#epidermalization

In, “Branding Blackness: Biometric Technology and the Surveillance of Blackness,” Simone Browne advocates for a critical biometric consciousness that takes into account the history of biometrics and body identification when considering how it has been applied to modern technology. Using the example of slave branding, Browne examines how branding became a form of racialized surveillance and how biometrics played a role in the framing of blackness as property. She defines biometrics as, “a means of body measurement that is put to use to allow the body, or parts and pieces and performances of the human body, to function as identification (91).” It is crucial to analyze early applications of biometric technologies, such as branding, in order to understand how they have impacted the socio-technological landscape today. A key point of Browne’s article is that these technologies are not infallible- they are encoded with biases and interpret different bodies in various ways. A study by Bion Biometrics inc found that biometric modalities tend to have worse performance for females, for children and for certain ethnic groups. Thus, we must continually question the role of these technologies in our everyday life. 

Branding- the act of marking a person with text or symbols using hot iron- was a common practice in the slave trade, through which the enslaved people were signified as commodities to be bought, sold, and traded (93). Browne discusses how this was often done before embarkation on the slave vessel, and the implications of this moment of disembarkation. The branding augments David Thea Goldberg’s theory of a “racial state,” in which the slaves were dehumanized and treated as natural resources taken from their land (93). During this process, blackness became visible and commodified, as well as other identity markers such as gender, that served to further dehumanize the slaves.

McClintock defines commodity racism as, “distinct from scientific racism in its capacity to expand beyond the literate, propertied elite through the marketing of commodity spectacle. . . Imperial kitsch as consumer spectacle, by contrast, could package, market and distribute evolutionary racism on a hitherto unimagined scale (98).” Browne discusses how commodity racism and the white gaze does not frame the racial subject as passive or negated. Instead, it utilizes the process of epidermalization, in which black bodies are made to feel out of place in an attempt to deny their capacity for humanness (98).

Digital epidermalization is where we consider what happens when certain bodies are rendered as digitized code, and the imposition of race on the body during this process. Browne argues that “the notion of a body made out of place, or made ontologically insecure, is useful when thinking through the moments of contact enacted at the institutional sites of international border crossings and spaces of the internal borders of the state. . . sites and moments where identification, and increasingly biometric information, is required to speak the truth of and for muted bodies (109).” Surveillance at these sites is done methodologically, and thus, the implementation of biometric technologies allows biases and profiling to appear objective and infallible. For this reason, we must continually question how these technologies specify indicators of gender and race, favoring certain bodies over others. Biometric technologies are becoming ubiquitous in everyday life, with people repeatedly favoring convenience over privacy. Facial recognition software is being implemented into airports everywhere, and it is inevitable that these technologies will continue to permeate into institutionalized spaces. Thus, it is vital that we remain critically conscious of biometrics in order to protect minority bodies.

Simone Browne’s piece “Branding Blackness” describes the painful history of branding slaves in America in an effort to track blackness as property. Browne illustrates this practice in order to make a point about modern day biometric technology used for surveillance and the identification of bodies. The argument is that branding in the era of slavery was actually a form of biometric technology and the beginning of mass surveillance in the United States. However, branding in the transatlantic slave trade was particularly used to ascribe the meaning of a commodity onto the black body and then after arriving in the colonies, brands would maintain the enslaved body as black. A notable aspect of this branding would be the mark of the skin or the epidermalization, the inscription of race on the skin. The first thing that came to my mind when I thought of branding was The Scarlet Letter and the “branding” of Hester Prynne. As depicted below, she was “branded” with a red, felt A on her dress to signify her Adulteress status.  Although this worked as a mark of meaning, the brand was not a permanent facet on her skin that gave meaning to her color but instead a superficially laid marker on her dress. In other words, her “branding” was not attached to her whiteness in the way that the branding of the slavery era attached meaning the the literal color of the skin. Understanding this distinction allows for a comprehensive analysis of remaining points Browne makes regarding the implications of branding.

Photo #1: https://sites.google.com/site/scarletletter520/hester

From using humans as resources to be bought and sold in the slave trade, to marketing in the colonial era, to modern day billboards, the concept of commodification of race has seen various forms throughout history. Browne notes one early version of the Banania brand package as having a carribean looking women pouring the product on a rejoicing French crowd. This marketing choice implies that the exotic region of the Caribbean is willfully giving the colonies and white people their resources. In reality we know this is not the case and that the nature of colonization was nothing but forceful. Similar representation has been seen today in billboard campaigns. For example, the picture below depicts a playstation advertisement promoting the release of the new white colored playstation with a powerful white women forcefully holding the face of a black person. This is overtly reminiscent of colonization and what Browne notes as the “white racial frame”. The frame which gives way to an anti-black frame categorizing difference where blackness is deemed unruly, needing to be tamed, as portrayed in the Playstation advertisement.  As for the slave era, this was the justification for branding and characterizing blackness with negative characteristics in order to rationalize the violence.

