Week 3 - Underwhelmed and Overstimulated.

The third week of lockdown is more frustration than inspiration.

Flats in London are not known for their generous, open spaces. Despite this, I’ve often felt that, Alhamdulilah, I got lucky with mine. Small enough to feel cosy and intimate (hygge), but with an open plan that feels more spacious than it actually is, my London apartment has served as the meeting point for pre-party dance-offs, a second home for friends, the square footage within which I found my feet in a foreign country. Three and a bit years on, this creaky old flat (built in the 1890’s!) has been a good home.

I just… didn’t expect that I would be spending every waking minute of the day within its walls, you know?

One would think we would be accustomed to lockdown now, but alas. Indeed, keeping people in confined spaces for extended periods of time is in many societies a form of punishment. And so, even though I rationally understand that this isolation is vital for our collective safety, I can’t help but feel frustrated at this prolonged confinement. After all, it didn’t have to be this bad…

As you have probably deduced, my thoughts this week are fairly scattered. Today’s newsletter reflects my mental state. So, rather than wax lyrical on a single theme, I will share a few things that have piqued my interest and expand on them briefly.

First, let me plug the write up on my provocation on ‘provisional morality’ in tech. I was deeply inspired by Layla El Asri’s writing on this, and so I built on her work to ask two questions:

• If we recognise that the varying issues with machine learning are not exclusively technical, how can we build a framework of provisional morality to continue to operate within until we figure out how to solve those challenges?

• How do we maintain focus on what marginalised folks are saying, and ensure that what they are saying doesn't get lost in the noise? Focusing on the representation of historically excluded communities in tech is no use if we do not listen to what they have to say (in reference to Google’s sacking of Timnit Gebru).

  Have a read of the provocation and let me know what you think. What could provisional maxims for machine learning could be?

Matt Stoller’s newsletter is the first substack I subscribed to… and his insights on monopoly are fascinating. His latest edition spoke to the rotten open secret at the heart of Big Tech: radicalisation and monopolisation are wickedly profitable.

These platforms, though they make money from this behavior, are immunized from any costs of it, under the false premise that they are merely conveying speech.

But the point is, we need to stop immunizing platforms who enable illegal behavior from offloading the costs of what they inflict.

Two months ago, Democrats on the House Antitrust Subcommittee completed a 16-month investigation, and found that Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google essentially control the internet. 

Both the radicalization and the monopolization are threats (emphasis mine) to democracy, and both are a result of a business model policymakers have allowed to continue for too long. Or to put it differently, we’ve set up a policy framework in which organizing human beings to tear each other apart is extremely profitable. It’s easy to fix, if we can just calm down and change a few laws.

This piece on developments in the feminist influencer world provides some perspective on what is happening at the intersection of social media and social justice:

The last few years, from Brexit to BLM to Boris and Trump, have been a startling wake-up call for young, socially-conscious white people. The accelerated distribution of ideas has rapidly familiarised people who don’t themselves experience racism with ideas like intersectionality, anti-Blackness and white privilege. While the white and newly awakened have learned of their centrality to the unequal organisation of society, there hasn’t however been an obvious avenue for their participation in anti-racist struggle. For good reason, the emphasis has been on the self-organisation of Black and brown people; so while white people have been made more politically aware, that hasn’t necessarily resulted in being more politically active. Rather it has intensified their consumption of political content – particularly material which equates white guilt with anti-racist solidarity.

This means that people who are adept at branding content with the trappings of social consciousness are uniquely well placed to capitalise on the political moment.

There has certainly been a shift in the marketability and popularity of social justice causes in the West over the past decade. Moments like Beyonce’s ‘FEMINIST’ Superbowl performance in 2013 were eyebrow raisers at the time, but would be considered tame, subtle even, by 2021’s standards. What Sarkar speaks to in her piece feels key: The gap between what we consider social justice online, and what changes the reality for people on the ground is growing… and in that gap, there is money to be made.

I’m far from an organising puritan - I love social media (to my own detriment) and definitely think it has a place in movement building. However, the norms on digital platforms are still nascent. We’re seeing them be created, destroyed and reformed, all in real time, in front of our eyes. (May Allah keep us all safe from the crossfire). The rule book is certainly still being written.

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What I am reading this week: My read for this week is a wholesome ‘love letter from one ethnic minority in the workplace to another’, and this oldie but goodie on terms to replace the phrase ‘white privilege’.

What I’m watching this week: On the recommendation of Kaeshelle Rianne last week, I’ve started French series Le Bazar de la Charité, which is based on a real event in the 19th century. The first episode was arresting.

What I’m paying attention to this week: 59 years ago this week, Patrice Lumumba was assassinated in a US backed coup. Read this piece on the radical leader of the Congolese independence movement, and reflect on how many powerful leaders of colonisation nations have either been killed or co-opted by imperial powers… it’s no wonder we are where we are today.

What I’m listening to this week: some Stromae (for my French practice), and two very British tunes… Louis Dunford’s London Requiem, and ENNY’s Peng Black Girls.

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Thanks for subscribing and reading this week’s edition of Diasporan Diaries. Please, comment with thoughts, questions, critiques…and share if it resonated.

Much love, strength and safety to you all.

Best,

Yassmin