Are you tired of technology leaders and organizers using inclusion and diversity as the latest marketing buzz words to garner attention? For far too long many of our technical organizations, communities, and events have been unsafe, unwelcoming, and unapologetic environments for members of underrep…
Podcast Description “Decolonizing is the process of dissecting and removing colonialism. Most theories surrounding decolonization is based on decolonizing the colonized but the colonized can’t and shouldn’t cut themselves off and only decolonize themselves. The colonizer must also remove the dominant-subordinate relationship. In short, and this is all in bold…All spaces must be actively anti-racist.” […]
Podcast Description A perfect example of this is like a white woman calling the cops on Black men. It is like a fucking prime example of…and at that point maybe they do know they have privilege. But either way they know that they can manipulate the system to get a desired outcome and it is […]
Podcast Description It’s the hard conversations. Like a lot of people are still trying to find a way around not having these hard conversations, come to these real truths about how their approaching business and the structure and the system that we all live in. And if Google doesn’t have the power to go against […]
Podcast Description Black people in Ireland are like super educated. Because we just believe, okay…the only way to pull yourself, so you know, out of this is by education. So we, it’s the default we over educate. And so at the end of the day we’re overqualified and underemployed. That is the…thing that is happening. […]
Podcast Description People come to the union for all sorts of reasons. You’re hearing my story here, but a union is like live body of lots of people coming for different reasons so here’s a couple things like: first of all, some of us might be paid really well, but at the same time we […]
Podcast Description You know, it’s nothing like the doctor sitting and telling you that like you’re not sick yet, but you will be. “Oh yeah, yeah…it’s not bothering you now, but it will bother you later.” How you gonna tell somebody something like that? You’re pronouncing me dead 5 years down the line before you, […]
Podcast Descriptionhttps://hashtagcauseascene.com/podcast/abeba-birhane/(opens in a new tab) Within these social spheres, when you try, when you create algorithmic systems to predict social outcomes are you not only making a scientifically dubious claim because that’s impossible? But also you are doing something that’s ethically a red flag that harms people that harms minoritized communities. Abeba Birhane is […]
Podcast Description My argument in my Shame book is that it’s like a sort of fortress…of denial that white people have like surrounded themselves with because they are living in cognitive dissonance. And that’s what shame does. Shame when it’s real and it and it hits. It hurts so badly that you’re like how can […]
Podcast Description It’s funny because the title of my upcoming book is called Uncovering Bias in ML and I feel like it’s…it’s not that it doesn’t go deep. I feel like that’s the first layer, right? Yes, it talks about discovering that this bias is here. But I’m like: I make it clear from the […]
Podcast Description Ya know, we all have an Esther moment. And you know, if you think about, remember the story of Esther in the Bible like she found out that there was a plot to kill…annihilate all the Jewish people. And her husband Mordecai came to her and said, you know Esther, you know there’s […]
Podcast Description [I wanted to rebroadcast this episode before the 2020 U.S. Presidential election because of the racist comments from Jared Kushner “that Black Americans have to want to be successful” because there are many who believe this narrative. This interview documents the personal story of someone with the lived experiences of how the systems, […]
Podcast Description ‘I must have been really young cuz I remember…I have a freaky memory, like I was a creepy little white kid, umm, I was so creepy. I tried to sabotage my parents moving to the suburbs for two years and I would and I would like put little like cards that were like […]
Podcast Description "When I was growing up, my white friends would say: if I was around during slavery I never would have...I would have taken you and all that stuff and it's like, okay. Well this is this is a version of it right now, you know, so what are you going to do it when it counts, you know, it's obvious we're not enslaved in that way. But every generation has a uprising moment like you either get to be courageous or you get to be cautious and which one is it going to be?" Minda Harts is the CEO of The Memo LLC, a career development platform for women of color. She is the best-selling author of The Memo: What Women of Color Need To Know To Secure A Seat At The Table. Minda is an Assistant Professor at NYU Wagner. She has been featured on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Fast Company, The Guardian, and Time Magazine. Minda frequently speaks at companies like Microsoft, Levi's, Google, and Bloomberg on topics such as Leadership, Managing Diverse Teams and Self-Advocacy. She also hosts a weekly podcast called Secure The Seat. Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Minda Harts Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description "And I really felt so emboldened by what was going on that I asked to speak to [him/former manager] again. And I said, and I spoke to him on the phone and I said: Ya know, I want to be completely honest with you, um while I understand this was not your intention this was the impact of your actions on me. These actions that I listed...it wasn't even a comprehensive list...all of these actions left me feeling humiliated and demoralized. I could not fully inhabit my role if you were not going to allow whoever it is, ya know, to be in that position to fully inhabit that role like you should have just been straight up from the beginning and said you know, you're going to come in and do this, but I'm going to be right there with you and you're not going to get any of the acclaim or any recognition, if someone had told me that from the get-go, I would have known what I was getting into, and probably wouldn't have gone, um. Just be honest about what the reality is. Dr. Oni Blackstock is recognized as a thought leader and influencer in the areas of HIV, health equity, and racial justice. She is the founder and Executive Director of Health Justice, a consulting firm providing content expertise in HIV, sexual health, LGBTQ health and racial equity to organizations focused on public health and health care. She is a primary care and HIV doctor and researcher who sees patients at Harlem Hospital. Dr. Blackstock recently served as Assistant Commissioner for the New York City Health Department’s Bureau of HIV where she led the City’s response to the HIV epidemic. She received her undergraduate and her medical degrees from Harvard and completed her primary care Internal Medicine residency and ambulatory chief residency Montefiore/Einstein as well as an HIV clinical fellowship at Harlem Hospital. She received a Masters of Health Sciences Research from Yale School of Medicine's Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program. Additional Resources https://twitter.com/DrOniBee/status/1259791334484905985?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1259791334484905985%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.trello.services%2Ftweets.html7B22secret223A22q2lowr4dPQxtMqkipiChGUoPxIWXfun9ck1NeKMMku3FKHd1nhyo9fo9cKq6wPnC222C22context223A7B22version223A22build-5905222C22member223A2255e97874dbb2337d37e76966222C22permissions223A7B22board223A22write222C22organization223A22write222C22card223A22write227D2C22organization223A225b509813b0d9fe70470296b9222C22board223A225b5098454efea8c1ff937ab4222C22card223A225f68bf03b7ed814ac83764ca222C22command223A22attachment-sections227D2C22locale223A22en-US227D Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Dr. Oni Blackstock Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description "People sometimes think that like having had like, you know having had a Black president like changes people like attitudes towards it doesn't, so…being in med school has made it…ya know, I feel like this is not the first time that I've been in like in a white space where I went to graduate school at Georgia Tech, but I feel like it's been probably the most eye-opening experience when it comes to like educating me about how racism works and how racism is communicated." Max Jordan is a medical student in my final year at the Yale University School of Medicine, in New Haven, CT. Prior to attending Yale, he worked as a researcher in the Merryman Mechanobiology lab at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, having earned a M.S. in Bioengineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, GA (2015) and a B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering (Summa Cum Laude) at Howard University in Washington, DC (2013). His previous experiences have shaped his academic and extracurricular interests related to medicine. In terms of research, he's interested in improving the quality of care for people from marginalized and stigmatized groups. This has led him to develop a research thread in addiction medicine since his first year of medical school. Max also interested in how residential and occupational environmental exposures shape people's health (see civil & environmental engineering background!), and in identifying key levers that can be activated as buffers against the effects of climate change and environmental racism. This has led him to research associations between access to nature and health outcomes, most notably, hypertension in pregnancy, a leading cause of maternal mortality. In his free time, he hosted and produced a podcast titled "Flip the Script," focused on elucidating mechanisms behind observed health inequities, and highlighting the work of scholars, physicians and community health workers who make it their priority to address said inequities. He also write about racism in medical education based on personal experiences and observations. These observations have led to me developing a budding research interest in healthcare workforce diversity. Max likes getting around on his bike and appreciate efficient public transit. Playing tennis is my absolute favorite thing to do." Additional Resources https://twitter.com/MaxJordan_N/status/1256780210520850434 Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Max Jordan Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description "I mean that's the ultimate dream right? Like, I think if you think back to 2011-2012 when you saw these uprisings around the world that were live streamed you saw Occupy protests and it was: "Oh, the Internet is great!...it's gonna democratize communication" and I think to a certain extent it has and certainly voices have emerged that wouldn't have otherwise. We are also seeing you know the ill-affect of that. Ya know, and that Holocaust deniers have a voice and conspiracy theorists have a voice and white nationalists have a voice, so finding the right balance of that I think is going to be the battle of a generation" Melissa Ryan helps people, policymakers, and institutions combat online toxicity and extremism. (AKA trolls, the so-called alt-right, disinformation, and fake news.) She write Ctrl Alt-Right Delete, a weekly newsletter, that reaches more than 16,000 readers. She's also written commentary for outlets like Buzzfeed News, Refinery29, and NowThis. Previously, she was a digital strategist for Democratic campaigns and progressive causes. She worked with influencers and online communities to raise money, mobilize activists, drive online conversations and shape media narratives. Her familiarity with this space gives her a unique insight into how trolls and extremists organize. Additional Resources https://twitter.com/MelissaRyan/status/1263094857771503621?