“Examining power means naming and explaining the forces of oppression that are so baked into our daily lives — and into our datasets, our databases, and our algorithms — that we often don’t even see them.”
Key Terms
Power : The current configuration of structural privilege and structural oppression, in which some groups experience unearned advantages — because various systems have been designed by people like them and work for people like them — and other groups that experience systemic disadvantages — because those same systems were not designed by them or people like them in mind
Matrix of Domination: A tool proposed by sociologist Patricia Hill Collins that is used to explain how systems of power are configured and experienced. It consists of four domains: the structural, the disciplinary, the hegemonic, and the interpersonal.
The Structural Domain: The domain that organizes and codifies oppression through the arena of laws and policies, along with the schools and institutions that implement them.
The Disciplinary Domain : The domain that administers and manages oppression through bureaucracy and hierarchy, rather than through laws that explicitly encode inequality on the basis of someone’s identity.
The Hegemonic Domain: The domain that deals with the realm of culture, media, and ideas. It consolidates ideas about who is entitled to exercise power and who is not.
The Interpersonal Domain: The domain that influences the everyday experience of individuals in the world. Involves how it feels for people to know that systems of power are not on their side and, at times, are actively seeking to take away the small amount of power that they do possess.
Minoritized Groups: Groups of people who are positioned in opposition to a more powerful social group, indicating that they are actively devalued and oppressed by a dominant group, one that holds more economic, social, and political power.
Privilege Hazard: The phenomenon that makes those who occupy the most privileged positions among us — those with good educations, respected credentials, and professional accolades — so poorly equipped to recognize instances of oppression in the world.
Scarcity Bias: The idea that there are not enough resources for everyone so we should think small and allow technology to fill the gaps.
