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Rest in peace, Pac. Thinking about it. Keep it deep.
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Doing 40 years. I was thinking about it, how you
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and I weren't, you know, we're not feeling a strong
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identification with that whole trial and stuff. And then I realized,
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you know, people got Tupac's name in their mouths, and
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that's a good thing, too. I'll take it.
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The whole time. The entire time had his name in it.
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Yeah.
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Well, it's another round. You know, the mainstream media. We
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know the people. We know the people. As we mark
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60 years of the Black Panther Party, of which Tupac
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Shakur is a product. You think about all the impacts
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of the Black Panther Party. That right there is one
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of them, people. So happy 60th to Tupac. the struggle
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happy 60th to the soldiers in the struggle, many of
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whom are still with us today. Um, we appreciate you.
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We see you and we thank you for your service.
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So miles, you actually been attending some of this black
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tech week stuff, right?
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Yeah. I caught the, uh, the opening night where they had, uh,
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down in Englewood. It was very nice turnout. Um, it's
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beautiful to see the black tech economy in real time. Um, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Seeing the ideas come together, seeing people get out and
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actually real world, you know, I mean, vibe with each other,
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not just vibe code online through headsets and on Zooms
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and with AI, like actually meet the people who are
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putting ideas in motion. So, yeah, it was great. I
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caught the first line. I meant to go last night.
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They had another event right here at Leimert Park. Your
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boy Money B was there and Raz Kaz. They were
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talking about AI and hip hop. And I ended up
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missing it because I had a class I had to
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be a part of. But, yeah, the events have been very,
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very well attended. I'm seeing the people all around town.
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I followed a couple people that night that I went. And, yeah,
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just seeing the motion and the excitement. And, you know,
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we just got off with Shard Zed. He was talking about,
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you know, the notebook LMs and all of them. And
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it's just seeing the flip side of where we are
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as well, seeing the people that are as, jovial and, and,
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you know, as clear riding as I am, you know,
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it was great event to, to be a part of
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for sure.
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Yeah. I think we talked so much about how we're
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shut out of tech and tech isn't built for us.
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And the digital divide was a thing. And so it's,
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it's great to see how many creators are in the space,
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how many are thriving in the space. I haven't had
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the opportunity to go this week, but a lot of
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the things that I've attended with Tecla Mert, um, I,
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I meet people, I meet creators, um, whole companies led
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by black folks in the tech space. And I don't
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think we talk enough about the success stories in that.
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Yeah. And that's been the beauty of it too, is
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networking with the The people who have the infrastructure put
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in place because the ideas are one thing. One or
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two products is something as well. But a full infrastructure
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and systems built around you that's ready to implement people
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who have and are ready for these opportunities. Yeah, that's
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that's where the power move really comes in. And that's
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a blessing to see because, you know, it's moving fast
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and it's really easy to get caught behind. And, you know,
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behind the waves. So to stay on the cutting edge
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of it and see so many of us still on
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the cutting edge of it, you know, it gave me
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a lot of a lot of hope, a lot of faith.
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And I'm proud and excited.
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Yeah. I mean, I know you work and you move
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in that space. That's you've got your show, The Do
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Better Show, Saturdays at noon.
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But amazing show, by the way.
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Amazing show.
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Yeah.
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You got you want to tell us what you have
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on deck this week?
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Still putting it together, but I was doing a little
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bit more research, though, and I'm probably going to launch
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a few more of my products. Dominique, you know I've
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been making games and making apps and websites, so I
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might share some more of my behind-the-scenes on actually putting
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that together and maybe share the game a little bit.
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I even played one of your games, one of your
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Do Better games, Do Better Arcade. I'm thinking of Camille Terry,
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who was in here. She's a co-founder of Charger Help.
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That's one of the people that I met indirectly through
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Tech Leimert. And it's a black woman that owns a
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company that repairs the EV charging stations. It's like there's
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all these Madam and Senor Tussauds in the tech space
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that are doing it. And so I think for me,
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it's also a reminder that not, you know, yes, it's true.
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There's discrimination. Yes, it's true. The algorithms are stacked against us.
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And it's an opportunity. And it is a field of opportunity.