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1263094857771503621%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.trello.services%2Ftweets.html7B22secret223A22lgR1sgS8FGKJCnLZJn67NWJrGqstXARTuPnNc7W8zIs5pN4sRRkPA37POvsShTQf222C22context223A7B22version223A22build-5792222C22member223A2255e97874dbb2337d37e76966222C22permissions223A7B22board223A22write222C22organization223A22write222C22card223A22write227D2C22organization223A225b509813b0d9fe70470296b9222C22board223A225b5098454efea8c1ff937ab4222C22card223A225f3abd5f2d1cc611629f344e222C22command223A22attachment-sections227D2C22locale223A22en-US227D Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Melissa Ryan Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “I’m not actually able to visualize it in my head, so it doesn’t have an actual structure to it. A lot of this is mathematically related…ya know numbers and variables…can be very abstract and so I had difficulty. It was like constant confusion. Between the autism and the non-verbal learning disability I’m a veritable cornucopia of mental illness and neuro-divergence at this point. But ya know what, I love it and I wouldn’t have it any other way because it’s made me exactly who I am.” Nicole Archambault is a Boston-based web developer and educational technology (EdTech) entrepreneur. After abandoning a CS major in college, she taught herself to program in 2015 using Treehouse. She still has a long way to go. But most importantly, Nicole made a career change to an industry that she loves, doing work that she's passionate about, and solving problems that matter. Nicole is incredibly passionate about issues concerning women, and technology is no exception. So it should come as no surprise that she wanted to help other women successfully become web developers and software engineers, by breaking down walls and effecting real change. Additional Resources Website Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Nicole Archambault Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description Kim is taking some much needed time off, so enjoy this presentation from the 2018 Clojure SYNC conference. Additional Resources Presentation Slides Presentation Video Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter How to Survive the Robots: Professional Development 2.0: A Business Strategy Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description Kim is taking some much needed time off, so enjoy this presentation from the 2019 Cream City Code conference. Additional Resources Presentation Slides Presentation Video Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Hey! What About Me? How To Manage Heterogeneous Groups While Minimizing Harm Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description Kim is taking some much needed time off, so enjoy this presentation from the 2018 JSConf EU conference. Additional Resources Presentation SlidesPresentation Video Transcription 00:31 Hello, everyone. [Shouts] Hello, everyone! [Audience cheers]. Alright! If you don't follow me on Twitter, you should know, ask somebody, it's not going to be a quiet room. Welcome to "Unintended Consequences: How to Reduce Exclusionary Practices in Organizations and Communities". I am Kim Crayton. Yes!You can use the hashtag #causeascene, you can find me @KimCrayton1. I have a website hashtagcauseascene.com as well as kimcrayton.com. After this slide, I usually would put my credentials in there but you know what, I'm causing such a scene I don't care if you don't trust what I have to say. I know what I'm talking about. So there it is. Also, there it is.So let's define some terms. I am an educator by trade. I only entered tech four years ago, and I like to start everybody on the same page so that when I get into my talk, people aren't saying, "Yeah, I don't know what that means." So we just start off everybody the same place.01:46Privilege is about access. When I talk about privilege, I don't just talk about race and gender and all these things. I talk about access. That means that there's a group of people who have more access to resources, connections than other groups. That's what privilege is, it's that simple. It's about access. And so I use this picture because people have seen these lil' monkeys in Japan, they think, "Oh, that's so cute." But right there is an example of access, because there's a family of female, family group, that is, they're the only ones who get in the water. The other monkeys on the outside, they gotta fend for themselves. If they freeze to death, they freeze to death. So it's only, a family of monkeys that can get in. So this family has access to this pool of this hot water where others don't.Underrepresented is about numbers. So that's all that is. In tech, white women are underrepresented.Marginalized is about treatment. In tech, many white women are not marginalized, so I like to make that distinction because when people say they want diversity, adding a white woman to your team or to your panel is not diversity.03:09 Diversity is about variety. I know I'm from the 'States, and we have Crayola crayons. When you get that big box—I was an only child so I got a 64 box of crayons, I had a lot of variety—that's what diversity is about.To me, inclusion is the holy grail. It is about experience. It is about everyone having the experience they expect when they come in contact with your business, your community or your event. Inclusion is not about equity, because if you, white man, and I, Black woman from the south of the United States, start the race at the same time, you're still gonna be ahead of me. I need you to stop, sit down for a second, and let me catch up—and past you. Inclusion is not about quotas. That's underrepresentation. Inclusion is about people's experiences with your companies, your communities, and your events.All right, so we gonna talk about some businesses here, and these are some of the things that I find that get individuals in trouble or get them in places they don't want to be with these unintended consequences is because many people think they have a business when in fact they have a product or a service. A product or a service is not a business. A business requires processes, policies, and procedures that allow you to grow, to scale, to recover. But just for the fact that you have created a product or service, you do not necessarily have a business. That's why a VC can come in and take over your company, because they bring in those skills to help you grow and everything else. And I blame the lean canvas model for this because that is about iterating a product or service and not about a business.05:04Also,
Podcast Description Kim is taking some much needed time off, so enjoy this presentation from the 2019 Write/Speak/Code Conference Additional Resources Presentation Slides Presentation Video Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Whiteness In Marginalized Spaces When Coalition Building Harms Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “Really it’s a cult. They prey on the people who don’t know, who are the weakestWho are going through the hardest time and I met a lot of people going through really, really hard time…everybody’s going through their pain or their hurt. And it just seems like Lambda is the hope for them. And then I feel bad for them because I try and tell ‘em Lambda doesn’t know shit, this is a bullshit-ass program, you should try and get out of the ISA…but by the time you actually realize that it’s bullshit you’re already X% invested in the ISA.”Jonathan Martinez has 5+ years of experience as a Designer working on a wide-range of projects. He started from print to digital and pivoted to UX/UI Design. He currently works with remote agile-development agencies as a freelance consultant to maximize budgets, and save developer time with a Lean UX workflow. Additional Resources https://twitter.com/noelbaron/status/1288261119476408320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1288261119476408320%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.trello.services%2Ftweets.html7B22secret223A22lTb750fgvJCKq1o68YiJNpzxw2Jpa8MVNcd4cK5ysx9WZi0VJQSrwLiV4YRkbUDp222C22context223A7B22version223A22build-5509222C22member223A2255e97874dbb2337d37e76966222C22permissions223A7B22board223A22write222C22organization223A22write222C22card223A22write227D2C22organization223A225b509813b0d9fe70470296b9222C22board223A225b5098454efea8c1ff937ab4222C22card223A225f28432e047c5375077b9989222C22command223A22attachment-sections227D2C22locale223A22en-US227D Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello, everyone. And welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene podcast. My guest is Jonathan Martinez; pronouns are he / him. Jonathan, please introduce yourself to the audience.Jonathan Martinez: Hey everybody, how y'all doin'? My name is Jonathan Martinez, and the Internet world calls me JM—JM the Creative. So I'm also cool wit' just JM. And yeah, I'm on the podcast, I'm here to cause a scene.Kim: OK, well, [laughs] let's do that. So I always start to show the same way. Can you tell me why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene? And we'll start the conversation from there.Jonathan: OK, cool. So, man, that's... it goes deep. Why is important to cause a scene? I wish I didn't have to cause a scene. Really, to be honest, I wanna be able to play fair, you know, play nice, but sometimes you got to cause a scene to be heard. And, you know, it seems like sometimes it’s the only way you could really get your way is to just start wildin' out a little bit.Kim: So how are you causing a scene specifically, Mr. Martinez? [Laughs]Jonathan: I'm just speakin' up, I guess. And, you know, also letting myself be known as I speak up, also. That's why when you aksed me if I wanted to be anonymous, I was like, "Mmm." People know my voice. People know what I sound like. [Laughs] People know who I am. I put my name out there. There's no need to be anonymous. I'm here, you know? So.02:09Kim: OK, so, we still have not broached what you're here to cause a scene about, and so I'm gonna let you tell your story. So, take your time, and we'll get to why Jonathan is causin' a scene.Jonathan: OK. Cool. So, yeah, I was basically invited here; I had not known anything about the podcast, really. But I'd seen you before on Twitter causin' a scene. People on Twitter, they talk about certain kinds of things, it's really raw and unfiltered, and you can jump into different conversations, and I had gone to—basically I went to a bootcamp called Lambda School, and to give a little bit of context, I'm a person that has a background in design, Web design, graphic design, UX design. And I just found myself in a place where I was really hurtin'. I was having a lot of imposter syndrome, just not really feeling confident in myself. And here comes Lambda School advertising like, "Hey, look, we got offers; we can help you at least get a job that makes more than 50K.
