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ruha9.bsky.social
Ruha Benjamin
@ruha9.bsky.social
40K followers 820 following 180 posts
✍🏽 • RACE AFTER TECHNOLOGY: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code • VIRAL JUSTICE: How We Grow the World We Want • IMAGINATION: A Manifesto 📚www.ruhabenjamin.com
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ruha9.bsky.social
Sooo many folks I’m excited to work with on Mamdani’s technology transition committee. All hands on deck to bring the Affordability Agenda to life: childcare, housing, transportation.

While its easy to get swept up in personality, this is a group focused on peoples real needs. LETS KEEP THE FOCUS.
Committee on Technology Sarah Aoun Ruha Benjamin, Ida B Wells Just Data Lab at Princeton Myaisha Hayes, MediaJustice Noel Hidalgo, BetaNYC Sam Jacobs, Food Fight Lab Katherine Jin, Democratic Socialists of America Amba Kak, AI Now Institute Huge Ma, Turbovax Matt Mitchell ReNika Moore, ACLU Alondra Nelson, Institute for Advanced Study Martha Norrick, Backbone Strategies Julie Samuels, Tech NYC Garfield Swaby, New York Public Library Julie Swoope Democratic Socialists of America Haley Van Dyck Elyse Voegeli, 18F Maia Woluchem, Data & Society The Mamdani administration’s 17 transition committees: Housing Youth & Education Transportation, Climate & Infrastructure Arts & Culture Community Organizing Community Safety Economic Development & Workforce Development Emergency Response Government Operations Health Immigrant Justice Criminal Legal System Legal Affairs Small Businesses & MWBEs Social Services Technology Worker Justice Photo of a colorful keffiyeh with a name tag on it that says “Ruha Benjamin, Technology, A NEW ERA for New York City”
November 25, 2025 at 9:15 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
Sooo necessary!!👏🏾 @alexhanna.bsky.social, @schock.cc, Veronyka Gimenes, Dia Kayyali + Elijah MacKinnon🤌🏾
November 9, 2025 at 12:15 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
they ask me to imagine
but they want me to imagine
their futures
and i keep imagining
mine.
Ruha’s hand pointing to pink graffiti that reads “Fuck ICE” Ruha standing in front of Trump tower in Chicago with these words of Octavia E. Butler overlaying the image: “Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery" Ruha standing in front of tall historic building in Chicago with these words overlaying the image. they ask me to imagine but they want me to imagine their futures and i keep imagining mine.
September 28, 2025 at 11:03 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
Assata taught me that “Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.” May her spirit fly free!🤲🏾
Photo of Assata Shakur seated. She appears to be speaking with her hands extended in the air. Her words overlays the photo: “At this point, I think that it is important to make one thing very clear. I have advocated and I still advocate revolutionary changes in the structure and in the principles that govern the United States. I advocate self-determination for my people and for all oppressed inside the United States. I advocate an end to capitalist exploitation, the abolition of racist policies, the eradication of sexism, and the elimination of political repression. If that is a crime, then I am totally guilty.”
September 26, 2025 at 3:56 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
Princeton area friends, join us for “Divestment & the Boundaries of Conscience” on 9/23 @ 630pm w/ Robert K. Massie ‘78:

What challenges do activists face when invoking divestment? What can divestment accomplish? What are its limits? Where can it work & where not? aas.princeton.edu/events/2025/...
