Authors:
Jakita O. Thomas, Yolanda A. Rankin
In this issue, we focus on the U.S., relying on our lived experiences as Black feminist scholars in HCI. While engaging in a political discussion may be perceived as being outside the scope of HCI, the actions of the current administration have unforeseen consequences that affect the HCI community and the work we do. For example, as Black women scholars, we apply intersectionality as a critical framework in our research and a tool for resistance. Intersectionality is a critical social theory that examines how overlapping social constructs, such as race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, ableism, and religion, become converging systems of power that oppress nondominant populations living at these intersections [1]. As of this moment, our research has been classified as a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) activity and will no longer be supported by federal grants due to executive orders that have banned such activities and initiatives across the nation with threats of prosecution. The two of us have a choice to make: Do we continue to do this work that draws attention to an understudied and underserved population in the field of HCI, one that has been marginalized for years in the HCI community? Do we tuck our tails and run, abandoning the very community that we vowed to serve? Do we censor or silence ourselves out of fear, no longer engaging Black women as equal partners in our work, and stop disseminating the results of our research? Do Black women simply fade back into silence and nonexistence? To be a critically conscious Black woman in this country is to be political. We do not get to sit this one out.
Insights
→ The anti-DEI movement has devalued ways of knowing that center nondominant populations.
→ Scholars have worked hard to democratize the field of HCI so that we design with marginalized populations rather than for them.
→ This is a call to arms for the HCI community to protect scholars' academic freedom.
In full transparency, when this article was reviewed, we were asked how it was specifically relevant to HCI. We wrote this article so that the HCI community continues to strive to be a safe space for all people, including those who exercise their agency and epistemic power to forge new directions in HCI and challenge the status quo. We realize that what seems obvious to us is not so obvious to others. This piece is about telling a different narrative than the one offered by mainstream media or press conferences. Patricia Hill Collins posits, "What sense does it make for a group that is oppressed by intersecting identity categories of race and gender to refuse to organize its political responses using the very categories that oppress it?" [1]. She argues that identity politics provides a democratic space for political analysis that invites critical examination of power dynamics along social constructs often taken for granted by dominant groups. Scholars who apply intersectionality as a critical theory have consistently argued that identity politics is at play for everyone, including dominant groups who do not explicitly call out their race, gender, class, or nationality. The notion of objectivity in HCI research (and scientific research, more broadly) is false. The point of intersectionality in HCI research is that the methodologies rooted in nondominant groups' knowledge validation processes, experiences, and culture are valid methodologies that stand on their own.
This brings us to the current state of affairs. We see democracy under attack, a country on fire, and subordinated populations, such as women, immigrants, Indigenous people, Black and Brown people, people with disabilities, the elderly, being dehumanized yet again. From a historical perspective, this is nothing new, as we have seen similar behavior during the Jim Crow era when Black people were terrorized, murdered, and lynched, had our land taken from us, and were denied civil rights in America. This is not the first time we have criticized the HCI community [2]. However, this is a call to arms as academic freedom is also at stake. The work we do is a matter of life and death, not just for us but for the communities that we build, reside in, and serve. We share an excerpt of our conversation below, providing insights into why some Black women scholars are sounding the alarm concerning the dire straits of a federal government that openly embraces white supremacy, patriarchy, racism, classism, homophobia, and xenophobia in the context of "making America great again." We cannot sit quietly and do nothing. Instead, this forum is a conscious decision to exercise our agency, privilege, and power while using our platform to speak truth to power.
Yolanda A. Rankin: In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins writes, "Two political criteria influence knowledge validation processes. First, knowledge claims are evaluated by a group of experts whose members bring with them a host of sedimented experiences that reflect their group location in intersecting oppressions" [3]. Black feminist thought connects Eurocentric knowledge validation processes—those that uplift European and white culture and viewpoints as superior to others—to power structures that oppress nondominant populations. For example, we find ourselves dealing with the politicization of what is called the anti-DEI movement, led by the current administration. White supremacy is front and center as those who uphold whiteness dismiss the need for DEI, arguing that it represents reverse discrimination against white people, who are still the majority in the U.S. and control the institutions and agencies that define policy and law that affect all Americans. In tech, white men are the CEOs who define the culture, make the rules, and determine who has a seat at the table. In the academy, white heterosexual men have largely been the majority and have created and enforced the rules as to what constitutes a valid knowledge claim. White people, as the dominant population, do not share the same reference point as racialized groups in this country [4]. White people have not been denied the right to vote, housing, access to education, or decent healthcare. White people have not been gunned down in front of their families just because they dared to stand up for the humanity of Black people (e.g., Medgar Evers). They were not asked to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar to qualify to vote, nor have they had their businesses or homes firebombed because of a false accusation of raping a white woman (e.g., the Tulsa Race Massacre).
