ruby’s rants & randomness
If you’re not outraged, you’re not reading my blog.
I was disgusted to learn today that progressive tech leader Clay Johnson has been harassing women he worked with with almost no repercussions for years. I’m appalled that I never knew about any of this in spite of being in his professional orbit the entire time. I even know some of the people quoted in the story, although not very well. We have to learn to tell the truth, shout it if we have to, and stop covering for people.
The fact that this stuff started so long ago and that even Clay seems to agree he should have been fired from the Dean campaign, but instead he was able to build an entire successful career on it while continuing to abuse people is such a great illustration of how tolerance of chauvinism systematically holds women back and keeps us out of leadership positions while simultaneously reinforcing itself by promoting these men ever higher.
Reading about his behavior at the Sunlight Foundation you can see that it wasn’t a secret. In fact the staff had to band together to alienate him since the organization wasn’t protecting them from him.
Every man that gets ahead while abusing people is keeping at least one other person from succeeding, and is taking up space that should go to people with better judgement than his. Then people look around and wonder why they don’t see as many women “qualified” for top leadership positions! Women are missing the opportunity to build our careers because we are trying to protect our dignity and bodily integrity from creeps who some other men think are geniuses.
I’m not mad at people for not exposing this sooner, because I know how hard it is (was?) to go public. I’m disgusted at Clay himself, but even more sick of the systems that just continue this culture and people who refuse to think beyond their own tiny bubbles. (ie: Well he’s not harassing me or anyone I care about, so I’m OK.) Of course I’m disappointed with Joe Trippi, but I wouldn’t expect any better from him. People like him are the reason I avoid certain lines of work.
Of course we should be able to expect our leaders to do better, but given that most of them are men that got there by succeeding in the current culture (if not actual harassers themselves) or women who got there by not rocking the boat too much, I’m not counting on them. The rest of us need to take care of each other by speaking out as publicly as we can when we find out about this stuff.
Hopefully people speaking out will eventually put more and more pressure upward on leaders to do the right thing in the first place before their new hire becomes the latest scandalous headline. Unfortunately I don’t expect any of this to change significantly before my son comes of age in about 10 years. I’m thinking of how us non-leaders can develop a strategic defense against the tsunami of bullshit.
Leaders like Zephyr Teachout are calling for better (or any) processes to address harrassment in political campaigns, but this problem is much bigger than the culture of political campaigns and nonprofits that take advantage of people’s dedication to the cause to keep them quiet. I’m not going to assume any of these institutions have my back until they have shown me that.
People need solidarity with each other, we can’t wait around for some brave leaders to save us. They’re not coming to help unless we force them to. I loved the way the Sunlight staff responded. I’d like to see much more of that.
Much of this post was initially written in conversation on Facebook with my friend Zephyr Teachout, hence some disjointedness.
If you made a screwball comedy (or a surreal farce) about an inept mafia don who accidentally starts a race war, nonaccidentally rapes women, and fails all the way up to the presidency, it would still not be as far-fetched as the country we are living in today.
I stand with UNC PhD student Maya Little who was arrested today for pouring blood and paint on Silent Sam. Here is her statement:
I have been an organizer for the Silent Sam Sit-In since September 2017, when campus police confiscated the belongings of the 24 hour occupiers. Every weekday we provide context around the statue. This is an opportunity to teach. It is also our duty to continue the struggle against white supremacy that countless others have led since black students have been on this campus. The statue, a symbol of UNC’s commitment to white supremacy, has been defaced and protested since 1968. Yet the statue remains on campus 50 years later. These last 5 years Carol Folt has been chancellor and she has not taken a single step towards removing Silent Sam. The armed, Confederate soldier dedicated and built by racists during Jim Crow has remained. However, the dedication and courage of each successive group of students fighting for racial equality at UNC has made our message louder and clearer. The threat of Neonazis and white supremacists marching on our communities has made it more urgent.
Chancellor Folt and the administrators are more dedicated to silencing us. In her first two years, there was no state law against removing the statue. She has heard countless activists tell her the statue’s presence dehumanizes and threatens people of color. The governor has written an open letter asking her to remove the statue. White supremacists have marched around Silent Sam and threatened violence. How has Folt responded? She has called us outside agitators. She has refused to call a statue dedicated for and by proud racists, white supremacist. She has never met with members of the Sit In. She has allowed white supremacist groups to invade this campus. She, Derek Kemp, and Jeff McCracken appointed a campus police officer to go undercover, lie about his identity, and gather information on us. According to McCracken, they continue to spend $1,700 dollars per day to protect the statue.
What do you see when you look at this statue, Chancellor? We see the mutilation of black bodies, the degradation of black people, the celebration of an army that fought for our ancestors’ enslavement. I see Julian Carr whipping a black woman. I see your willingness to traumatize, dehumanize, and endanger every black person on this campus. We see our blood and now you will too.