“Divestment and the Boundaries of Conscience” Tuesday, Sept 23, 2025, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Location: 010 East Pyne, open to the public. Robert K. Massie is Senior Research Scholar and Co-Director of SIRI Pathways to Consensus Presentation, Columbia University Robert Massie's talk aims to bring together a lifetime's work on divestment, with particular reference to the anti-apartheid struggle, by discussing divestment as an instrument of social justice and moral change. What challenges do activists face when invoking divestment? What can divestment accomplish? What are its limits? Where can it work, and where not? Massie is the author of “Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa During the Apartheid Years” (1998). He is a Princeton graduate, and an architect and chronicler of the struggle for divestment at Princeton and throughout the country. He's currently Senior Research Scholar and Co-Director of SIRI Pathways to Consensus at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Event Co-sponsors African American Studied Princeton Alumni for Palestine Africa World Initiative Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest Seminarians for Peace and Justice Students for Justice in Palestine Not In Our Town Princeton
September 22, 2025 at 12:48 AM
ruha9.bsky.social
Philly friends, this event tmrw at 530pm has a new location: Science History Institute (315 Chestnut St), details here: africana.sas.upenn.edu/events/2025/...
Juneteenth: Celebrating Black Brilliance will be a conversation between 2024 MacArthur Fellowship winners: Ruha Benjamin (Princeton University), Jennifer L. Morgan (New York University), and Dorothy Roberts (University of Pennsylvania). Jun 25, 2025 at 5:30pm - 7:00pm New location: Science History Institute, 315 Chestnut St
June 25, 2025 at 2:22 AM
ruha9.bsky.social
For those who’ve read Viral Justice, you remember the story of the newborn baby who I would bring with me to Prof. Ruthie Gilmore’s grad class at Berkeley? Well, this is that newborn… reunited.☺️
Ruha’s 21yr old son, wearing a black jacket, taking a selfie with Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, wearing a black top, at Labyrinth Books in Princeton, NJ.
May 5, 2025 at 12:14 AM
ruha9.bsky.social
The Battle for Higher Ed 👉🏾 “Becoming Unloved & Dangerous: Black University Life in the Age of Palestine Protest” w/ Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, April 23 @ 6pm EDT. Register: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
The Battle for Higher Ed, “Becoming Unloved & Dangerous: Black University Life in the Age of Palestine Protest” w/ Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, April 23 @ 6pm EDT. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_h-X-qKPXTBOgNoVglI0kwQ#/registration
April 22, 2025 at 6:20 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
Central NJ friends, join us for a discussion of GOOD FRIENDS: Bonds that Change the World on 4/14 @ 7:00pm at Princeton Public Library, princetonlibrary.libnet.info/event/13125577
April 11, 2025 at 7:11 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
Today’s lesson: “We can only be chased if we run.”

—Janet Jemmott, SNCC field secretary during Freedom Summer
April 11, 2025 at 7:09 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
“Not only is silence in the face of mounting authoritarianism morally objectionable…IT’S NOT WORKING... We must learn from the past. We cannot remain silent in the face of authoritarian attacks on our peers, even if they have not yet come for us.”
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
March 14, 2025 at 1:01 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
4/4
As a movement scholar who stands unequivocally against imperialism and the U.S.-Zionist genocide, my presence particularly as a Muslim-Iranian woman at an elite university that is deeply entangled in the material and ideological structures of genocide-is intolerable to the forces of fascism that are ruling this country. The attacks against me, including defamatory smears amplified by fascist trolls, are emblematic of a broader official policy of this authoritarian regime to weaponize Al to target students, faculty, and organizers who dare to speak out against genocide, systemic starvation, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. This crackdown, now formalized under the recently announced "Catch and Revoke" initiative, marks a dangerous escalation in state repression-one explicitly designed to foster an atmosphere of fear across university campuses. It should cause profound concern to all defenders of free speech that those infamous words, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of..." are once again becoming a common refrain. We are entering an era of Zionist McCarthyism—a time when dissent is invariably met with crackdown, careers are destroyed for speaking the truth, and the mere act of standing in solidarity with Palestine liberation is treated as a crime. Just as McCarthyism sought to crush anti-imperialist resistance through fear and repression, this new iteration aims to silence, intimidate, and purge those who challenge Zionist settler-colonialism and U.S. imperialism. This is not a display of strength; it is the last refuge of a crumbling order—an empire in decline, resorting to brute repression to stifle and crush those who expose its unraveling
March 12, 2025 at 9:57 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
3/4
Yale has engaged in bad faith throughout this "process." This became evident from the administration's insistence on an immediate interrogation with an unreasonable timeline, from the type of attorney hired to "interview" me, from the fact that this outside counsel refused to answer questions about procedural protections, and from the denial of my request for a brief religious accommodation. YLS's singular concern with maintaining the approval of the Zionist backers who bankroll their complicity in genocide led the organization to pressure me into an interrogation that I had every reason to believe was designed not to uncover the truth, but to justify a predetermined outcome. For further details from my lawyer see his note at the end of this statement. What is clear is that YLS actions constitute a blatant act of retaliation against Palestinian solidarity—a violation of my constitutional rights, free speech, academic freedom, and fundamental due process rights. I am being targeted for one reason alone: for speaking the truth about the genocide of the Palestinian people that Yale University is complicit in. The Endowment Justice Coalition (EJC) has exposed Yale's deep financial ties to weapons manufacturers, using publicly available tax filings. The university's asset managers include JLL Partners, linked to General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, and Farallon Capital, which invests in HowMet Aerospace, a company that produces key components for US F-35 fighter jets used by Israel in committing genocide.