Podcast Description “My mom said, ‘Be happy you have a job, if they just tell you to clean up just do it. And I was like Mom you’re missing the point: nobody else is cleaning up after someone else’s dog. Nobody else in this company has cleaned up someone else’s shit.”Ahlaya Reed is an Office Manger turned Full Time Entrepreneur. Black Activist, Old Oakland California Native. "I say what you want to say but cant". Pro - Dont Fuck with Black Women. Transcription 00:30Kim Crayton: Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene Podcast. As I told you last week, I am supposed to be on vacation. But you know, when there's some shit that happens, I need to figure out what the fuck's going on. And so I actually have the Black woman on the show today that Shannon talked about last week. You 'member, the one that was there for a week and figured out the bullshit shenanigans that were going on at Mirror, I mean at—the fuck is the name of the company?Ahlaya Reed: Matter.Kim: Matter. Yeah, that's it. [Laughs] So I have Ahlaya here, and their pronouns are she/ her, and I'm gonna start, as always, I'm gonna have you introduce yourself, and then I'm gonna ask you your two questions. So introduce yourself to the audience.Ahlaya: Sure. What's up, guys? My name is Ahlaya Reed. I am a office manager turned entrepreneur—shout out to COVID, low key—and I'm here to...01:23Kim: Oh, girl, COVID has—it's unfortunate that our community has been hit—but I keep telling Black folx, if you can't make no money in COVID, I don't know what... because this white guilt is payin'.Ahlaya: It is paying literally; I... it's the time to get hired 'cause everybody wanna have a Black face now; it's the time to get money, OK? They wanna be friends with Black people, this, that, and the third; OK, open your fucking purse. I don't wanna hear no apologies, I don't wanna hear your bullshit; open your purse and get on the front lines. That's what y'all can do. But yeah...Kim: Alright, well... OK, well, let's just jump the fuck in there. OK, we always start start the show wit' two questions: why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causin' a scene? And then we'll get started on you telling your story.02:09Ahlaya: OK, perfect. So, why am I causing a scene? It's pretty obvious. Racism in the workplace, specifically with Black women. Out of all my years of working in corporate America—I'll just go ahead and throw it out there: I'm 27 years old; I've been working in corporate America since I was 20 years old—and the amount of racism that I've experienced is bullshit. And the reason why it is important for me today to give my honest opinion and to really be 100% transparent is so that number one: we can call out these bullshit-ass companies, because you're not gonna be hiding anymore. We're gonna fucking drag you. And number two: this is also to validate other Black women's experience because for the longest time, I felt like I'm... OK, am I trippin'? And I was like, no, fuck that! Y'all are fuckin' fulla shit; you're racist as fuck; you're passive aggressive; your microaggressions is gonna fuckin' stop. And I'm putting you on blast today.Kim: And so I want to talk about—first of all, I no longer call 'em microaggressions. I call 'em what they are. And this is one of the things that I did get from Kendi's book. This is abuse. This is not fuckin' microaggressions; there's nothing micro about this shit. This is ongoing long term abuse. And yes, this shit has to stop. So I'm gonna... you know what? Well, first of all—I stopped you when we were getting started, because I wanted to let you know—well, first of all, I'm really tired. And so I... my friend said, "Are you gonna..." 'cause again, I'm on vacation. I'm supposed to be on vacation, not supposed to be recording new episodes until... shit, August. And she's like, "Are you gonna reschedule?" I was like, "Oh no, this is a Black woman.
Podcast Description “And it’s also one of these put up or shut up moments where you like ‘care so much about this’ but here we are in this situation where the company you’re at right now isn’t doing enough, isn’t aligning with your values. And we’re trying to put lipstick on a pig and make it look like we’re so generous.”Shannon Byrne is a software engineer based out of Oakland, CA. She’s currently searching for her next position.LinkedIn Additional Resources https://twitter.com/KimCrayton1/status/1283460610143985665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1283460610143985665%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.trello.services%2Ftweets.html7B22secret223A22YjBA7AnC9JhZnMQqTWf5ZsfiSSbscA9SmFTryoryyamzXKPiFjBHVrmXDy6mHBVL222C22context223A7B22version223A22build-5415222C22member223A2255e97874dbb2337d37e76966222C22permissions223A7B22board223A22write222C22organization223A22write222C22card223A22write227D2C22organization223A225b509813b0d9fe70470296b9222C22board223A225b5098454efea8c1ff937ab4222C22card223A225f11f2583307e8438c8d4b3a222C22command223A22attachment-sections227D2C22locale223A22en-US227D Transcription 00:30Kim Crayton: Hello, everyone. And welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene podcast. I have a special guest with me today. As many of you know, I had decided to take the month off, but you know, when I'm ready to cause a scene and somebody else is willing to cause a scene, I bring them on. I would like to introduce Shannon. Shannon, could you please introduce yourself to the audience?Shannon Byrne: Yeah. Hi. My name's Shannon. I am a software engineer. I live in Oakland, California. I've been in the industry for about seven years now, and I kind of—I still struggle with my relationship with the tech industry. I find myself still having, like, so much optimism when I walk into a new job of like, "Oh, we are building something here. We are trying to make a difference." And then I find myself kind of disillusioned [laughs] over and over, but I still want to move forward, and I... yeah, that's the situation I'm in now. [Laughs]Kim: All right. And this is something I forgot to ask you, which I have started asking my guests; if you would please share your pronouns.Shannon: Oh, she / her.Kim: All right. So, as I always start every show... again, my brain is on vacation, so that's why I forgot to ask your pronouns—Shannon's pronouns—beforehand. We always start to show the same way. So can you answer two questions? Why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene?02:10Shannon: OK. So why it's important to cause a scene is that nothing changes if we just let it stay the same, right? Like if we are all OK with the way that people are getting treated, you know, from my perspective in the tech industry specifically, but also in the world at large right now, if we don't do anything, then nothing changes. And so what it takes is for people in their environments to make changes and speak up when they see something that is wrong. And that is the perspective that I've had.And I also find myself to be in a very lucky position, a very privileged position, as a white female developer in the Bay Area. There are tons and tons of positions out there, tons of places that need developers who do good work. And I am a developer that does good work. And if I am in a place where I see that I'm not being treated right or that other people aren't being treated right, I'm going to speak out against that.And I'm going to do it in a way that is as considerate as possible, that is trying to lead us to the company making the changes that need to be made, but that is firm and continuous until I feel that people are being treated with justice, and that we're in an inclusive environment. And if that doesn't happen, then people get, like, more and more frustrated with me, in jobs, right?And so, I think that I'm just trying to do little things in the environment in which I'm—and also at my comm...
Podcast Description Kim is taking some much needed time off, so enjoy this presentation from the 2018 View Source Conference Additional Resources Presentation Slides Presentation Video Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Stop Hiring As If We're In The Industrial Age Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description Kim is taking some much needed time off, so enjoy this keynote presentation from the 2018 Black's In Technology Conference. Additional Resources Presentation Slides Presentation Video Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Not Asking Permission! Giving Notice! Redefining Capitalism Without White Supremacy Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description Kim is taking some much needed time off, so enjoy this keynote presentation from the 2017 Nodevember conference. Since technology now literately touches almost everyone and it is no longer the playground of just a few, it isn’t economically prudent to build products and services that don’t reflect the needs and desires of large portions of the population. So it makes sense that technology communities are now focused on attracting a more inclusive and diverse membership. But how do you turn the focus into a successful plan of action? Community Engineering, which is an approach that can be used once the decision has been made pursue these kinds of community growth initiatives. Community Engineering - Is the intentional and skillful effort of creating environments which support the sharing of common attitudes, interests, and goals in order to grow a more diverse and inclusive technology community. Community - a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. Engineering - to arrange, manage, or carry through by skillful or artful execution Additional Resources Presentation Slides Presentation Video Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter What is Community Engineering? Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “I think if we don’t fix the institutions people can apologize all they want, but the problem will remain. And so that’s why antiracism is important, but so is thinking about how antiracism can be a structural change in addition to making people individually more aware of the problem.” Jonathan M. Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University and director of its Center for Medicine, Health, and Society. He is the author of several books and a prominent expert on gun violence and mental illness. He hails from Kansas City, Missouri, and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Additional Resources Website Link to Register for the "Introduction To Being An Antiracist" Event on June 27, 2020 Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Jonathan Metzl Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “I get to teach some students who are closer to the engineering side of things and over the years I’ve certainly taught quite a few of them. And when they talk about that they want to improve the world and make things better and you look at the kinds of education they have and the social background they’ve had, these are people who have no clue what goes on in the world. They have their own Fox News projection of the world that is highly racialized and in some cases they don’t even know how little they know.” David Golumbia is Associate Professor of Digital Studies in the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of The Cultural Logic of Computation (2009), The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism (2016), and is currently working on Cyberlibertarianiasm: The False Promise of Digital Freedom. https://twitter.com/dgolumbia/status/1265635691167469570?s=20 Additional Resources Blog Academic Papers Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter David Golumbia Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “I’m also making myself center stage and I don’t wanna do that either. I just have a really loud articulate voice that people listen to. And so, I need to learn how to use that without erasing the voices of the black women that I’m trying to lift up." Cher is a self-taught principal software engineer at Apple and has been in tech for 15 years. She is a high school and college dropout, a mom, and passionate about mental healthcare, equitable justice and opportunity, music, and science. Additional Resources Fighting Sex Trafficking: https://ourrescue.org https://eji.org https://preventchildabuse.org https://voa.org/homeless-people Teaching Incarcerated Folks to Code https://thelastmile.org Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Cher Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “It’s so obvious in the US that the big thing that has shaped the entire