As a Black data scientist I will say that words have power. That naming things has power. That acknowledging the depth of white supremacy, its depravity, and need to utterly and completely remove it and all of its vestiges is the most important work that can be undertaken.
There used to be a Confederate statue in the town square where I live. Many Black people worked over decades to point out what the statue symbolized, how the Klan had revised history in building that statue. Some white people wanted it gone. Finally a lot of white people wanted it gone. Then these same people
began calling for reparations. A local college instituted reparations. There are calls to engage with land back movements.
I’ve lived through many backlash cycles. Locally we’re still dealing with egregious health disparities that are costing Black lives daily. There is gentrification. The city’s just lived through a night in which white supremacy took the lives of several Asian women.
But something has changed.
Words matter. We have to keep chipping away at this monster.
In tech, though, asians often outnumber whites at US FAANG companies. Foreigners are vastly overrepresented, jews are overrepresented, blacks are underrepresented, spanish are underrepresented.
In American politics/history I totally hear you. But maybe tech is a slightly different animal? 'White supremacy' is a tough sell when <40% are domestic-born christian white.
(none of the above comment is intended as a value statement on various ethnicities doing well/poorly, just an observation of how well they're doing).
There used to be a Confederate statue in the town square where I live. Many Black people worked over decades to point out what the statue symbolized, how the Klan had revised history in building that statue. Some white people wanted it gone. Finally a lot of white people wanted it gone. Then these same people began calling for reparations. A local college instituted reparations. There are calls to engage with land back movements.
I’ve lived through many backlash cycles. Locally we’re still dealing with egregious health disparities that are costing Black lives daily. There is gentrification. The city’s just lived through a night in which white supremacy took the lives of several Asian women.
But something has changed.
Words matter. We have to keep chipping away at this monster.