March 12, 2025 at 9:56 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
2/4
I was given only a few hours' notice by the administration to attend an interrogation based on far-right Al-generated allegations against me, while enduring a flood of online harassment, death threats, and abuse by Zionist trolls, exacerbating ongoing unprecedented distress and complications both at work and at home. I endured all of this while fasting, and my request for religious accommodations during Ramadan was dismissed. Just a few hours later, YLS placed me on leave, revoked my IT access-including email-and banned me from campus. I was afforded no due process and no reasonable time to consult with my attorney. Rather than investigate the source of these allegations first, the nation's "top law school" accepted them at face value, and shifted the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused, treating me, prima facie, as guilty until proven otherwise. Whether Yale Law School's attorneys knowingly relied on Al-fabricated claims or simply chose willful ignorance remains unanswered. To conduct the interrogation, Yale Law School retained David Ring from the law firm Wiggin and Dana —an attorney whose public profile includes "Israel" listed as a "service" he provides and whose portfolio boasts advising "the world's largest aerospace and defense companies." Twice appointed by the U.S. State Department as a Special Compliance Officer, his career is deeply embedded in the very industries that sustain genocide and war crimes in Palestine. When I raised my concerns about the potential conflict of interests posed by his participation in this process, YLS dismissed them, stating there was "no concern with his ability to conduct a fair interview." It is reprehensible that YLS would appoint a counsel who profits from the machinery of Palestinian death to "interview" an employee about their public anti-genocide and pro-Palestine positions.
March 12, 2025 at 9:55 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
Helyehs statement 1/4
March 12, 2025 Suspended for Pro-Palestine Speech: My Statement on Yale Law School's Embrace of Al-Generated Smears My name is Helyeh Doutaghi. I am a scholar of international law and geopolitical economy. My research engages with Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), postcolonial critiques of law, and the global political economy of sanctions. I have specifically examined the mechanisms and consequences of economic warfare on Iran, as well as the forms of knowledge produced in International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to obscure and shield U.S. military operations from accountability. On October 1, 2023, I was appointed Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project and joined the team. I also held the position of Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School (YLS), a non-tenured faculty role without teaching responsibilities. On the morning of March 3rd, I was notified of an online report about me. An obscure Al-powered right-wing Zionist platform called "Jewish Onliner" published a report falsely accusing me of being a "terrorist". Rather than defend me, the Yale Law School moved within less than 24 hours of learning about the report to place me on leave.
March 12, 2025 at 9:53 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
🚨Last week Helyeh Doutaghi, a scholar in international law, was barred from Yale and put on administrative leave: ‘The decision came three days after a news site powered by artificial intelligence, published a story calling her a member of a terrorist group.’

www.removepaywall.com/search?url=h...