history of this nation is fuckin’ racism. Specifically…I don’t feel like I’m making a moral statement here, you can just look at the history. Like, there was not industrial capitalism until 1850, but there was slavery for a lot longer than that.”Hannah Howard is a senior developer and tech generalist with over 15 years experience in programming and other technical fields. Prior to programming, Hannah worked for 10 years in the non-profit sector in Los Angeles, specializing in LGBT advocacy and community organizing. Hannah returned to coding in 2012, and brings her passion and experience from community organizing to helping new programmers get up to speed on technical topics. Additional Resources Github Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Hannah Howard Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo.Learn more >All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “I feel like it enabled him to lure people who really do care about the things that he preaches on Twitter into a really toxic work environment.” Nancy is a full-stack software engineer based in San Antonio, TX. Before turning to code, Nancy was a Special Education teacher at high need schools in Brooklyn for seven years. She's carried her teacher skills of advocacy and inquiry into every role she's held since. Additional Resources https://twitter.com/nancy_hawa/status/1263858543448424449 https://medium.com/make-better-software/talking-transparency-at-fog-creek-c8b72d58f6c Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Nancy Hawa Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description Does that mean that there are certain people will be weeded out? Yes. Is that the objective? Abso-fuckin’-lutely. That’s the idea. There are certain people who honestly do not deserve a platform.” Adrian C. Jackson is a Houston-based computer scientist specializing in mobile, web, & full-stack enterprise application development since 2004. His tech startup, Amplifyed, LLC -- home to his social application, Speekin', to rival the likes of Twitter & Facebook -- aims to provide agency, equity, and a digital safe space for marginalized & oppressed groups (with a heavy emphasis on bolstering the presence & power of Black Women), free from the disruption of hate groups, trolls, and bots prevalent on white-ran media sites. The secondary goal is to inject more ethical practices of user data acquisition & utilization into a predominately white-ran tech industry with a laissez faire attitude towards users' data concerns. Operating as a one-man development team since October 1, 2017, Mr. Jackson is now preparing to welcome and seek the assistance of Black-backed venture capitalists & investors, in order to bring on board more talented BIPoC tech professionals to help in the expansion of Speekin' and her siblings under the Amplifyed, LLC umbrella. https://youtu.be/jgm9X3BDeT0 Additional Resources Patreon Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Adrian C. Jackson Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “You will feel more comfortable to make decisions about Siri and Alexa and driverless cars…I wonder how AI is changing us and also feel empowered to ask questions, because right now everybody’s just…too afraid and It’s not their fault. Technology was pushed at us, that it’s the holy grail and you should worship it.” Ainissa Ramirez, Ph.D. is a materials scientist and science communicator who is passionate about getting the general public excited about science. A Brown and Stanford graduate, she has worked as a research scientist at Bell Labs and held academic positions at Yale University and MIT. Ramirez has written for Forbes, Time, Science and Scientific American, and has explained science headlines on CBS, CNN, NPR and on PBS's SciTech Now. She speaks internationally on the topics of science and technology and gave a TED talk on the importance of STEM education. Her book The Alchemy of Us (MIT Press) uncovers how tech shaped us. Additional Resources Professional Website Personal Website Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Dr. Ainissa Ramirez Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “This is really about relationships and failure to be attuned to relationships means that we’re…not using all of the levers and all of the assets we have in community to make this happen. Nor on the flip side are we being represented in spaces and places where we traditionally have not have [a] voice and large scale influence.” Dr. Fay Cobb Payton is a Full Professor (with Tenure) of Information Technology/Analytics at North Carolina State University and was named a University Faculty Scholar for her leadership in turning research into solutions to society’s most pressing issues. She has worked in corporate, academic, non-profit and government organizations. Dr. Payton’s research interests include bias in algorithmic design; tech innovation, healthcare IT and disparities; social and data analytics; intersectionality; racial, gender and ethnic identities in online communities; STEM education and workforce participation, and human-computer interaction. She is the author of Leveraging Intersectionality: Seeing and Not Seeing (Richer Press). Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Dr. Fay Cobb Payton Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “If you step into my classroom, that’s gonna be the help you get. You can come into my classroom it’s my space, I determine the rules, I determine what we’re gonna talk about and that’s what I tell ‘em on the first day: if you can’t handle this conversation, god bless you.” Eleanor K. Seaton is an Associate Professor in the Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. Dr. Seaton is a developmental psychologist using quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods to examine the impact of racism on Black youth’s mental health and development. Dr. Seaton recently co-edited a special section on context and ethnic-racial identity in Child Development. Dr. Seaton served as an associate editor for Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, and serves on the editorial boards of Developmental Psychology and Child Development. Dr. Seaton is the former chair of SRCD’s Ethnic and Racial Issues Committee and the former chair of SRA’s Diversity and Equity Committee. Dr. Seaton has a tendency to journal, travel, bake desserts, shop, read, watch movies and dance to Chicago style house music when relaxing Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Dr. Eleanor Seaton Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “I got a stat that will blow you away. At CUNY which is the City University of New York and their CS program, the majority of CS undergrads at CUNY don’t have their own computer.” Saber Khan is a Bengali-American educator based in New York City. He is a veteran K12 educator with over 15 years of experience teaching math, science, and computer science in public and private middle and high schools. Currently, he teaches multiple introductory and advanced computer science classes in creative coding and web development. And he organizes events and spaces for educators to engage with code, ethics, and equity. He loves email. Additional Resources ethicalCS.org - the home of #ethicalCS. The chat happen monthly on the last wednesday of every month at 8 pm ET. Join us on April 29 for a conversation on tech, Covid-19, and ethics. ccfest.rocks - a set of free and inclusive creative coding events I organize in LA, SF, and NYC processingfoundation.org - Processing Foundation is a non-profit dedicates to free and open source software for creative coding and access to computing Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Saber Khan Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “‘And now I will tell you how to make Google slightly less bad without ever actually dismantling surveillance capitalism.’ This kind of sensible centrist nice kind of middle aged medium politically white guy narrative. But It’s always about that guy, or indeed that white woman or whoever is always the hero of the next bit of story. And that is the wrong story. Like, that is not the fucking story.” Maria Farrell is an Irish writer and speaker on technology and the future. Now based in London, she has worked in tech policy for twenty years in Paris, Brussels, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. Maria has written for The Guardian, Slate, Medium, the Conversationalist, Irish Times and Irish Independent. Additional Resources The Prodigal Tech Bro Transcription Coming Soon! Twitter Maria Farrell Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo. Learn more > All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >
Podcast Description “Black people are constantly lookin’ back at who they were, while constantly trying to look forward while navigating this fuckery that is white supremacy” André Brock is an associate professor of media studies at Georgia Tech. His scholarship examines racial representations in social media, videogames, black women and weblogs, whiteness, and technoculture, including innovative and groundbreaking research on Black Twitter. His NYU Press book titled *Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures* was published in February 2020, offering insights to understanding Black everyday lives mediated by networked technologies. His article “From the Blackhand Side: Twitter as a Cultural Conversation” challenged social science and communication research to confront the ways in which the field, in his words, preserved “a color-blind perspective on online endeavors by normalizing Whiteness and othering everyone else” and sparked a conversation that continues, as Twitter in particular continues to evolve as a communication platform. He has also authored influential research on digital methods, gaming, blogging, and online identity. Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene podcast. Today my guest is Andrè Brock; pronouns him/his/he. Would you please introduce yourself to the audience, Andrè? Dr. Andrè Brock: Hi, my name is Andrè Brock. I'm an associate professor of Black Digital Media at Georgia Institute of Technology here in Atlanta, Georgia. Kim: All right, so we always start with two questions: why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene? Dr. Brock: It's important for me to cause a scene in the work that I do because I study Black people and digital environments. I've been doing it since the early 2000s, and one of the things that has been of note to me is that we're often erased from technological narratives, particularly around computing. And if we're not erased, we're often put in a space where we're deemed not sufficient or not appropriate to use those technologies. Kim: And how are you causing a scene? 01:26 Dr. Brock: My research since that time has been dedicated towards showing that we indeed are—in my recent book, I call it "natural Internet users"—that our facility and our joy at using the Internet come from the ways that we interact with the world. And as such, we tend to bring an excess of life to wherever we are on the Internet. That translates in multiple ways, whether it's dance videos, or Black Twitter, or our political activism done during Ferguson and later moments of social injustice. Kim: OK, so we're just gonna dive into this; y'all know how I do this. So you said erased from technological narratives or positioned as inadequate. [Laughs] I need you to talk about that, because I need to know if you—and first I want you to say more about that because again, my audience is mainly white folx and I need them to understand what the fuck they doing. Dr. Brock: Hello, white people. Kim: Yes, hello white people and welcome to my world. And also, if you have any historical precedent of like when did this happen? Was it always this way? Was there... because—and what's popping in my head, it reminds... the question I'm trying to answer is when video games first came out, they were non-gender. They were—everybody played video games. And then all of a sudden they start gendering games and having the narrative of girls don't play games when that was never the truth. So I'm trying to see if this eraser from technical narrative and this this narrative that Blacks aren't capable, has it always been there, and then... or, was it not there and then—just like we saw with "Hidden Figures"—and where we learn that women were actually in computer—were in heavily in computing and then were pushed out. So that's the one I'm tryna figure out: is this something—this erasure of Blacks in technical narrative—was it from t...
