ABSTRACT
Beth Coleman has famously asserted that race may function as a technology, which, like the technologies embedded in consumer electronics, may be black-boxed from view and prohibited from rewiring and reconfiguration. Although introducing the theme of technological determinism might not be appropriate for moving discussion forward, there are definitely ways that race functions as more than merely performance, as the recent controversy about Rachel Dolezal assuming a black identity to head an NAACP chapter and teach Africana studies indicates. In understanding the ways that the technological properties of race may be occluded, Fox Harrell notes that the quantification bias of databases tends to reinforce stereotypes, as in the case of game characters with certain racial signifiers becoming associated with default statistics
that mark them as possessing attributes of strength, speed, criminality, and sensuality and lacking those of intelligence, skilled labor, and leadership.
