Surveilling Blackness in the 21st Century U.S.A.: Modernity/Coloniality, Objectivity and Contemporary Forms of Injustice

The contemporary constructions of blackness in the digital age, in which the emergent era of policing in the U.S. focuses on security and risk management and incorporates a variety of surveillance tools and technologies, such as data analytics and algorithms, compels us to think about the lessons of U.S. history concerning the role of science—particularly the social sciences—in creating associations between blackness and criminality. All these are or have been part of the state’s or empire’s strategies for survival and “development." The incorporation of all these considerations in an assessment of the increasingly digitally-based approach to policing New York City neighborhoods reveals ways in which the forces of modernity/coloniality create new approaches to objectivity and develop new types of injustice.