“We can live in a world where the police don’t kill people by limiting police interventions, improving community interactions, and ensuring accountability.” So reads the hopeful, matter-of-fact vision statement of Campaign Zero, a momentous, sweeping initiative focused intently on ending police violence in the United States. Organized by four social justice leaders from around the country… Continue reading Campaign Zero
Category: Social Justice
Debugging Diversity
The technology industry continues to struggle with its diversity problem. However, having delivered enterprise software for well over a decade, I think the root cause of—and the solution to—this problem is easy to understand. Anyone who has been tasked with debugging software can understand the solutions and begin immediately implementing them. I was reminded of this… Continue reading Debugging Diversity
You Only Got In Because You’re Latina
“Well, you’re Hispanic. That’s how you got in. You know that, right?” …twelve words that destroyed me that fall day freshman year. I had just started college at the University of Florida and I was attending my first class in the honors program. I’d qualified without a problem, or so I thought. Now, a fellow… Continue reading You Only Got In Because You’re Latina
The Buck Stops Here
“Why can’t we all just get along? I didn’t do anything personally to cause oppression, so why would you call me an oppressor? You’re just stoking more racial tension by discussing racism.” Every day, these same delusional questions and statements are posited by us white folks. Every day, after centuries of racism and genocide at… Continue reading The Buck Stops Here
Traumatized Bodies, Desensitized Minds
As more footage of the late Sandra Bland’s final hours of life spirals onto the desks of talking heads and news channel producers, I think it’s important to acknowledge the ability of film to distort and desensitize us to the abuse of another human being. We live in an age and culture where we have… Continue reading Traumatized Bodies, Desensitized Minds
On My Moral Contention to Capital Punishment
“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” -Romans 12:19 (King James Version) I don’t believe in capital punishment. The idea of killing someone to as punishment for killing someone else is, frankly, ass-backwards logic. This is my… Continue reading On My Moral Contention to Capital Punishment
Finding a Place Between the World and Ourselves
I had been anticipating Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, Between the World and Me for all of three weeks. I must confess, I had not heard he was writing a book and I did not want to know too much of its content before reading it, in the same way that I detest previews and would rather watch… Continue reading Finding a Place Between the World and Ourselves
Blood Brothers: Haitians in the Dominican Republic
One could say that the whole mess started in 2013, when the Constitutional Court, the supreme judicial body of the Dominican Republic, immediately rendered some 200,000 of its citizens stateless. “The ruling retroactively stripped Dominicans of Haitian descent of citizenship back to 1929,” says France François, spokesperson for the Washington, D.C.-based Association of Haitian Professionals… Continue reading Blood Brothers: Haitians in the Dominican Republic
Black Men and “Distractions”
“Black women as a group have never been fools. We couldn’t afford to be.” –Barbara Smith Black women are facing a drought of allies during a time when black people in the United States are battling a turbulent racist climate. These moments illustrate that things are not so different from the past our parents and… Continue reading Black Men and “Distractions”
What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
Delivered July 5, 1852; Corinthian Hall; Rochester, New York Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I… Continue reading What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?