Podcast Description Capitalism has not failed, it’s only been implemented globally, rooted in white supremacy. Adam Smith, “the father” of Economics, in the 1700s, envisioned a moral economic system that worked from the ground up, was “inclusive”, and took care of the most vulnerable. Transcription 00:26 Hello everyone, I’m back again. I’m coming to you because I’m seeing so much—COVID-19 is bringing out so much angst and, to me, misinformation about what capitalism is. I just saw a tweet that was like, “Now that it’s out in the open that capitalism is a failed system,” and then—I don’t need to go into the rest of what they're talking about—but capitalism isn’t a failed system. This is where my research is going to be going in the future, particularly when I finish my doctorate degree, because I don’t believe that capitalism is a failed system. Where we’ve failed is, everywhere we’ve implemented capitalism, as is socialism, as is communism, as is fascism, has always been centered around white supremacy. So when that’s the base of everything, of course capitalism looks like the enemy, but capitalism is only a theory. I’ll just read the basic definition from the dictionary, and then I’m going to get into why I find my research so important and why it so excites me, because there are so many people—people who even study economics—and they don’t look at capitalism from my perspective. So again, it’s a theory, it’s where my future research is going to take me, but let me just give you the definition out of the dictionary of capitalism. Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit rather than by the state. That’s it! That is all that the definition of capitalism is. The implementations, or the manifestations, or the demonstrations of capitalism that we see, have always been about, rooted in, and promoted white supremacy, in the United States and around the world. 02:32 So my research has started... it’s a beautiful day outside, so I’m just on my porch, it’s quiet—it’s relatively quiet—so I just wanted to come out here if you hear the birds and all this other stuff going on. But I wanted to just briefly talk about some of the roots of my thesis and how it excites me as I do more research on Adam Smith—who people consider the “grandfather of economics”—who wrote two books; the first was "The Moral Sentiment," and the second was "The Wealth of Nations." He was a member of what they called the Scottish Enlightenment era, after the revolutionary—actually, "The Wealth of Nations" came out in 1776, and if you know anything about the history that we’re taught, that was when this country got its independence, and in its independence, trying to come up with a government system, a political system, economic system, many of the founding “fathers” actually studied Adam Smith, actually tried to implement some of his ideas into the forming of the US as a nation and an economic system. 03:48 So I just want to read you a little bit—because again, I want to challenge people when they say just blatant “capitalism is evil”—no, capitalism as a theory is not evil, it has only been implemented around the world rooted in white supremacy. So my thought is, can we have—I want to know—can we have an antiracist capitalist system? So when I look at some notes that I've taken, this is a quote from Adam Smith: "He is, in this as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote the ends which was no part of his intention." So he’s just talking about how he’s coming up with these ideas of economics—and I want to go back, because when I said he wrote the book "The Moral Sentiment"—Adam Smith, who again people consider the grandfather of economics, talked about moral economics. His first book was about morality, and his second book was about economics. So even then, the 1700s, there was somebody actively researching,
Podcast Description “When your rights are being dismantled and destroyed, and your personhood isn’t respected, you shouldn’t be civil. You should cause a scene.” Dr. Chris Gilliard is a writer, professor and speaker. His scholarship concentrates on digital privacy, and the intersections of race, class, and technology. He is an advocate for critical and equity-focused approaches to tech in education. His work has been featured in The Chronicle of Higher Ed, EDUCAUSE Review, Fast Company, Vice, and Real Life Magazine. Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene podcast, where my guest today is Dr. Chris Gilliard, pronouns he/him. Would you please introduce yourself to the audience, Dr. Gilliard? Dr. Chris Gilliard: Hi, I am—thanks for having me. Yeah, my name is Dr. Chris Gilliard, and I... I guess I'm not good at self-promoting or talking about myself. So, I do a lot of writing and speaking on privacy and surveillance and platforms and you know, digital equity, things like that. Kim: All right. So since he has a problem with being, you know, self promoting, this is what this episode is gonna be about: an hour of self promotion. [Dr. Gilliard laughs] So, let's start as we always do. Why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you, sir, causing a scene? Dr. Gilliard: So, you know, I thought about this, and I think probably the most important thing I could think of was how civility has been used against us historically and currently; the notion that, [laughs] you know... Kim: I usually do not interrupt people, but folx know how I feel about civility. We actually have a shirt in the community that says "Fuck Civility." [Laughs] 01:51 Dr. Gilliard: Yeah, how it's been used, you know? I mean, when your rights are being dismantled and destroyed and your personhood isn't respected, you shouldn't be civil. You should cause a scene. And, you know, I mean, I do my best. I think the way I try to do it is to tell the truth. I think that there are lots, you know, particularly, I mean, it's not only tech, but I think tech has its own way of doing this, lying to people all the time, telling mis-truths, half truths, outright lies. Kim: Mmhm. And under the guise of "we're doing it to save you." Dr. Gilliard: Right! Right! And I think one of the ways they get away with it is that, you know, in group / out group thing. You know, saying who's in tech, who's not in tech, who gets to talk; saying that you can't speak on it because you don't understand it. And so, to the extent that I do understand it and other people don't, or I have a degree of insight or time on my hands that other people don't, I try to just tell the truth about things. 03:07 Kim: OK, so there you mentioned two things that I—well, you mentioned one thing on your Twitter—I wanted to highlight something, talk about something that—well, you mentioned two things, three things. Fuck civility, 'cause I say all the time when I really start unpacking white supremacy and realizing just like walking around in my world, that whiteness is... civility is optional for whiteness, but it's the expected behavior of people of color and other marginalized groups because it allows us to manage our own behavior so we don't bother you. We don't make you uncomfortable—whiteness uncomfortable. We do not cause a scene for whiteness. When I really started unpacking that how often I let other people pass who should be paying attention, people bumping into you as though you don't exist, how people just walk around the world and say and do things that we have just been trained not to; it's just like, "Oh my god!" [Laughs] And then when I connected it... so our parents, our forefathers, taught us these things to save our lives. I totally get—I totally understand that. And for us, it's been sold as that's what polite is—particularly in the South. You know, Southern nice: we just smile and we take it in and we just—you could be stompi...
Podcast Description “There’s still quite a few people who think that ADHD is itself a parenting problem. And that stigma most definitely is also applied to Black people at a far greater rate than it is to white people. Even if it were behavioral problems…you will still see more sympathy for white parents than you would see for black parents.” Erynn Brook is a writer living in Toronto, Canada. She write for thefullestmag.com regularly, freelance around the web, and here on this blog sporadically. Her writing weaves through conversations about media, people, culture, technology and anything else that pops into my world. She loves talking about the way we talk about things, and my work often touches on systems of oppression, through a feminist lens heavily informed by intersectional feminist voices. Additional Resources René Brooks ADHDDD ADHD Alien Vancouver ADHD Coaching How To ADHD Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene Podcast. My guest today is Erynn Brook. Their pronouns are she/her. Erynn, would you please introduce yourself to the audience? Erynn Brook: Yeah. Hi, I'm Erynn Brook. And I'm a storyteller. I'm particularly interested in media, people, culture, and communication. And I talk about ADHD quite a bit. So, that's me. Kim: All right, so we start the show as always: why is it important to cause a scene, and how are you causing a scene? Erynn: You know, I love these two questions. I was listening to the podcast a bit, and I was like, that is such an interesting way to start. I think it's important to cause a scene because scenes are really the only way that you disrupt the normal flow of things. Without a scene, without someone speaking up or saying something, everything just kind of continues to go the way it's been going, and I tend to cause scenes—and it's a bit of a weird thing—this is not how I would I think that I cause scenes, but it seems like I cause scenes by like, slowing things down and going really deep into one spot or one specific topic at a time. That answer sounds so weird, but yeah, it's like, let's all take a pause, and let's go really deep on this, all right? 01:57 Kim: Alright, no, it's... ok, 'cause I wrote down, "sloooooowing dooooown." Even as I was writing it, I was writing it really slowly, because that's something that many in our society do not do. We don't—we just speed through. We don't look deeply at things. We make decisions based on instant... something—I don't even know the word I'm looking for. It's beyond what—when I was in my early twenties and we were talking about the people that were coming behind us, you know, the microwave society—it's beyond that at this point. It is, microwaves even take too long. And I've seen your engagement on Twitter. So one of the real things I want to bring on is, I want to start bringin' on guests who can talk about some of the societal challenges that are prevalent in tech. And so this is what I tell people, I love the tech space because we are a microcosm of the macrocosm. We have everything in tech. And we have everything in numbers larger than what people consider the quote unquote "normal" population. And so the fact that you—I don't know how you started popping up in my timeline—but I liked the fact that you methodically break it down; I love people who can do that. Because again, everyone is so, see something, rush to judgment. And I've done it. I can admit that I've done it. I don't do it as much as many people 'cause what I do is, when I do that it's usually some gut thing, I mean, some like, I'm having an emotional reaction to something and I'm like "VEAH!" But if it's about understanding, which is—railing is not about me trying to be understood, it's me just saying what the fuck I need to say so I can get it outta my system—but if I want to be understood or I want to understand something, I dig into threads. I start going like, OK,
