Why is the site black right now?

The United States of America is confronting—again—the reality of both systemic racism and police brutality, which is disproportionately directed at people of color.

Along with many other sites, we have turned this site black to point to the importance of black lives, and to express our solidarity with the people of color in this country, who have continually experienced racism in forms both subtle and overt for many centuries.

We know that this kind of visual gesture is often just performative, and that too often it stands in for actually doing something. We make this small change as a visual symbol of our stance—but we’re also working in our own ways in our own communities to make things better, pursuing justice and peace. In our podcast, we will be discussing a book by a black feminist in July—a decision we made well before this latest moment of horrific injustice. Racism is a problem with deep and structural roots in American society, and we could not reasonably talk about the ethics and epistemology of technology without technology’s effects on racism and racism’s effects on technology in America and beyond.