Model as Revolt: Inference as Resistance 🛠️📢📊#
“What if the tool is the protest?”
“When truth is dismissed, inference becomes insubordination.”
Models are often framed as neutral instruments. But in reality, the decision to model—to simulate, quantify, visualize—is sometimes an act of resistance.
Especially when:
Systems pretend no problem exists
Institutions erase specific harms
Populations are denied voice or complexity
In such cases, modeling becomes revolt.
🧬 Examples of Modeling as Protest#
Black maternal mortality risk modeled despite being minimized in dominant policy discourse
Climate modeling by small island states to counter industrial narratives
Incarceration projection tools used by activists to anticipate harmful legislation
Community-level epidemiology created by indigenous researchers in data-hostile environments
These models say:
“You won’t listen to stories? Fine. Here’s a number.”
🧠 Back to Ukubona#
Ukubona arose from a refusal:
A refusal to pretend that older kidney donors are the same as younger ones
A refusal to treat “CKD Stage 3” as the same across all contexts
A refusal to ignore frailty, social context, uncertainty
The model is not rebellion in tone.
It is rebellion in existence.
🔄 When Tools Are Denied#
Often, modeling becomes resistance precisely because it is denied:
“You don’t need that subgroup breakdown.”
“There’s no data on that.”
“The sample size is too small to matter.”
“You’ll confuse the user if you show uncertainty.”
These are not technical statements. They are acts of erasure.
🛠 Modeling as Memory#
Inference is also a form of memory.
It keeps count of what the system forgets
It tracks what’s underreported
It shows what might have happened if someone had cared
When systems forget people,
models become their record keepers.
Next: Co-opted Clarity – When Visibility Punishes
The final chapter in Truth as Weapon.