Podcast Description “Up until this point I had been like the model minority….And then all of a sudden THIS model minority turns around and she thinks Islam is feminist? That she’s proud of this? That she doesn’t think that we need to change ourselves to live in this society? No no, this was unacceptable. All of a sudden I had become the controversial pariah.” Yassmin Abdel-Magied started Youth Without Borders when she was 16, which she ran for 9 years. She then founded Mumtaza, an organisation dedicated to the normalisation of the representation of women of colour in positions of power and influence. She's been fortunate enough to win numerous awards for her advocacy, but that isn’t why she do this work. She now travel the world talking to governments, NGO’s and multinational companies in over 20 countries on how to lead inclusively, challenge their structural and systemic biases and develop resilience in this world. Her TED talk, What does my headscarf mean to you, has been viewed over two million times and was chosen as one of TED’s top ten ideas of 2015. She started writing social and political commentary as a teen, which led to publishing her debut memoir, Yassmin's Story, with Penguin Random House at age 24. She followed up with her first fiction book for younger readers, You Must Be Layla, in 2019. Her essays have been published in numerous anthologies, including the Griffith Review, the best-selling It’s Not About The Burqa and The New Daughters of Africa. You can also find her in The Guardian, Teen Vogue, The New York Times, The Independent and Glamour. She's also done a bit of broadcasting: she presented the national TV show Australia Wide, a podcast on becoming an F1 driver and created Hijabistas, a series looking at the modest fashion scene in Australia. She's also a regular contributor to the BBC, Monocle 24 radio and as a co-host of The Guilty Feminist. Oh yeah - she ran a racecar team at university and worked as a driller on oil and gas rigs for four years, but that's a whole other story Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello everyone, and welcome to the #CauseAScene Podcast for today. My guest is Yassmin Abdel-Magied. Did I get that right? Dr. Yassmin Abdel-Magied: You did. You did. Kim: Yeeess! [Dr. Abdel-Magied laughs] Please introduce yourself. Dr. Abdel-Magied: Hi, everyone. Kim: Oh, stop. Hold up. Sorry, I am trying to get in the habit—their pronouns are she/her—I'm trying to make sure we get into the habit of asking, not assuming people's pronouns, and so as we move forward, I will be adding those to the podcast. So, Yassmin, would you please introduce yourself to the audience? 01:05 Dr. Abdel-Magied: Thank you, and thank you also for asking for my pronouns. It's definitely something that I too am trying to do a bit more of. And also, I think even those people who have sort of been in the inclusion and challenging structures space for a long time; it's important for us I think to also introduce new habits into our lives. So thank you for that. Thank you for modeling that. My name is Yassmin. And what I also wanted to add actually was that for a long time I used to introduce myself as Yasmin. So most people will have heard my name as Yasmin. But that's an anglicized version of my name, which, you know, I grew up with my parents calling me Yassmin, and so I've been slowly trying to sort of decolonize my own name. And even though it's not that big of a difference, right, it actually... Kim: But it is a big difference. It's like it's not a big difference but it is a big difference. Dr. Abdel-Magied: Exactly! And it's so interesting because I have to do this work internally. Whenever somebody says, “How do I pronounce your name?” I'm like, "Oh, which version of my name am I gonna give?" I've been giving a different version for years, and so it's been a really interesting... it's... yeah! [Laughter] 02:16 Kim: It is so funny that you say that—'cause I want to get into this—but I want to br...
Podcast Description “I’ll say it again: it is the same thing and it is that thing that we simply refuse to talk about. Whether we’re talking about elections or we’re talking about technology. And that is the question of race.” is the author of the new book Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, From the Afronet to Black Lives Matter, Charlton McIlwain is Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement & Development at New York University and Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication. His work focuses on the intersections of computing technology, race, inequality, and racial justice activism. In addition to Black Software, McIlwain has authored Racial Formation, Inequality & the Political Economy of Web Traffic, in the journal Information, Communication & Society, and co-authored, with Deen Freelon and Meredith Clark, the recent report Beyond the Hashtags: Ferguson, #BlackLivesMatter, and the Online Struggle for Offline Justice. He recently testified before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services about the impacts of automation and artificial intelligence on the financial services sector. Additional Resources Black Software Resources on Race x Tech: The Center for Critical Race & Digital Studies Some other recent writing: Silicon Valley's cocaine problem shaped our racist tech The Three Civil Rights–Era Leaders Who Warned of Computers and Racism Transcription 00:08 Kim Crayton: Hello, everyone. And welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene podcast. My guest today is Charlton McIlwain. I knew it. See? It happens, it happens people—you know, I screw this up all the time. And pronouns are he/him. So this gentleman I have been wanting on the show since one of the fabulous Black researchers—I can't even remember which one because I've had so many on—females—when I asked him, I'm like, "who—what men are doing this?" and your name popped up. It probably was Ruha Benjamin. I believe it may have been her because she gave me a list of people. So, you and I have been trying to get this schedule for a while. You have been absolutely busy because of your new book, so I'll stop talking and I'll let you introduce yourself. 01:29 Charlton D. McIlwain: Alright, my name is Charlton McIlwain. I'm a professor of media culture communication here at New York University—NYU where I'm also vice provost for faculty engagement and development. 01:43 Kim: OK, so we're gonna start with two questions, as always. Why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene? 01:50 Charlton: Well, I think it's important to cause a scene—number one because that's the only way that things change, so to disrupt the status quo… to make sure that what we're doing is what we're supposed to be doing. If not, to raise people's attention to the fact that we need to be doing something differently and we cause a scene to make ourselves visible and make sure that people have not forgotten that we are here, that we have wants, that we have requests, that we have demands. 02:23 Kim: And how are you causing a scene? 02:25 Charlton: Well, I won't get into all of the, of the ways I am, some of them probably not fit from the show. But I will say... 02:31 Kim: OK, let me stop you right there. And this is an adult show so say whatever the hell you want to. These are grown people. They need to hear the truth, so I just want to stop and let you know that. So go ahead. 02:42 Charlton: Alright. Alright. Well, I cause a scene in two ways. I'm an academic. I'm a researcher. I am a higher education leader. And so that's where I try to cause a scene most recently through my new book, Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice From the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter, and I also try to cause a scene at my institution and in higher education, where I try to call attention to the ways that we need to do better in terms of who we offer educational opportunity to, who is prepared to be successful within the academy and beyond. 03:30
Podcast Description “We can’t talk about what’s broken with education and coding education in the bootcamp system without zooming out to look at the larger context of our educational system. Why is it that Trump is like “Oh, I’ve got 2 trillion dollars I’ve just spent on purchasing new weapons that we’re gonna use to kill innocent people and destroy cultural heritage sites” in violation of the Geneva Conventions…but they can’t find a quarter of that to fund all the free pre-K up through higher education that they wold need for everyone would just be able to access whatever education they wanted to have, so they could maximize their potential? That’s bullshit.” Sasha Costanza-Chock (pronouns: they/them or she/her) is a researcher, activist, designer, and media-maker. They are a Faculty Associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, Faculty Affiliate with the MIT Open Documentary Lab, and creator of the MIT Codesign Studio (codesign.mit.edu). Their work focuses on social movements, transformative media organizing, and design justice. Sasha’s first book, Out of the Shadows, Into the Streets: Transmedia Organizing and the Immigrant Rights Movement was published by the MIT Press in 2014. Their new book, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need will be published by the MIT Press in early 2020. Sasha is a board member of Allied Media Projects (alliedmedia.org) and a Steering Committee member of the Design Justice Network (designjusticenetwork.org). Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene Podcast. My guest today is Sasha Costanza-Chock, and pronouns are: and she/her, they/them. Would you please introduce yourself to the audience? 00:44 Sasha Costanza-Chock: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I am a fan. My name's Sasha Costanza-Chock. I'm currently an Associate Professor of Civic Media at MIT. But I'm also on the steering committee of the Design Justice Network. So, I hope we get to talk about that a little bit today. And I'm a board member of Allied Media Projects, which is best known for producing the annual Allied Media Conference. And I am a scholar and an activist; I work in the tech space, and I'm working on trying to figure out how we can build a technology ecosystem that is more radically just and inclusive and that will challenge rather than continually reproduce oppression and help us build a world that will be ecologically survivable as well. KC: Alright, you said mouthful of that, Sasha! [Laughs] So, we're gonna start as we always start. Why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene? 01:46 SCC: Well, we need to cause a scene; there are so many reasons we need to cause a scene right now. Today. I mean, we're having this conversation at a really dangerous moment. I mean, all moments are dangerous for the last 400 or 500 years, though. But the Banana in Chief right now is trying to ramp up to a new war. Hopefully so that—for him—I think this is about remaining in power. But it's important to cause a scene because we live in a deeply fucked up world where racism, anti-Blackness, misogyny, trans-misogyny, misogynoir, ableism, Islamophobia, settler colonialism, and other axes of historical and ongoing oppression just continue to structure so many—well, all of our lives, really—in different kinds of ways. And we need to figure out, how do we break that? How do we break those systems? How do we challenge the "matrix of domination", as Patricia Hill Collins calls it? And how do we build a more liberatory world? And frankly, we need to figure out how do we survive? How do we build a world that we can survive in instead of act as if there's unlimited ecological and human resources that can just be continually exploited? Because at this rate, you know, we're not gonna have too many more generations of humans allowed to survive on this planet. 03:19
