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 and tech 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 Ruha

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.

Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here, Jason.

Let's start first with the term viral. What does it actually mean in a technological sense

for an image or a meme or a story to go viral?

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