People want to talk about what is fair. Yet nothing has ever been fair for Black people in this country. America is a country that was built on white supremacy through the hands of enslaved Black people. Look at the current administration's attempt to blame every bad thing on DEI, telling the false narrative that DEI stands for promoting unqualified people. Some Black people also criticize DEI as being an ineffective failure, but that is not unexpected given that the community is not a monolith. However, it is vital to know the history and the facts. We find ourselves at a crossroads where any work or person that blatantly calls out racism, sexism, classism, nationalism, ableism, and xenophobia could be labeled unpatriotic, un-American, and now, potentially criminal [5]. This is the work of white supremacy.
Now think about the tech industry and how companies such as Meta, Amazon, and others have walked back their DEI initiatives and policies [6]. DEI has become anathema and is considered to be illegal, given the president's recent executive orders. The pushback to DEI initiatives in the workplace makes it easier to overlook the repercussions of deploying technologies that "fail to see Blackness, while others render Black people hypervisible," exposing them to racial surveillance [7]. In HCI, we are constantly grappling with questions like Who gets to design technology? For whom is technology designed or accessible? Who has a seat at the table and why are they there in the first place? We, as a diverse community of scholars who come from academia and the private sector, must continue to wrestle with the implications of who has agency, who is empowered, and who is disenfranchised in the tech sector. Yet we see a government actively seeking to disenfranchise women, Black and Brown people, and other marginalized populations while tech companies renounce their DEI initiatives. The goal is to undo any gains in addressing social inequalities that have been made in the past four years. These are serious implications for the field of HCI.
Jakita O. Thomas: There are a couple of things that come to the fore in this present moment. One of the things I find very intriguing about the reaction of the people to what is currently happening with this entire so-called anti-DEI or anti-woke movement is that many people who identified DEI as a synonym for Black are now discovering that they, too, are in fact a part of the legislation that was created under the DEI umbrella. Black people have pushed the country since the end of the Civil War, through the civil rights and larger human rights movements, to create an infrastructure of policies and legislation that protects all citizens. The majority of people, because of the way that this infrastructure had been talked about culturally, assumed it meant Black people. And so now they are, as the young people would say, "crashing out," because they are discovering that the work Black people did and continue to do has actually benefited many other groups, including white people [8]. The other groups who benefited include those you mentioned—women, the differently abled, and other minorities. There are so many people who fall under the DEI umbrella who did not understand the political moment that we were and currently are in. Consequently, they voted against their best interests, their own security, their own support systems and infrastructures. That's one thing.
The second thing is that we have to understand historically what is happening. When you look at some of the things that are getting called into question by this current administration, it goes all the way back to the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship. During a recent panel conversation that took place in New Orleans, Kimberlé Crenshaw said they are "coming for the infrastructure." She was referring to the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the strides that were made in the 1950s, the Civil Rights Movement, and other movements. Political and economic changes that benefited Black people were made during Reconstruction and subsequently rolled back during the era of Jim Crow. I think we have to look not only at current events and the dismantling of the infrastructure but also at the history. What are they dismantling, and why are they dismantling it? This is not arbitrary. This effort aims to undo the work that has been done by Black people and other historically marginalized people to make this country live up to the ideals and creeds that are set forth in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and other documents, which were written without us in mind.
YR: This attempt to rewrite history is another attempt to misrepresent Black people. If we are going to talk about Black or African American history, which is America's history, then we have to talk about the history of our people being enslaved. This notion that we were happy slaves or immigrants who learned necessary skills to survive is absolutely ridiculous. If you don't know your history, then you will simply dismiss what is playing out right in front of us as an attempt to responsibly manage the government budget and reduce the country's debt. Project 2025 is being executed [9]. Dismantling DEI is the first priority, because Black people must not have the same human rights, opportunities, or power in any form. To talk about the history of how Black people were brought to this country in chains and treated horribly—that truth is dividing the nation? In reality, it is about being honest about what happened. It requires atonement, and that is not what the people in power want to even think about, consider, or deem necessary. It's why the conversation around reparations has been one muted by white people with the idea that "we don't owe you anything." Those were our ancestors. Racism and even enslavement have continued in this country in different guises (e.g., the school-to-prison pipeline).