Podcast Description “Na-na-na-na-no Boo Boo. If you’re a good person then you need to understand exactly what your white ness means. And you need to understand what kind of harm that it has caused and continues to cause on a daily basis, no matter how woke and good you think you are.” Dr. Tiffany Jana [pronouns: they/them/theirs] is a non-binary Awareness Artist and Pleasure Activist. She uses her work and art to create a loving embrace of people and culture that includes an emphasis on liberation through joy. Dr. Jana is the author of four inclusion books, including three best-sellers. She is the founder of TMI Consulting Inc, the world’s first diversity focused Certified Benefit Corporation. Dr. Jana has been featured in numerous publications and media including Fast Company, NY Times, and Forbes for their work on diversity, equity, empowerment, and inclusion. She was also named one of the Top 100 Leadership Speakers by Inc.com. Additional Resources Instagram Twitter Linkedin Facebook YouTube Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene podcast. I'm so happy to have as my guest Tiffany Jana; pronouns are them/them she/her. Will you please introduce yourself? Dr. Tiffany Jana: Yes. Thanks for having me on! I'm Dr. Tiffany Jana. I am an awareness artist. I use every available medium I can get my hands on to bring people together and to make social justice and transformative justice the most pleasurable thing we can do. And I'm also a pleasure activist, as of recently. [Laughs] KC: Ooh, ooh shit. Okay. Definitely want to know what that is! Alright, so we start always with two questions: why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene? 01:14 DTJ: Well, it's important to cause a scene because for some reason unbeknownst to me, the vast majority of humanity is walking around sleepwalking. They, you know, often are unaware that they're just walking through the world in ways that are not productive or at worst, harmful, and causing a scene helps wake people up not only to their own presence and possible impact, but to whatever it is that you're causing a scene about. So wherever you see things that need to be addressed in the world, it can be, you know, the things that need to be corrected and highlighted. Or it can be the positive, aspirational aspects of life that we need to put more emphasis on. Like, if you look at the news, you know, I don't watch the news anymore. I'll listen to curated news from time to time, but I don't watch it on television because it's always highlighting negative stuff. We need people causing a scene about all of the amazing things that are happening in the world and all of the victories that people are celebrating. So causing a scene is about raising awareness. And that's why I call myself an awareness artist. 02:16 KC: And so how are you specifically causing a scene? DTJ: Oh, great number of ways. [Laughs] I think that... I read somewhere that just being a joyful person of color—particularly gender minority of color—and existing joyfully and unapologetically, is its own scene, is its own act of revolutionary defiance, because the world is structured in a way as to kind of negate or underplay or downplay or undermine our happiness and our joy and our success. So my first way of causing a scene is just by being happy and successful, unapologetically Black, and as of 2019 I'm identifying as non binary, which, you know, I come from a Christian background and for a lot of people, depending on the generation or the state of mind, that is just an unnecessary change that I have made. And really, it's not a change. All I've all accessed is language to be able to more clearly demonstrate and live into who I've always been. So I'm causing a scene through my LGBT identification as non-binary, which is a subset of trans; I'm causing a scene by being a, [laughs] a sort of revolutionary in the diversity, equity,
Podcast Description “People of color, people from a low-income background get into this much debt going to a school thinking, this is my way into the tech industry, this is my way out of poverty, this is my way to help take care of my family or help care for my parents, and then they end up being screwed over like this.” Keziyah Lewis is a Black and queer web developer, designer, and digital nomad. She curates Juniors in Tech, a newsletter for early career technologists. She is passionate about eliminating barriers to entering tech, making the tech industry more just and diverse, and making tech companies better places to work. Additional Resources Juniors In Tech Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene podcast. My guest is Keziyah Lewis. Keziyah, please introduce yourself to the audience. Keziyah Lewis: Hi, everyone. My name's Keziyah and I am a software engineer, and I'm also the founder of a newsletter called "Juniors in Tech", which is just a newsletter for juniors in tech or people trying to enter the industry. KC: Okay, well, that doesn't say much about... because I didn't even know about that. So we gotta get into why I even know you—'cause that is not why I know you—but we start the show as we always do. Why is it important to cause a scene, and how are you causing a scene? 01:07 KL: It's important to cause a scene, because—on behalf of other people who aren't able to cause a scene—I am a really big advocate of people with privilege and power speaking up on behalf of people who don't have a lot of privilege and power. Who can't speak up for fear of losing their jobs or losing their network or, you know, things like that. So, you know, something—I'm on Twitter a lot, obviously—and something I see a lot is when these things happen, when there's some sort of scandal, or when people are talking about racism, sexism, and all these problems in tech. And I see a lot of people being silent about things; just like not saying anything at all about you know, the serious problems in tech we have going on. And I understand that from the perspective of someone who may not have a lot of privilege or might be effective if they might be affected if they spoke about something. But it's really frustrating to see people who have lots of privilege, lots of power who really don't say anything at all. So, I think it's important to cause a scene in order to speak up on behalf of other people—or at least lend your privilege—not necessarily on behalf of other people—but at least lend your privilege to other people so that we can all, you know, help each other and make this industry—make the world a better place. And how am I causing a scene? I like to think that I try to do that for people when I can, whether that's through—for example, you have seen my threads about bootcamps. You know, that's one example in which there are a lot of people at these bootcamps who are just, like, really afraid of speaking up about how they're getting treated—how minority students at these bootcamps are getting treated—and a lot of them are just scared that if they say something, you know, they'll get kicked out or they'll never get hired once they finish the bootcamp. I'm a person who already has a job in tech, already have my own network. You know, it doesn't cost me anything to speak out on behalf of these people who DM me anonymously. So that's one way that I'm causing a scene. 03:37 KC: Okay, so I really wanna go back to your first thing, because another reason—we're gonna talk about the bootcamp thing because that's when I initially ran... figured out who you were. I saw you. You were coming up—because I've been talking about bootcamps since I got into this space and how bad the curriculum is and how bad the the engagement is and how bad the support is and all this. That was before all the ISA stuff even came—that I started seeing—so you just popped up in there.
Podcast Description “There’s a disconnect between beliefs and behavior. And there’s an investment in the symbolism of one’s beliefs and translating that as if it represents behavior when it doesn’t.” Dr. Courtney D. Cogburn is an associate professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work and faculty of the Columbia Population Research Center. She employs a transdisciplinary research strategy to improve the characterization and measurement of racism and in examining the role of racism in the production of racial inequities in health. Dr. Cogburn’s work also explores the potential of media and technology in eradicating racism and eliminating racial inequities in health. She is the lead creator of 1000 Cut Journey, an immersive virtual reality experience of racism that premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival developed in collaboration with Jeremy Bailenson at Stanford University. Dr. Cogburn is developing additional projects attempting to leverage emerging technologies to tackle issues of structural and cultural racism. Dr. Cogburn completed postdoctoral training at Harvard University in the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar Program and at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. She received her Ph.D. in Education and Psychology, and MSW from the University of Michigan and her BA in Psychology from the University of Virginia. Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello, everyone. And welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene Podcast. I have someone on that I do not know. I actually saw some tweets about a talk they did at All Tech is Human, and I immediately reached out to Dr. Courtney Cogburn to come on the show and talk about what she was disrupting that audience with. So, Dr. Cogburn could you please introduce yourself to the audience? Dr. Courtney D. Cogburn: Hi, I'm Dr. Courtney Cockburn. I'm an associate professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work. KC: We always start with two questions: Why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene? 01:16 CDC: I think it's important to cause a scene, because it suggests that you're awake and paying attention and that there's meaning to your voice and presence in the world. So, are you paying attention? Do you see any of the problems before our eyes? And do you find value in yourself enough to do something about it? And so I think inherently bad intersection results in causing a scene. How am I causing a scene? You know, I'm a little bit irreverent in general. I do what I want to do. And that's not common for a tenure-track professor at, you know, an elite white institution. But it's absolutely the way that I approach my work. A phrase I've been using more and more lately that I like—because I got it from Game of Thrones—there's a line—I don't know if you watch Game of Thrones—but there's a line where one of the characters says, "We don't have time for this. The world is ending and we need to make some choices or some decisions." And so I used it a lot lately because we don't have time for pontificating and dancing around issues, or really even selfishly focusing only on our own careers and whether we get tenure or not, or whether we get promoted or not. And while those things are important, I think what we're doing for the world and for people and communities around us and how we're leaving the world, given these really existential pressing issues is part of what's important to me. So, for me specifically, that focuses on issues of racism and the various spaces in which racism shows up, which is every space. 03:13 KC: All right, So, can you tell us...let's just start where I started. What was your talk at All Tech is Human about? CDC: So in that talk—it was a lightning talk—I had five minutes to make a point. KC: Wow! OK, so... wow! CDC: And I'm thinking, just like, we don't have time for this. KC: Exactly! 03:37 CDC: And so my talk was about being antiracist in tech.
