SELLEST OSAST
Hello everyone. We’ve spent the past week in silence, listening to other voices and watching evidence. We want to state that we stand against anti-Black racism and that we support the Black Lives Matter movement.
As three white men, we’ve been confronting the shortcomings of our actions and processes, and are taking steps to learn how to be better supporters of the Black community. We believe there are actionable steps that we and others in the tech industry can take to be more active participants against anti-Black racism. We believe the onus is on us to better educate ourselves. This begins with reading and sharing more resources created by Black authors, artists, technologists and founders, and giving space to Black voices. On the other hand, if we believe the actions of a tech company are negatively impacting the Black community, we will raise those concerns on our platform. We are committed to keep learning and listening.
We see that this is a hard process that needs consistent effort, because the problems Black communities face won’t disappear easily. The following clip of Octavia Butler speaking really drove this point home for us. It’s during an interview from the year 2000. Butler was a Black, female science fiction author who we’ve mentioned before on this podcast. She wrote powerful works about broken societies in the near-future, where technology is being used to coerce and control the impoverished civilians who live in forgotten, walled-in towns, and of powerful Black female lead characters fighting against the situation and searching for a hopeful future. During the interview, Butler is asked about her experience on race panels, to which she responds:
“They’re just tiresome… you say the same stuff over and over… you get tired of doing anything you’ve been doing for 20 years”.
Those words were spoken 20 years ago. Let’s all make sure we’re actually listening and learning when we say we are, so those words don’t echo for another 20 years.
Thank you for listening, take care of each other.
