The people and companies behind the screen, not the technology itself, are responsible for the harms of artificial intelligence. That was Dr. Ruha Benjamin’s central argument at the 44th Annual Everett C. Parker Ethics in Telecommunications Lecture and Awards Luncheon in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, September 10.
2026 Parker Award Honoree Richard Prince (left) and 2026 Parker Lecturer Dr. Ruha Benjamin (right).
Dr. Benjamin, the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and founding director of the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab, called tech industry leaders “the artificial intelligentsia” and warned that they want the public to believe democracy is outdated software.
Drawing on Black intellectual tradition from W.E.B. Du Bois to Octavia Butler, she laid out a series of things the public needs to “unlearn,” from the myth that technology has a will of its own to the idea that innovation and social progress are the same thing. She pointed to community fights against data centers, cited research showing two out of three targeted projects have been blocked or delayed, and offered “Ancestral Intelligence” and “Abundant Imagination” as counterpoints to the tech industry’s version of AI.
Dr. Benjamin brought her trademark oratory skills to bear, encouraging the audience to think critically about ideas we consider impossible, like affordable housing for all, and other ideas society sees as exciting new frontiers, like colonizing Mars.
Dr. Benjamin closed with a riff on Octavia Butler: “It may be the end of the world, but there are other worlds!”
Journalist Richard Prince received the Everett C. Parker Award for decades of work holding the news industry accountable on race and representation. Prince was a member of The Washington Post’s “Metro Seven,” a group of seven Black journalists who filed the first known EEOC complaint of its kind against a newspaper in 1972. He created the “Journal-isms” column in 1991 and has tracked diversity in news media for more than three decades.
Prince connected his own story to the present crisis for journalists of color, citing data from the Demand Diversity Roundtable: the Black press has lost 80 percent of its revenue since the backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) intensified, and Black journalists hold roughly the same share of newsroom jobs as they did 50 years ago. He called on the audience to support those still advocating for diversity.
You can review the full video of today’s event here, minus Dr. Benjamin’s remarks. Select clips from her lecture will be available soon.
About UCC Media Justice and the Parker Lecture
The United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry is the media justice instrumentality of the United Church of Christ denomination, which includes approximately 5,000 congregations and nearly three-quarters of a million members. Rev. Dr. Everett C. Parker was inspired by the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to reform television coverage of the civil rights movement in the South.
UCC Media Justice’s advocacy, under its original name Office of Communication, Inc., established the right of community members, not just corporate entities and licensees, to participate before the FCC and compelled the FCC to deny the broadcast license renewal of the pro-segregationist television station WLBT-TV in Jackson, Miss., in 1969 for failing to serve the public interest.
The Parker Lecture was created in 1982 to recognize the Rev. Dr. Parker’s work as an advocate for the public’s rights in broadcasting. The Parker Lecture is the only program of its kind in the United States that examines telecommunications in the digital age from an ethical perspective.