Tara Tarakiyee1d ago

Audre Lorde's "master's tools" speech was not about tech platforms. So why does tech discourse keep citing it as if it were? I write about what happens when a Black feminist theorist's words get borrowed, stripped of context, and made to do work they were never meant to do.

https://tarakiyee.com/on-the-enshittification-of-audre-lorde-the-masters-tools-in-tech-discourse/ #enshittification #AudreLorde #techpolicy

On The Enshittification of Audre Lorde: "The Master's Tools" in Tech Discourse

🖼️Cover Photo: Train at the Nairobi terminus of the Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway. It runs parallel to the Uganda Railway that was completed in 1901. The first fare-paying passengers boarded the "Madaraka Express" on Madaraka Day (1 June 2017), the 54th anniversary of Kenya's attainment of self-rule from Great

Do Flamingos Know They're Pink
Show threadendolexi
@tarakiyee shorthand is always tempting. But I have to say I do agree that it would feel utterly wrong to me to collaborate on Gdocs for a text about floss strategy. It would be like discussing zero carbon while sitting around a coalfire. And any and all big commercial tech platforms are by now surveillance platforms - using them in any way to plan for countermovement feels self-defeating indeed, like announcing to the powers you want to dismantle exactly what you're up to. And I don't think antitrust law or whatever is going to change anything about that. The best thing anyone and everyone can do is to not use any of their crap, whenever and whereever possible.
Mar 28 at 4:58pmWeb
Show threadTara Tarakiyee20h ago
@endolexi I don't totally disagree with you, I'm actively trying to move away from big tech for all the reasons. However we both have technical capital, we can make choices other people can't. When the tool choice becomes the politics then we can't see that anymore. We need to understand the conditions behind tool choice or lack thereof, make those visible and political, and then change those conditions. Its hard and some of that work can happen on Google docs, they can't do shit about it.
Show threadendolexi19h ago
@tarakiyee I understand, of course. It's just this perception of the machine eating up anything you serve it like that. And I sometimes think the barriers of the mind and the convenience of the conventional are the hardest to overcome. Like, the alternatives are there, and I happily support anyone who's interested. For me the tools just can't be separated from the politics, not when the toolmaker you want to oppose sees everything you do with their tools. Unless of course I'm on some 'poison the algorithm' kind of track, it's just never a good idea to me.