3

The readings for week 3 “Why is it OK for Employers to Constantly Surveil Workers?” by Gabrielle M. Rejouis and the introduction of the second reading by Simone Browne “Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness” are two very provoking readings which both simultaneously work together in the collective imagination of not only thinking diversity and equality in the digital world but on how to deal with or navigate a conversation on the translucent parallel between forms of control tactics of then and now, a conversation which calls into play the relationship between [to be a] subject and [to have or naturalized right] sovereignty in the space of digital technology.

The reading by Gabrielle M. Rejouis “Why is it OK for Employers to Constantly Surveil Workers?” Aims to address the immorality of work surveillance through a sort of historical context of social control in the workforce which will only continue to become more and more modern with sophisticated technology. The reading demands for change, so what is the solution for data privacy especially for workers? The solution is drawn somewhere between work surveillance and slave-wages meaning these tactics stem from slavery in the United States. Slave-wage jobs are conducted by slave owner mentality. Dehumanization.

Furthermore, in the next reading by Simone Browne “Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness” there are comparisons between slavery to contemporary surveillance technology and the effects of modernization, for instance, the numerous forms of biometric identification vs. branding slaves. But somewhere between social security numbers and credit scores could also, be noted for their utilization in social control. What is really interesting about the reading is how it incorporates the works of Frantz Fanon (psychiatrist and political philosopher) whose “Black Skin, White Masks” provides variety on such topic of racial surveillance, through the lens of the white gaze which is the objectification of blackness and if all space is white space, racialized surveillance also creates invisibility.