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And it is a place where we can make a
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way for ourselves.
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It's a window. It's a window that's wide open right now.
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And it's not going to be open forever. Not just
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in the ai space but like you said the infrastructure
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space the uh actually people who who are in the
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engineering space and want to engineer and build products and
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our computer programmers and cyber security and the the financial
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uh movement that we've had over these last few years
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so i'm invest fest on to wealth building wednesdays you
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know i'm saying like there's there's there's millions and of
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opportunities that are out there and i think that everybody
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has opportunity to Get involved. You've got to figure out
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what it is that you can get involved in, what
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your specialty is, what aligns with you. But, no, it's
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not the panic at all. It's not the time to panic, y'all.
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It's the time to focus up, be intentional, and make
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some moves because it's here.
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Apparently, there's one in Detroit, Michigan also, something called Dunamis Charger.
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This woman actually manufactures the chargers. Her name is Natalie King,
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another black woman.
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Yep.
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And so it's black men and women. There's a number
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of them. And I think if you can dream it up,
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if you can imagine it, then you can find someone
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to make it technically sound. It's like the man we
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had on the other day with closed loop engineering. There's
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folks out there that will help you figure out The
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engineering pieces of it, the coding pieces of it, just
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dream of an idea. And yeah, so Black Tech Week,
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great opportunity.
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I want to add on top what you just said, Dominique.
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We just talked about all these black people who have
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been let go of jobs, who are engineers and lifelong
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doctors and lifelong teachers and and program designers, and now's
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the time where if you have the idea, you should
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put those black people to work on your idea to
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bring it to life. That's how you keep the dollar circulating.
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Got to keep them circulating, and especially in your own account.
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It is Tech Week. It's supposed to be in our
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thought consciousness today. We're on our Think Tank Thursday, and
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we're teaming up with Tech Leimert this morning. We'll keep
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the conversation going. And of course, Miles Lowe, our resident expert,
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keep the convo going when we come forward on KBLA
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Talk 1580. And I want to remind you, tomorrow's our
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Freedman Friday show, that our Freedman Friday archive is live,
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speaking of resources you can find online. You can find
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it at DominiqueDeprima.com. That's D-I-P-R-I-M-A.com, DominiqueDeprima.com. That's my personal website.
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And you can also find the playlist there for all
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of the Friedman Friday shows. If you're trying to get
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caught up on reparations, you can also find that hub
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on KBLA1580. com as well. And there's a catalog on my
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sub stack that tells us who called, who was on
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the show, when they were on the show and what
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they were talking about with links in case you're trying
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to do some research and get outside of the hallucinatory
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space with the reparations. Such great points that Char Giselle
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was making in terms of how we can get fooled,
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even journalists. I got fooled the other day by something
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and I was so mad. Of course, I figured it out,
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but the fact that I wasted 20 minutes of my
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life before I realized it was To quote the resident,
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fake news really irritated me. We're being joined now by
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creative producer, director of photography, and an early adopter. She
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is the executive director of Tech Leimert. Paris McCoy joins us.
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Good morning.
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Good morning. Good morning. How's everyone doing this morning?
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All is well. How are you?
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I'm doing good. We're in the middle of Black LA
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Tech weekend. It's been a great weekend. great last few days.
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Yeah, we were just talking about that. Miles and I,
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Miles has had the opportunity to spend some time at,
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you know, Black Tech Week. And I know it's, I
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know it's about networking. I know it's always about exposure, right?
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But what else is, what else is the purpose? What
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is the stated goal of LA Black Tech Week?
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I think overall, in addition to what you mentioned, the
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point of Black LA Tech Week is to really just
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talk about and be in community about all the things
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that are affecting us from the technological standpoint or from
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the technology standpoint. There's so many things that are happening,
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and this is just an opportunity to meet with our
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folks and talk about it. To give you an example, Um,
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there's been some conversation around, uh, some of the things
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that my alma mater, Howard university is getting involved with
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Google and AI. And so like at black LA tech week,
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I'm able to meet folks and we're able to talk about,
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you know, the yays and nays and what we like
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and don't like about that particular situation. So it's really
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just a safe space for us to have these conversations.
