This is a word, a podcast from Slate.

I'm your host, Jason Johnson.

We all know what it means for something to go viral, from TikTok dances to moments of heartbreak

and violence.

But what are the same structures intact that make these images go worldwide could also spread

important ideas like, I don't know, justice.

How do we make justice contagious, for example?

And so the idea of viral justice is essentially a micro vision of change.

The author of Viral Justice, How to Create the World We Want, coming up on a Word, with me,

Jason Johnson.

Stay with us.

Welcome to a Word, a podcast about race and politics and everything else.

I'm your host, Jason Johnson.

In many ways, America's racial reckoning has been driven by technology.

Before cell phone cameras, decades of

false police narratives about killings of black people went unchallenged by anybody outside

of the local community. Without social media, those deaths were strictly local news, if they made the

news at all. Now a whole field of study is devoted to how technology often reinforces racism and how technology can be harnessed to fight it.

One of the leading voices in that field is Ruhab Benjamin.

She's a social scientist who specializes in the intersection of race and technology.

Her new book is Viral Justice, How We Grow the World We Want.

She's also a professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and the founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab. Dr. Ruha Benjamin joins us now. Welcome to a word.

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