Reflecting on 2023 & looking forward to 2024, I've continued to cycle on 2 things:
1. The astonishing amount of luck I've had in doors opening for me--compared to people just as qualified who are overlooked.
2. The weight of being a minority in wanting human rights centered in tech dev.
🧵
On (1) -- I will try even more to name people being overlooked, to suggest them instead of me, to make sure I use whatever influence I have to bring in other amazing scholars who continue to be marginalized. 2/
For most of my career, I was in the "overlooked" category, which I think makes me hyperaware of how privileged I am to not be in that position now & what a stark contrast it is given that I am essentially the same person then as now. It is not because I suddenly worked harder. 3/
It's a matter of connections. It's a matter of whether you have people in positions of power who "vote" for you or who go to bat for you. Coming from a non-academic family, going to non-fancy schools, I didn't have the "foot in the door" that a lot of recognized scholars have. 4/
But "visibility begets visibility", and visibility begets power. If you are CLOSE to someone visible, then you have a better shot at being visible yourself -- and once you're visible, it only provides more opportunities. I will do what I can to help more people be visible. 5/
On (2), caring most about human rights against an avalanche of tech-centering priorities: It can be so alienating, and I've been open about how it's contributed to feeling deeply depressed. Yet I also recognize that all voices centering creators, workers, etc., are *critical*. 6/
We are not the ones in power right now, but we should continue to build coalitions to fundamentally shape the narrative, and change the way tech is developed so as not to crush people in its wake. 7/
I'd add a complication - there are gatekeepers and intermediaries, some of whom are very much opposed to justice objectives, ideas about equity, or even the notion that all groups are equal. With Gen AI, the scholarly and research communities are not enough to get mindshare in implementations.
This is so true. I'm reminded that many of the people now in the Time list or UN or other commissions were considered out of bounds in many corporate environments as recently as a year ago. There has been a great deal of risk in promoting those people, including you, and in some ways even more now.
Awesome. I'd suggest you include commentators and practitioners and people from other fields. Another way you and other prominent people can help is by adopting the "Follow Fridays" practice from the old pre-white-supremacy Twitter. Your amplification and likes provide a measure of protection.
Also, thank you so much for continuing to post these things elsewhere. I can't begin to describe how toxic it can be on other platforms once one is labeled a race traitor or race mixer or similar perceived threat to white people, nor how, here in Texas, that goes from online to offline.
