Summary

Scott opens “The Electric Joy of Service” from the perspective of a robot named Jim, called “Little Ni**er Jim” by his creator, Bavid Jacob Alcrom, who Jim refers to as Master. In this story, Jim recounts his creation, which occurred on Insurrection day: the anniversary of the day Cross River was founded by slaves who successfully revolted. The Master created Jim to complete menial daily tasks, and programmed him with a love of serving. The Master told his business partners, with whom he planned to sell his robots with, that they should paint the robots black with “big red lips” and “dress them like lawn jockeys” to market to white people so they can have slaves again (44).

The Master’s business partners said they could never send that design to Meratti, a CEO interested in...