Browne also brings up the point that certain memorabilia from the slave era has been commodified like the branding tool or certain historic photographs. As the amount of channels available for exposure has increased, commodity culture continues to show signs of branding blackness. For example, Nike’s campaign with Kaepernick and the various merchandise that came out of Angela Davis’ history as a power icon, show that branding the pain that black people endure is still relevant and pervasive and popular culture. To read more about the problematic act of branding black pain and these two specific cases, visit this site.

Photo #2: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-racist-ads-of-the-modern-era-2012-6#burger-king-and-mary-j-blige-got-blasted-for-this-fried-chicken-commercial-4

Branding blackness and the construction of prototypical whiteness also have consequence on surveillance and the practices of biometrics in regards to the recognition and verification that accompanies these practices.From the linear fashion in which artificial boundaries are regulated within biometric technology causing false identifications to the facial-scan system by video cameras being optimized for lighter-skinned users, I agree with Browne that as long as biometric technology relies on probability, surveillance in the US will remain racial and flawed. Once again reminiscent of the transatlantic slave trade when black people were separated by category of fit, people under surveillance are separated into stringent linear categories that deny subjectivity. From living in South Central Los Angeles, a predominately colored neighborhood, I know that this reality gives way to an inequality of surveillance as I note the frequently present helicopters technologically surveilling the streets from above. Will Smith’s quote in Browne’s article also notes that awareness of being under constant surveillance is an enduring condition of Black life. Furthermore, this article states that the government has reported its use of extensive surveillance resources to identify black activists they deem “extremists”. The article states that the “FBI thinks it can identify security threats by scrutinizing people’s beliefs and speech.” (Talbot, 2017) This is yet another example of people in power can socially construct someone’s identity and employ negative consequences in response. What frustrates me the most about this point is that surveillance technologies are known to advantage whiteness even though communities of color are surveilled more frequently. 

Undoubtedly, the rise in technology has made a positive contribution to our lives in many aspects - including but not limited to health, education, entertainment, and more. However, it seems that the efficiency of technology has at times clouded our judgment when it comes to personal information, privacy, and surveillance. Simone Browne (2015), in her paper “B®anding Blackness: Biometric Technology and the Surveillance of Blackness,” expresses her concern for how people today blindly decide to be identified by digital technologies.

In Browne’s (2015) article, the history of branding is explained through the literal branding through hot irons on slaves in order to classify them accordingly; that this action was a “violent theft of the body” since the slaves were no longer identified as individuals but material goods owned by a specific owner (p.93). The entire system was dehumanizing, racist, and sexist. Not only were the slaves physically branded through hot irons, but also classified through specific body parts. Browne (2015) gives an example of an excerpt from an English ethnographer in Jamaica who would write that “no people in the world have finer teeth than the native Blacks of Jamaica” (p.95). This was common amongst ethnographers or traders in different regions who would detail specific physical and mental qualities of different ethnicities.

One interesting concept from Browne’s (2015) paper her connection to historical “epidermalization” during the slave trade and digital surveillance of the 21st Century. She uses the term epidermalization from another paper written by Stuart Hall who defines it as “literally the inscription of race on the skin.” How people of color would continue to be “dissected, fixed, and imprisoned by the white gaze” (p.97). She takes this concept and modernizes it into "digital epidermalization”. Digital epidermalization is more common than we think it is - when we go through airport security and when we scan our fingerprints to unlock our phones just like the photo below are some examples that most people today in modernized countries experience.

[Source: https://www.imore.com/how-touch-id-works]

These biometric systems, however, are epidermalized for not only do they seem to prefer whiteness and lightness in skin tones, they also have different algorithms set for different ethnicities and genders. For example, Browne (2015) notes that a biometric finger scanner had specific notes on what the fingerprints of different ethnicities looked like; whereas white users were considered the “prototype”, “users of Pacific Rim/Asian descent may have faint fingerprint ridges-especially female users” (p.113). These specific, racial, categorizations result in a modern-day epidermalization of people of color. They further call to question how “non-binary, gender nonconforming, mixed-race, intersexed, or trans people fit into this algorithmic equation” (Browne, 2015, p.114).

Another aspect that is interesting about these biometric systems is that we as individuals do not even know for sure what our fingerprints or irises look like. The photo below is the way the new Samsung Galaxy phone uses an algorithm to scan the user's iris in order to unlock the phone. The phone will thus have more detailed information about our own bodies than we ourselves do. Therefore, these technologies may seem “cool” and efficient, they are also at the same time dehumanizing. We as humans are being understood by codes and algorithms, analyzed and categorized - a metaphorical and technological branding of our bodies. It will be interesting to see if the public will ever rise up to resist the use of such biometric technologies. 

[Source: https://www.phonearena.com/news/Here-is-how-the-Galaxy-Note-7-iris-scanner-works_id82854]

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