-read.”
• Astra Taylor, author of The People's Platform: "The single most important book about technology you will read this year.” 

At the event, I’ll provide folks with an overview of the stories I gathered in eight years of reporting on the topic, engage in a discussion with the audience, and sign books. You can find more information about the event here: http://www.octaviabooks.com/event/virginia-eubanks-automating-inequality

For more information on the book, you can visit my website at http://www.virginia-eubanks.com or read/listen to the media, below: 

Automating Inequality': Algorithms In Public Services Often Fail The Most Vulnerable, NPR’s All Things Considered

“A Child Abuse Prediction Model Fails Poor Families,” WIRED Magazine

“The Digital Poorhouse,” Harper’s Magazine

Thanks for your time, and I hope you will be able to join us!

Yours,

Virginia

Virginia Eubanks

_____________________________________ *

I write about technology and social justice.

Follow @PopTechWorks

**Author, Automating Inequality: How High Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor **

Fellow, New America
Founding Member, Our Data Bodies Project

Author, Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age
Co-Editor, AIn't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith 

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