Today we shine a spotlight on transdisciplinary visionary, educator, and author, Dr. Ruha Benjamin ✨

Who Is Ruha Benjamin? 📚

She is a professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and the author of several books, including Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019), Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (2022), and Imagination: A Manifesto (2024).

Ruha’s Origin Story 🌍

Ruha was born in the city of Wai, India, the child of a Persian-Indian mother and an African American father. Her early experiences in this culturally rich environment sparked her “imagination about places where cold tools and warm humans meet.”

Why MBM Celebrates Ruha’s Contributions 💭

Ruha is a thought leader whose work explores the intersections of race, activism, technology, the arts, citizenship, knowledge, and power. In her book Imagination, she offers insight into how reality can be shaped through the power of imagination. In the first chapter, she describes her favorite scene from the HBO docuseries Being Serena:

“Serena is seven or eight years old, practicing with her father, Richard Williams, by her side. As she runs back and forth on a public court in their Compton neighborhood… Richard calls out, ‘This is you at the US Open… Boom!’”

Through the power of her father’s words, young Serena Williams is invited to imagine her future self as an award-winning tennis champion.

The Power of Liberating Imagination

Ruha’s work inspires us to ask BIG QUESTIONS:

• What does “liberating imagination” look like?
• How can we use imagination to form a collective vision of equity and well-being for all?
• How can we create safe spaces for shared visionary work?

Learn more about Ruha: https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/

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