Today I have thrown my blood and red ink on this statue as a part of the continued mission to provide the context that the Chancellor refuses to. Chancellor Folt, if you refuse to remove the statue, then we will continue to contextualize it. Silent Sam is violence; Silent Sam is the genocide of black people; Silent Sam is antithetical to our right to exist. You should see him the way that we do, at the forefront of our campus covered in our blood.
But UNC does not want this context. Chancellor Folt will order Silent Sam to be cleaned immediately. But she should clean my blood and the ink off Silent Sam, not campus workers. The Chancellor and all who have used their power to keep Silent Sam here must embrace the truth about UNC. UNC is Silent Sam. Chapel Hill is Silent Sam. The statue stands smirking and defiant representing a community that has failed many times to work for justice and racial quality. Chancellor, the blood is on your hands.
Folt cares more about plastering our black faces over the Campaign for Carolina than about our safety, our dignity, our right to exist on this campus. Black community members are harassed by campus police. Black athletes are exploited by this university for the Tar Heel brand. Black faculty are not retained. Black students are forced to live and study in buildings named after people who made their fortunes through the sale of black children.
But we are not silent. The statue will be contextualized to show UNC’s racist past and present. You, Chancellor Folt—and your donors, the students you recruit, the alumni you cater to—will be forced to see it until every facet of white supremacy on this campus has been removed.
Photos by https://www.instagram.com/dhosterman/
In the Drupal diversity and inclusion working group, we are often asked how people can improve the diversity of their tech events. I wrote up some thoughts about this today and thought it would be useful to share here as well.
The most important thing you can do is have your leaders look how you would like your speakers and attendees to look. No matter how well intended, a group of men is going to be less successful recruiting women, and an all-white group will not be able to recruit as many speakers of color.
Representation in leadership matters both because people can do outreach more effectively within their own communities, but also because even strangers will look at that and get more of a sense that they would be comfortable and welcome at the event.
Ashe Dryden is a former Drupaller who is an expert in both diversity and conferences. Here’s a post she wrote which is chock full of examples and links to other good articles. And here is Ashe’s talk at DrupalCon in 2013, which really helps to explain the whole challenge of this stuff. I was at this talk in person and it was awesome.
Beyond leadership, here are two practical articles for event organizers: Women speakers, How I got 50% women speakers at my tech conference. They focus on recruiting women, but we need to go beyond white women if we want really diverse and representative events. Many of these principles apply for outreach to other marginalized groups like people of color, people from other countries, low-income people, people with disabilities, non-Christian people, etc.
It’s good to broadcast your intentions to be more inclusive, but you really have to work one-on-one to make a change. You often have to tell people that they would be good speakers because when we spend our whole lives being marginalized, we often lack the confidence of the average white guy.
Parkland students like Emma Gonzales remind me so much of myself at their age. I was ready to change the world, and I knew exactly how to do it. I also rocked the same kind of natty friendship bracelets, and even shaved my head (well, part of it). I helped mobilize thousands of students to stand up for a free-standing Black Cultural Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. I was ready to take on the world. But then life kept beating me down and telling me I was not so important, and eventually I started to believe it.
People my age (and especially older) lack the fire and vision to make the changes we desperately need. These students are right, they are mobilized, and they have a platform to speak to the nation. I am totally ready to follow those young people’s leadership and energy. It’s their turn, and us olds have fucked it up enough already.
Here is some information (via MomsRising) about how we can support their upcoming actions:
Wednesday, March 14: #Enough – A National School Walk Out! The Women’s March Youth EMPOWER Team is calling for a seventeen-minute (1 minute for every life lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School) national school walk out on Wednesday, March 14th at 10am in all timezones.
https://twitter.com/WomensMarchY/Saturday, March 24th: #March4OurLives – Student survivors from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL are calling for a march on Washington, D.C. and also in cities across our nation on Saturday, March 24th Go to https://www.marchforourlives.com/ for more information.
https://twitter.com/AMarch4OurLivesFriday, April 20th: #NationalSchoolWalkout – Other student and education groups are calling for a longer-term student walk out on the anniversary of Columbine.
https://twitter.com/schoolwalkoutUS/
Photo credit: Humans of MSD
I haven’t posted a poem in a while, and this one keeps coming back to me, most recently via Mona Eltahawy’s wonderful essay about the restoring the righteous rage of women and girls.
Check out the late Grace Lee Boggs on how to foster solidarity and make it through this horrible time with our souls and hopefully our social fabric intact. Her words are only becoming more and more important.
“I’ve come to believe that you cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it.”
It’s a short read, go ahead and check it out: “What Grace Lee Boggs Would’ve Taught Activists in This Moment; Three principles to help you avoid burnout and continue working toward a better world,” published March 20, 2017.
The FCC is about to vote to end net neutrality—breaking the fundamental principle of the open Internet. I’m supporting an effort to create an avalanche of calls to Congress to stop it.
Net neutrality affects everyone who uses the Internet. This is for all of us.
Please visit https://www.battleforthenet.com/breaktheinternet/ TODAY (December 12, 2017) to see the many ways you can support this effort on social media and by contacting Congress.
