When grants were announced earlier this month, it was noted that seven of the 22 fellows were African American. Among them are scholars, visual and media artists a poet/writer, historian, and dancer/choreographer. The awardees receive $800,000 over a five-year period. The Post will publish their innovations over the next several weeks, starting with Ruha Benjamin, who received her PhD in Sociology at UC Berkeley.

Ruha Benjamin

The daughter of an African American man and a Persian-Indian woman, Ruha Benjamin is a transdisciplinary scholar and writer illuminating how advances in science, medicine, and technology reflect and reproduce social inequality. By integrating critical analysis of innovation with attentiveness to the potential for positive change, Benjamin demonstrates the importance of imagination and grassroots activism in shaping social policies and cultural practices.

Benjamin shares the inspiration behind her work on her website: “I write, teach, and speak widely about the relationship between innovation and inequity, knowledge and power, race and citizenship, health and justice.”

“…I arrived here by way of a winding road that has snaked through South Central Los Angeles; Conway, South Carolina; Majuro, South Pacific, and Swaziland, Southern Africa. I come from many Souths, and I tend to bring this perspective, of looking at the world from its underbelly, to my analysis.”

Benjamin’s academic and professional impact is far-reaching. Benjamin served as an assistant professor of sociology at Boston University before joining the faculty at Princeton in 2014. She has since received numerous honors, including the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. She is also the founding director of the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab, a space where students, artists, and activists work together to challenge tech-mediated harms.

In People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (2013), Benjamin examines the persistent gap between those who contribute to new medical technologies and those who actually benefit from them. She uses the California Stem Cell Initiative as a case study to illustrate a persistent problem in medical research: socially marginalized groups engaged for research purposes but not guaranteed access to the treatments that result from that research. Benjamin further investigates the intersection of science and society in Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019). In this work, she exposes the racial hierarchies and systems of social control embedded in seemingly neutral algorithms and automated systems that people interact with daily. These technologies, which rely on biased training data and flawed assumptions, cause direct harm to individuals and communities. Benjamin provides numerous examples of digital systems that perpetuate what she calls the “New Jim Code,” such as marketing algorithms that promote real estate based on “ethnic preferences,” thereby maintaining segregated neighborhoods, and crime prediction software that justifies intrusive surveillance of communities of color.

In her two most recent books, Benjamin weaves together personal experience and social analysis. Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (2022) is a poignant meditation on how individuals drive meaningful social change. She advocates for the power of grassroots initiatives that prioritize care over control, such as doulas focused on birth equity and tenant organizers fighting the legacy of redlining. In Imagination: A Manifesto (2024), Benjamin argues that we are constrained by policies and paradigms that result from the narrow imagination of those who monopolize power and resources and seek to benefit the few at the expense of the many. As founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, she works with students, organizers, and artists to identify, challenge, and transform tech-mediated harms. Benjamin deepens our understanding of the dangers that technological advancements pose to vulnerable populations while reimagining what counts as innovation and who gets to shape our collective future.

Ruha Benjamin received a BA from Spelman College (2001) and an MA (2004) and PhD (2008) from the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and the founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab (since 2020).

The MacArthur ‘Genius’ Award and the Spelman College web sites are the sources of this report.

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By Rebecca Kaplan,
Vice Mayor of Oakland

As California accelerates its shift to a clean energy future, the debate around how to best reduce emissions often focuses on the merits of one technology over another.

But the truth is, to meet our ambitious climate goals, we need a comprehensive approach—one that includes both electrification and clean hydrogen solutions. We cannot afford to choose one over the other if we want to ensure a cleaner, more equitable future for all.

That’s why I was honored to welcome state and federal leaders to Oakland for the official launch of the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES), a groundbreaking project that marks a turning point for our city and the greater Bay Area.

The event showcased Oakland’s leadership in hydrogen adoption, demonstrating how Oakland is implementing innovative technologies that have practical benefits for our community.

This includes a hydrogen sea ferry that will reduce emissions in our bay, AC Transit hydrogen buses that will improve air quality on our streets, and the NorCAL ZERO First Element Hydrogen Fueling station, the largest in the nation, which will significantly reduce harmful air pollution from our hardest-hit neighborhoods.

Why does this matter for Bay Area residents?

For too long, Black, Latino, and lower-income communities, particularly those in industrial truck corridors along West and East Oakland and near busy highways, have been subjected to a disproportionate share of harmful air pollution caused by emissions, especially diesel particulate emissions, from trucks and other sources.

A recent study authored by researchers at UC Berkeley and the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment found that disparities are widening between the communities most exposed to harmful pollutants and those most protected from them.

Reducing truck emissions is one of the most important steps we can take toward climate and environmental equity in terms of human health impact; it causes asthma, cancer, and even premature birth in these disproportionately impacted communities.

Hydrogen fuel cell technology is a crucial piece of the puzzle in addressing these challenges, offering both environmental and economic advantages that will benefit Oakland and Alameda County for future generations.

Two years ago, I was proud to introduce a resolution asking the state to make the City of Oakland a clean-fuel hydrogen hub for ARCHES, which aims to accelerate the adoption of renewable hydrogen and develop the necessary infrastructure. This initiative is pivotal for several reasons:

• It supports the transition to a zero-carbon economy, aligning with our city and state’s ambitious climate goals.
• It prioritizes environmental and energy justice, addressing the needs of communities like ours that have been disproportionately impacted by pollution.

The focus on equity within ARCHES cannot be overstated. The realization of economic and environmental benefits from hydrogen projects represents a tangible commitment to rectifying historical injustices by addressing environmental disparities rooted in systems of injustice.

With zero-emission trucks and improved air quality, we are taking a significant step toward reversing the health impacts suffered by our communities. Beyond the environmental improvements that our region desperately needs, this initiative is poised to create good-paying jobs and boost our local economy.

For these hydrogen projects to realize their full potential, ongoing support and engagement are crucial. We must continue to advocate for policies that support clean energy, push for further investment in renewable infrastructure, and ensure that the benefits of these advancements reach all corners of our community.

As we look ahead, we must prioritize a California with cleaner air and a more robust economy. The hydrogen revolution is here, and with it, an opportunity to transform the Bay Area for a brighter, healthier, and more equitable future.

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