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What Is Social Justice?

Wikipedia defines social justice as justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.

Social justice means the practice of Paulo Freire's humanization, and is consistent with the revolution of values described by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence speech:

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, This is not just. It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, This is not just. The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Our Mission:

The mission of Social Justice Computing is to use information technology in the service of social justice. To make these goals clear and to connect us with the global movement toward their attainment, we are guided by the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

These 17 goals provide a concrete framework for guiding us toward using information and communication technology in the service of meeting our shared human needs.

Our Vision:

Social Justice computing envisions a future where workers in the information and communications technology field can find meaningful employment using their technology skills in the service of social justice and meeting human needs.

The sad truth is that ICT jobs in our current economic system are largely limited to work that increases inequality and dehumanization, enriching oligarchs and destroying our shared environment. Our own country is sadly one of the only 5 countries in the United Nations that do not have a sustainable development goals plan.

If humanity is to thrive in the 21st century, that reality will need to change. Social Justice Computing is dedicated to playing our part in this desperately needed change.

Resources:

The Decidim project is a technopolitical project which is building ICT infrastructure to support participatory democracty. It is just the kind ICT project which social justice computing wants to become involved.

Download a copy of Decidim, a Technopolitical Network for Participatory Democracy and join the conversation it is helping to generate.