Podcast Description “I think many folks on the Left…don’t really understand what is a system of oppression. I think they view racism that is some sort of personal indictment on an individual’s character rather than the reality that it is, which is a system that has existed since the very founding of this nation. It has existed for centuries outside of this nation. It’s not something that can be magically cured.” Jordan Thompson joins ACLU-NH as a racial justice organizer after several years of advocacy work. He most recently served as staff for Senator Kamala Harris in her bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination. Jordan was raised in Hartford, CT and moved to New Hampshire as a teen. He grew up in foster care, and realized his passion for public service upon aging out of the system. He joined the National Foster Youth Institute in 2017, working in coordination with members of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth to build a movement to transform the nations’ child welfare system. Jordan became more involved in electoral politics, with a focus on empowering young people of color to run for local office. He ran for Moderator in 2017 and the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2018, narrowly losing both races by slim margins. Through his role as a New Hampshire co-chair of President Obama’s My Brothers’ Keeper Community Challenge, Jordan organized Nashua’s first Juneteenth Emancipation Day event, paving the way for New Hampshire lawmakers to recognize it as an observed holiday the following year. He was honored for his advocacy efforts at MBK’s 5-year summit in Oakland, California. As ACLU-NH’s first racial justice organizer, Jordan is focused on empowering young people, particularly young people of color, to organize around issues of racial justice within their own communities. He hopes to amplify the efforts of community leaders doing existing work, and to ensure that our elected officials are governing with intersectionality in mind. He enjoys hiking, music, museums and reading about nautical history in his free time. Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene Podcast. My guest today is Jordan Thompson. His pronouns are he / him / his. Jordan, would you please introduce yourself to the audience today? Jordan Thompson: Hi, everyone. My name is Jordan Thompson. I am an activist and community organizer from New Hampshire, and I am very, very excited to be on. I've been a big fan of the podcast, and just been listening some episodes for the past couple of days, and I'm very excited about contributing to this conversation. KC: Well, let's get into it. As we always start, folx, let's start with, "Why is it important to cause a scene, and how are you, Jordan, causing a scene?" 01:12 JT: That's a great question. I believe that it's important to cause a scene because there is such a need for big, structural, bold, and radical change in our society. And that sort of change does not occur when people are comfortable. It doesn't occur when people are complacent. And so, in order for that change to come, we need to cause a scene. And I cause a scene by doing something that I think a lot of folx take for granted, and it's very simple. I cause a scene by speaking truth, and that truth may not always be popular, and may not always be what people want to hear, but the truth has a lot of power and has a lot of substance to it. And it's what exactly you need to get a movement starting—started, rather. And it's incredibly important to me. I was staff for Senator Kamala Harris back when she was running for president, and she puts such a large emphasis throughout the entirety of her presidential campaign on the notion of speaking truth. And like I said before, it's such a simple ideal, but it has so much power behind it. And when she spoke truth, again, it was something that was not always popular. When it comes to acknowledging the dangers of the status quo and white...
Podcast Description Survival Homework Ask yourself, what are you willing to do in the service of antiracism? Transcription 00:10 OK everyone, welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene Podcast Book Club episode of "How to be an Antiracist" Chapter 18: "Survival". We're at the end of this book. It took us a minute, but we got here. So we're just going to read through, and then I'm gonna have some final thoughts to end us with. So I'm going to start on page 230: The source of racist ideas was not ignorance or hate, but self interest. And I put a star by that because it is so important. We remove agency from a lot of people when we talk about racist ideas come from ignorance and hate and not attributed to self interest. It's another reason why I'm no longer promoting "White Fragility", by Robin D'Angelo. It's not that it's a bad book. What it is is an academic term and and an academic theory, and in the wild, it looks like, "Oh, I'm so ignorant. Oh, I didn't mean to be hateful," or, you know, "That person is hateful," or, "Oh, that's just their white fragility. They didn't mean it." No, there's a lot out here that's about self interest. And we need to own that. So many people are benefiting in various ways based on white supremacy, and that includes white people, model minorities, and Black people. We all have found a way—or the system has found a way—for us to benefit, so that we will continue to uphold it. If it did not benefit everybody in the system in some kind of way, we would have overthrown this at some point, whether we all recognize where we benefit or not. 02:09 Continuing on: The history of racist ideas is the history of powerful policymakers erecting racist policies out of self interest, then producing racist ideas to defend and rationalize the inequitable effects of their policies, while everyday people consume those racist ideas, which in turn sparks ignorance and hate. [...] Educational and moral suasion is not only a failed strategy... And I highlighted this next: ...it is a suicidal strategy. And I wrote in the margin: "Fuck civility: the expectation that I must appeal to the moral nature of others while I'm being harmed." 02:50 This is so why... "fuck civility" means... it becomes so much deeper to me as I use it and promote it and think about it and process it. At first, it was just, "You know what? If whiteness is—if civility is optional for whiteness and the expected behavior of people of color, then, damn it, I don't want that anymore!" You know, that was me throwing off that that whole... I've always been a person you ain't gonna tell me what the fuck to do. So that's what that was. But the more and more I learn and challenge and reflect and so on, "fuck civility" means so much more than that. "Fuck civility" is, "Fuck white supremacy! Fuck how I'm supposed to... all those teachers who told me that—I mean, I literally had a teacher in, I think I was in the seventh grade, but I had him. It was in a small Catholic school. He was gonna be my eighth grade teacher. My mom's like, "No, we're gonna take you out of school because there's gonna be hell for me for the year." But he actually had math groups—it was all Black school, he was a white teacher, Mr. Maluth—oh, I hated that fucker. He had two groups of students. He was the only teacher who did this here: the dumb group—and he literally called them [that]—and the smart group. And I was in the dumb group because he was a math teacher and I did not like his ass, and so I really didn't give a fuck about the class. And it wasn't until... because my mom told me that, "You know what? I can't deal with you being in his class. There is no other class for you to go to. I'm gonna put you in this public school," which was in what people would call "the 'hood." And it was a public school that my godmother's kids went to. And so we used her address for me to go. And it was a public middle school with all Black teachers, and I excelled,
Podcast Description “I want every US presidential candidate…to give me a list of what they are going to in order to address institutionalized racism. I want to know what regulations, I want to know the policies, I want to know the data. And I want to be able to review your plan. Give me a plan for that. How are we going to address inequity in education? How are we going to address the fact that we have books written for and by white men? How are we going to start putting things in that highlight more than slavery when it comes to Black people?” Dr. Brandeis Marshall is a computer science scholar, educator and founder of DataedX. Her work focuses on the racial, gendered and socioeconomic impact of data in technology, including designing data science pedagogy for marginalized communities and assessing the socio-technical implications of BlackTwitter. Dr. Marshall participates in increasing data literacy and understanding, sharing best data practices and broadening participation in computer + data science through speaker and workshop leader engagements. For more info visit www.brandeismarshall.com. Transcription 00:31 Kim Crayton: Woo! Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene podcast. I'm already giggling. So this will be a very interesting episode. I'm not gonna hesitate. I have Dr. Brandeis Marshall on the show today. And if you could introduce yourself to the audience, please. Dr. Brandeis Marshall: Oh, sure. I am a computer scientist by training. I am an instructor/educator like yourself by occupation. I teach at the college level and above, and I am running a startup. So I just started a startup about a couple months ago, so we could talk about that too. I'm working day and night, traveling, speaking, resting, dealing with a lot of wellness. So it was very nice to get a little rest and relaxation over the past few days, and now we're gonna get back to the grind. So that is me in a nutshell. 01:29 Kim: All right, so I start the show as always, as you know: Why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene? Dr. Marshall: All right. Oh, here we go. Kim: Here we go. Let's dive into this. And also, just to let you know, this is an uncensored show, so you can use whatever words, whatever phrasing you feel like, go ahead. Dr. Marshall: OK, the United States, and in fact, I think the world, is becoming more Black and Brown. Yet our educational system does not reflect its constituents in the books that we learn from, in the instruction that we have. In particular, since I'm in this data science space, I work a lot with trying to broaden participation, access, inclusion and representation in computing and in data science. We don't have any people of color, just period. So, as someone that has been teaching for a long time, I'm just now moving into trying to find nuggets and examples and showcase all of that. It could be at the collegiate level, it could be at the professional level, but I'm trying to build in race, gender, class to whomever I'm instructing. 02:56 Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, when Dr. Brandeis logged in, I had to pause her for a second cause I had to complete a tweet. And I sent her the tweet, and we just started laughing because this tweet by an individual—and I'm gonna share it in the links—but it says, "Sorry, Beale Street was too much for me. Though beautifully acted, written, and shot, I'm exhausted by examples of Black love engulfed in trauma and horrible endings." I had to tweet this because I said, "This is why I won't view any more video of Black bodies being beaten by police or terrorized by whiteness going about our daily lives. Yes, Blacks have had to endure the horrors of white supremacy. YET I REFUSE to allow this to be the only NEGATIVE NARRATIVE that's told." I just, I get it, this is the thing for me here on this. And then I want to talk about—cause I wrote some notes—I want to talk about your learning the language of Black Twitter.
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