While #SaveRoe is trending, I'd like to tell you the story of my grandmother. She is 92, grew up in East LA, raised two daughters on her own, worked in a factory for over 40 years, is Mexican and Catholic. She is staunchly pro-choice. When I was a teenager, I asked her why
"Because I've seen the alternative," she told me. I learned that her mother was one of the people women in the neighborhood would turn to out of desperation. My grandmother would assist. "That needs to happen in a clinic, without fear of being arrested, w the right equipment"
Jul 22, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I wonder what it must be like to work on the thing you are most passionate about with no race, class, or gender-based friction. I wonder how many times we've thrown away a cure, an answer, an innovation because that friction became impossible to overcome
I know I state the obvious, but there are some days when I close my eyes and try to imagine these companies and governments and film studios and art galleries and labs populated by the actual *best*
Jul 17, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
When I was in college, I took a great Poli Sci course taught by a guy that most wrote off as a leftist kook. His fundamental assertion was that capitalism and democracy are fundamentally opposed to one another and one would "win" while the other would be decimated
Where he really got folks in a frenzy was by demonstrating that the winner would not be democracy
Been appreciating @prisonculture ‘s riffs on “civility” today. Got me thinking about “civil disobedience”
The majority approves of the civil disobedience in theory because the minority disobeys, but *at least it’s civil*
Jun 22, 2018 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I will continue to beat this drum: The software that our industry created enables mobilization at this speed, at this scale
When tech investors assert that code is “unbiased,” and that only the “best and brightest” are building it, and you have not diversified, you have NO ONE asking “What’s the worst thing this could be used for?”
Jun 20, 2018 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
In the past few years, I've been in the position to lead inside companies while major events, all with racism at their core, have unfolded in the news
From the unrelenting videos of police violence against our Black neighbors, to the presence of actual Nazis in our midst, to the Muslim travel ban, to the images of Latinx children in detention camps, leading "business as usual" is not an option
Jun 18, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Hello #tech folks--who is organizing our community around family separations and other immigration atrocities? Please RT so we can find each other. Thanks
Here is a thread we should all be following:
Companies, asking for advice: "How can we tell if our diversity and inclusion programs are working?"
Me, an expert: "Find out how Black women are experiencing your company."
Company: "Oh so survey women of color?"
1/?
Me: "No, ask the most senior Black woman on your staff to have honest conversations with other Black women. Listen to what she reports."
Company: "How senior does she have to be...?"
Me: 👀
Company: "Because we don't really have any senior Black women on staff."
2/?
