Naming Harm in Transportation: Tools of Control and Oppression

Infrastructure and transportation planning has been weaponized as a tool of oppression. Every transportation mode has been both sites of control and vehicles through which larger systems of racism and oppression operate. In this session, I will draw from case studies at the intersection of transportation equity and environmental justice to demonstrate how transportation “solutions” replicate cycles of harm. Participants will then be asked to use an intersectional lens to identify the multiple ways in which existing and emerging transportation technologies continue to inflict harm. This is a necessary requisite to reimagining a transportation system that helps reduce and eliminate Black harm, affirm Black life, and enable freedom of movement.