Exercises — Chapter 36: Racial Surveillance and the Discriminatory Gaze

Exercise 36.1 — Historical Continuity Mapping (Individual, 45–60 minutes)

Overview: Construct a timeline that traces the structural continuity between historical and contemporary racial surveillance technologies.

Instructions:

Create a timeline with at least eight entries spanning from the colonial era to the present. For each entry, identify:

  1. The name and date of the surveillance technology or practice
  2. The population it was primarily designed to monitor
  3. The stated justification for the surveillance
  4. The actual function it served in terms of racial control
  5. The technological or institutional successor to this practice

Your timeline should include at minimum: - Lantern laws (1713) - Slave pass system (colonial era through Civil War) - Bertillon system / biometric measurement (late 19th century) - Sundown towns and their enforcement mechanisms (20th century) - COINTELPRO (1956–1971) - One contemporary example of your choice

Synthesis question (written, 400–600 words): After completing your timeline, write a response to the following: Browne argues that modern surveillance is continuous with, not merely analogous to, historical racial control technologies. Do your timeline entries support this argument? Where do you see genuine discontinuity, and how does that change the analysis?

Exercise 36.2 — Disparate Impact Analysis (Group, 60–90 minutes)

Overview: Apply a disparate impact framework to a real-world surveillance deployment.

Instructions:

Working in groups of three or four, select one of the following surveillance programs: - PredPol or similar predictive policing system in a city of your choice - ShotSpotter deployment in Chicago - Ring Neighbors in a specific metropolitan area - Facial recognition use by a specific police department - E-Verify and employment verification

Conduct a disparate impact analysis using publicly available data. Your analysis should address:

  1. Deployment patterns: Where is the system deployed? What are the demographic characteristics of those locations?
  2. Outcome data: What outcomes does the system produce (arrests, alerts, stops, denials)? How are those outcomes distributed across racial groups?
  3. Error rates: Where documented, what are the system's error rates? Do error rates differ by race?
  4. Feedback mechanisms: Does the system's operation generate data that influences future deployment? What are the racial implications of that feedback?
  5. Accountability: What mechanisms exist for challenging the system's outputs or deployment decisions?

Deliverable: A 600–800 word disparate impact memo addressed to the city council of the relevant jurisdiction, presenting your findings and one concrete recommendation.

Exercise 36.3 — Yara's Counter-Surveillance Journal (Individual, Reflective, 30–45 minutes)

Overview: Write a fictional journal entry from Yara's perspective, using the chapter's concepts to articulate the experience of racialized surveillance from the inside.

Instructions:

Write a 500–700 word journal entry from Yara Khalil's perspective. The entry should:

  • Describe a specific incident (fictional, but realistic) in which Yara experiences a moment of racial surveillance — it need not be dramatic; it could be a small moment (a security guard, an airport line, a pause in a conversation)
  • Articulate what Yara observes, thinks, and feels in that moment
  • Connect the experience to at least two of the book's recurring themes (visibility asymmetry, consent as fiction, normalization, structural vs. individual, historical continuity)
  • Reflect on the uncertainty of not knowing whether she is being watched

After completing the journal entry, write a 200–300 word reflection in your own voice: What did writing from Yara's perspective teach you that reading about racialized surveillance did not?

Exercise 36.4 — The Reform vs. Abolition Debate (Group, 75–90 minutes)

Overview: Conduct a structured debate on whether racially biased surveillance systems should be reformed or abolished.

Preparation (individual, before class):

Read the following positions: - Reform position: Racially biased surveillance systems can and should be fixed through better data, algorithmic auditing, community oversight, and anti-discrimination enforcement - Abolition position: Surveillance systems targeting communities of color are constitutive of racial oppression and cannot be reformed without perpetuating their fundamental function; they should be abolished

Prepare arguments for the position assigned to you by your instructor.

Debate structure (in class):

  • Opening statements: 3 minutes per side
  • Cross-examination: 5 minutes per side (each side questions the other)
  • Rebuttal: 2 minutes per side
  • Open discussion: 15 minutes

Post-debate written reflection (individual, 400–500 words):

After the debate, regardless of which side you argued, write a reflection addressing: Which arguments did you find most compelling, and why? Did your view change as a result of the debate? What would it take to resolve this disagreement empirically rather than philosophically?

Exercise 36.5 — Policy Brief: Facial Recognition in Law Enforcement (Individual, Major Assignment, 800–1,200 words)

Overview: Draft a policy brief on the use of facial recognition technology in law enforcement, incorporating the racial bias evidence from this chapter and Chapter 35.

Audience: The City Council of a mid-sized U.S. city currently considering adopting facial recognition technology for police use.

Your brief should:

  1. Summarize the evidence on racial bias in facial recognition systems (drawing on Gender Shades and NIST findings)
  2. Describe the documented cases of wrongful arrest (Williams, Oliver, Parks)
  3. Analyze what these cases reveal about the risks of deploying biased systems in high-stakes law enforcement contexts
  4. Present the range of policy options available: outright ban, regulated use, moratorium pending further study
  5. Make a specific recommendation with supporting reasoning
  6. Anticipate and respond to the strongest objection to your recommendation

Formatting: Use headings, write in clear policy language (not academic jargon), and include a one-paragraph executive summary at the top.

Exercise 36.6 — Intersectionality Analysis (Individual, 500–700 words)

Overview: Apply the intersectionality framework to analyze how surveillance burden differs across overlapping social categories.

Instructions:

Select two fictional individuals with different intersecting social positions (e.g., a Black woman who is a documented immigrant vs. a white woman who is a citizen; or a low-income Black man vs. a wealthy Black man). For each individual, analyze:

  1. What surveillance systems are they likely to encounter in daily life?
  2. How does race shape their surveillance burden?
  3. How does class, gender, or immigration status modify or compound that burden?
  4. What resources do they have to challenge surveillance or seek accountability?

Then write a 300–400 word conclusion addressing: What does the intersectional analysis reveal that a race-only analysis would miss?