Automating Inequality

Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks

Is society’s race to improve and automate every government service leaving people behind? Author Virginia Eubanks examines the issues surrounding the rise of a high-tech-only government in her latest book “Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor.”

Eubanks examines the side effects, some intentional, of pushing government services into often completely automated computer-based systems. While she crisscrosses the country encountering examples of people whose lives are adversely impacted by lines of code, she finds her own family ensnared in a health insurance issue related to a poorly-designed system that could have easily sent many American families into bankruptcy.

Come for discussion and a social hour on Monday, May 14th at My Office, at 763 N. Milwaukee St. from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend, the discussions are informal and open-ended. If you don’t finish the book, don’t worry. Come to listen, learn and engage.  

The book is available from Amazon, the Milwaukee Public Library and bookstores everywhere.

To stay in the loop about future book club news, sign up for our Book Club mailing list. To help us better plan, please RSVP on Facebook, although it’s not required.

Previous Books

• February 2018 – Human Transit by Jarrett Walker
• November 2016 – The Cosmopolitan Canopy by Elijah Anderson
• September 2016 – Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus by Douglas Ruskoff
• June 2016 – The Smartest Places on Earth by Antoine van Agtmael and Alfred Bakker
• May 2016 – Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution by Janette Sadik-Khan and Seth Solomonow
• April 2016 – Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
• February 2016 – Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design by Charles Montgomery
• January 2016 – Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Robert Putnam
• December 2015 – Start-Up City: Inspiring Private and Public Entrepreneurship, Getting Projects Done, and Having Fun by Gabe Klein

Upcoming Dates

• May 14th
• June 4th
• July 23rd
• October 8th
• December 3rd