March 12, 2025 at 9:27 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
🗓️ Updated events, would love to see u if I’m in your neck of the woods! For details, www.ruhabenjamin.com/events
Updated events: • Brooklyn 3/12 • Amsterdam 3/21 •Queens Virtual 3/21 • Barcelona 3/24 • Rice U 3/31 • Minneapolis 4/2 • WashU St. Louis 4/4 • Holy Cross 4/8 • Harvard 4/9-10 • Detroit 4/15 • Berkeley 4/19 • MiraCosta College 4/22 • Vassar 5/9 • Philly 5/14 • Halifax, Canada 5/29 • Baltimore 5/31 • Milan 6/11 • Rotterdam 6/16 • Amsterdam 6/17 • London 6/19 • Edinburgh 6/23 • Rabat 7/11
March 12, 2025 at 4:18 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
“So yes, we've experienced a coup, not the old fashioned kind, no tanks or mobs, but an undemocratic and hostile takeover of government. It is cruel, it is petty. It can be brutal. It is at once chaotic and surgical…The question is, will the rule of law hold?”
The words “ITS A COUP” in red bold letters atop the front page of New York Times featuring a photo of Elon Musk.
March 3, 2025 at 4:08 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
Black Studies and the Fight Against Fascism on March 4 @ 6pm ET, register here: www.tickettailor.com/events/hayma...
Black Studies and the Fight Against Fascism with Davarian Baldwin, Johanna Fernandez, Sarah Haley, Robin D.G. Kelley, Barbara Ransby, Robyn Spencer-Antoine, on Tuesday March 4 @ 6pm ET, register here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/haymarketbooks/1611646
February 28, 2025 at 8:29 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
🗓️Upcoming Talks—I hope to see some of you in the weeks ahead! Details here: www.ruhabenjamin.com/events:
• Oregon State 1/30 • Sydney, Australia 2/6 • Kirikiriroa, Aotearoa 2/9 • Lehigh U 2/14 • Philadelphia 2/18 • Furman U 2/20 • Denison U 2/27 • U of Cincinnati 3/7 • Amsterdam 3/21 • Minneapolis 4/2 • WashU St. Louis 4/4 • College of Holy Cross 4/8 • Harvard 4/9-10 • Vassar 5/9 • Baltimore 5/31 • Milan 6/11 • Rotterdam 6/16 • Amsterdam 6/17 • London 6/19
January 29, 2025 at 12:06 AM
ruha9.bsky.social
“When college students protest to end genocide, the ADL calls for militarized police across campuses. When the richest man in the world gives a nazi salute on national television, they tell everyone to calm down.”
January 21, 2025 at 7:44 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
“I finished this book sobered by its hard truths yet emboldened to critically and collaboratively question the role of education in society—with a sense of curiosity & play.” Thank you Greater Good for featuring IMAGINATION in your Fav Books for Educators!📚
Full list here: bit.ly/favebooksforedu2024
December 18, 2024 at 10:28 PM
ruha9.bsky.social
This selective outrage and media coverage only reinforce a one-sided view of whose lives matter. The weaponization of the charge of antisemitism is a disservice to everyone—it waters down its meaning and is wielded against anyone who dares to name the reality that Palestinians are living through, as they are buried alive while the world debates what we are allowed to call their mass deaths.
December 16, 2024 at 1:42 AM
ruha9.bsky.social
What about the students and teachers at NAIS who were disheartened after hearing conference leaders apologize for a powerful talk on Islamophobia? There are message boards filled with conference attendees expressing their anger and frustration over this censorship, as well as the fear they feel in speaking out. Yet there are no news stories about the profound disappointment they feel in an organization that claims to support people of color.
December 16, 2024 at 1:42 AM
ruha9.bsky.social
Specifically, I am being criticized for using the word "genocide" in relation to a project called Phoenix of Gaza, a virtual reality exhibit created by and for Palestinians living through what many scholars, human rights advocates, and international organizations describe as genocide. My critics are outraged by my use of that word, but have little to say about the horrific conditions faced by the loved ones of our Palestinian students.
December 16, 2024 at 1:42 AM