JT: As you were talking, it made me think about a couple of things. First, out of all the places in the world that the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch, and the British could have gone to, why did they go to West Africa? This speaks to the point you were making earlier about the false narrative of Black people developing skills to survive and have better lives. But the reality is that, by enslaving people, the Europeans gained a free labor force. They already knew that people from West Africa had the skill sets they needed to survive in the New World. They already knew that we were experts in cultivating rice. They already knew that we understood sustainable agricultural practices. They already knew that we were blacksmiths and artisans and had the skills that were going to be required to build an economy. Again, history is a crucial factor in understanding what African people were doing and building. We had dynasties and empires prior to the Europeans coming to Africa. We were chosen because of the knowledge and skills we already had. Collins talks about this as cultural or hegemonic power—there was an entirely false narrative that was told about African people to explain why we had to be taken. And it was this notion that we were savages. We didn't have a better life where we were. We had to be brought over here to get a better life. We were not able to take care of ourselves and sustain ourselves, so we needed these European masters, colonizers, and oppressors to help us take care of ourselves. Not even acknowledging that some of the first empires that existed on Earth, such as Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, were in Africa. Mansa Musa went around Africa handing out bars of gold and almost disrupted the global economy because he was so wealthy.
We wrote this article so that the HCI community continues to strive to be a safe space for all people.
Then there is this trope of the happy Negro. For example, in Florida, they are trying to push a narrative that we were happy as enslaved people [10]. We were immigrants. We learned skills. That's actually a reemergence of a very old trope—the singing, whistling, dancing minstrel Negro, or even the magical Negro who is always subservient and in service to whiteness, even if it requires the giving up of one's own life—that came up during slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow. So again, these cultural narratives are repurposing themselves in this modern time. The only way for us to get past it is precisely what you said: It is through atonement. It is not enough to acknowledge that atonement has to happen, because even today some groups are benefiting and some are experiencing harm because of that infrastructure of white supremacy that was built into the founding of the country. Now they're trying to tear down any infrastructure that was built to provide equity. History is repeating itself. Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. We're either going to learn the lessons this time and move in a different direction, or we won't.
I actually see this time as a time of opportunity, because now there are more people who understand that the infrastructure Black people and others fought so hard to build benefited not just Black people but many other groups. The structural and hegemonic domains of power want to dismantle the things that are helping Black people, women, immigrants, children, the elderly, and any vulnerable or marginalized community. We are now in a place where there's a huge opportunity for us to really come together and think strategically about what kind of society, especially here in the U.S., we really want to have. Now we're at a place where we can actually build an infrastructure that benefits everyone. Fred Hampton used to say, "All power to the people." That's real. We really do have the power. The question is: Are we going to step into this moment and wield it?
YR: This is indeed the question that we pose to the HCI community. For those of us who have power and privilege in the HCI community, what are we willing to do? When we think about the user studies we conduct, the technologies that we design, the systems that we build, and the decisions to work with historically excluded populations as knowledge agents and equal partners, our actions become acts of resistance. Thank you, Jakita, for challenging us to take up our weapons and fight.
The views expressed by the authors are their own and not necessarily held by Interactions or the Association for Computing Machinery.
References
1. Collins, P.H. Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Duke University Press, 2019.
2. Rankin, Y.A. and Thomas, J.O. Straighten up and fly right: Rethinking intersectionality in HCI research. Interactions 26, 6 (2019), 64–68; https://doi.org/10.1145/3363033
3. Collins, P.H. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge, 2000.
4. Guzdial, M. Talking about race in CS education. Communications of the ACM 64, 1 (2021), 10–11; https://doi.org/10.1145/3433921
5. Vogel, K.P. and Goldmacher, S. With orders, investigations and innuendo, Trump and G.O.P. aim to cripple the left. The New York Times, Mar. 19, 2025; https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/us/politics/trump-republicans-attack-democrats-actblue.html
6. Sherman, N. Meta and Amazon scale back diversity initiatives. BBC, Jan. 10, 2025; https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgmy7xpw3pyo
7. Benjamin, R. Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Polity Press, 2019.
8. Ellis, N.T. DEI programs benefit many groups, not just Black and brown communities. CNN, Feb. 8, 2025; https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/08/us/dei-programs-diversity-list/index.html
9. Ordoñez, F. and Martínez A. Trump enacts Project 2025 policies, which he distanced himself from while campaigning. NPR, Jan. 31, 2025; https://www.npr.org/2025/01/31/nx-s1-5280364/trump-enacts-project-2025-policies-which-he-distanced-himself-from-while-campaigning
10. Planas, A. New Florida standards teach students that some Black people benefited from slavery because it taught useful skills. NBC News, Jul. 20, 2023; https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-florida-standards-teach-black-people-benefited-slavery-taught-usef-rcna95418
Authors
Jakita O. Thomas is an associate professor of computer science and software engineering in the Ginn College of Engineering at Auburn University. She is also director of the CUltuRally and SOcially Relevant (CURSOR) Computing Lab. She is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. [email protected]
Yolanda A. Rankin is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Emory University and director of the DEsigning TechnOlogies for the UndeRserved (DETOUR) Research Lab. She is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and an ACM senior member. [email protected]
Copyright 2025 held by owners/authors
The Digital Library is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2025 ACM, Inc.
Post Comment
No Comments Found