lending-privilege.md

LENDING PRIVILEGE

Via @anjuan

• Tech inclusion pledge
• Move from diversity to inclusion and empathy
  • Diversity: inviting everyone to the party (too easy to checkbox)
  • Inclusion, empathy: making sure everyone feels comfortable at the party
• Moving away from diversity towards inclusion
• Actual value to inclusion:
  • Inclusive teams are innovative teams
• Inclusion is at the heart of open source
  • The cathedral and the bazaar (Eric S. Raymond)
    • The miracle that is Linux
    • Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow
    • Given enough large beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone — is a statement of inclusion
• Often our companies are protected by privilege
  • Access denied
• What privilege is not
  • Doesn’t mean you haven’t:
    • Worked hard, sacrificed, not good at what you do
• Privilege
  • Is like riding a bike up a hill
• People without privilege have other obstacles for getting up that hill
• With privilege, things are a little easier for you
• Privilege == access to benefits based on things that you have
• Birth privileges are root of most biases, prejudices
• Selective privileges, things that you choose
  • School, religion, gender identity
• Of our nature to share our privilege with people who have that privilege (gender, racial)
• More powerful to share privilege with people who do not have that privilege
• Portfolio of privilege
  • Parental, racial, education, religion, physical, gender
  • Pick one that you have… What would you career in tech be without that privilege?
  • Now think, there are people you work with every day who have to navigate the tech scene without this privilege
• Having a more inclusive industry benefits everyone
  • Marginalization is on the way out:
    • The Panama Papers
    • Class privilege is over
• Credibility lending
  • LGBT feel invisible, not recognized.
  • Fix: credibility lending
  • E.g. raise someone’s profile within your company, who does not share some of your privilege(s)
• Access lending
  • E.g. you have access to things based on your privilege (such as invitation to speak at an event), lend that access
• Expertise lending
  • Someone who feels they don’t have a voice, lacking leaders in tech industry with their background
  • SxSW, Michelle Obama: If you have a voice at the table, ask if there is diversity at the table, are there voices that don’t sound like yours?
  • E.g. give someone the opportunity to lead at your company
• Your turn to lend
• Lending privilege:
  • Not a silver bullet
  • Needs to be a philosophy of life
  • Need to believe in the benefit of inclusion: innovation
  • Not a sprint, a marathon, need to do it every day. This is the only way we can truly get change in this industry.

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Tue Jun 28 16:25:00 PDT 2016