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Yeah. Well, it's going on through the weekend?
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Yes, it's going on through the weekend. The last event
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is on the 18th, which is this coming Sunday.
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Man, it seems like everything is happening in LA this weekend.
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It's just a busy week, not to mention, you know,
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a week In election week, the election is today, and
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I'll be saying that every day until November 3rd. But
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I'm like, who goes to this thing?
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Who goes to this thing? It's intergenerational. I want to
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start with that. It's intergenerational. It's everyone, honestly. Like, I've
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come across people. And just to give some further context,
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it's also Los Angeles Tech Week. So that's the larger
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LA County really getting involved in Tech Week. So there's
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things happening all over the city that are not just
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a part of Black LA Tech Week, but just Tech
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Week in general. And I'm saying there's everyone from different
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career backgrounds, career switchers, intergenerational. We had Kids Day. like
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the family STEM day last Sunday, we're having it again
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this Sunday. So it's really just really everyone because tech
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is affecting all of our lives. So, you know, everyone's there, um,
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from people who are in the political space, from people
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who are in healthcare entrepreneurs, there's a lot of entrepreneurs
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and businesses. Like for instance, uh, tech Lamar this evening
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is doing the, um, co-pilot Microsoft co-pilot, uh, for small business.
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So that's like a, a workshop that we're doing. And
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those are all businesses that are coming through. So it's really,
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really everyone.
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Is that still open? Can people still sign up for
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that if they, um, have a small business?
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Um, they can still sign up for it. We have
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a wait list. Uh, we did reach capacity for people
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signing up, but sometimes, you know, people don't show. So,
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you know, we do, we do want to leave the
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wait list open and it's this evening from five 30
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to eight 30.
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Okay, and I'm sure you can find it. BlackLATechWeek.com is
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the website. BlackLATechWeek on Instagram is a good place to look.
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BlackLATechWeek is not just TechLimurn. It's a whole bunch of
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different organizations. Talk to me about what that coalition is
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and who these folks are that are coming together here.
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You are absolutely correct about that. It is about 20-plus
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organizations that have come together here. And that was the
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case last year when Black LA Tech Week, the inaugural
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year for Black LA Tech Week. I mean, we have
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the Hidden Genius Project, Out of Office, the Black Professionals Network, NSBE.
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NSBE is really, really huge. They were very involved last
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year and they're involved this year. And NSBE is the
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National Society of Black Engineers. We have We Are Science,
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Ocean AI. We have the Black Doctors Creative, which had
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an event yesterday. I believe it was yesterday or the
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day before at Life Development University. I mean, and they
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packed the house out like I drove by and I
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saw them in there. Yeah, on Crenshaw. We're doing this
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co-founder AI. There's DevColor. DevColor is important. There's Solar Robotics.
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I'm pretty sure people have heard about Solar Robotics. We
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actually have an organization that had a pitch competition yesterday.
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last night at the Angel City Lab, which is off
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of Jefferson, and Testify and Pitch actually is an organization
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that came from Atlanta, and they had a huge pitch
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session over at Angel City Business Lab last night, which
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I'm seeing some of the posts, and it looked like
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it was phenomenal. We also have Many Minds. So, you know,
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that's an organization that's also working with the youth. So
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there's quite a bit of organizations. And I do apologize
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to any of our partners if I left someone out,
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but there's quite a bit of organizations that are involved
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in this.
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And these are black-led or black-owned organizations. I see Black
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Education Expo. I'm looking on the website here. Neighborhood Linguists.
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The Neighborhood Linguist?
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Yeah, these are all Black ladder, Black-owned organizations.
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Absolutely, they are, which is really, really telling to the
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power of organizations that are in the neighborhood that are
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willing to put, like I said, even like Testify and Pitch,
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they're from Atlanta, but they heard about Black LA Tech
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Week and they really wanted to be a part of this.
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We also have, today we have like a gaming event
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a gaming event and Lisa, Lisa Osborne from the back from,
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from black public media. She's actually from Los Angeles and
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I mean, I'm sorry, New York. And she's been involved with,
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you know, a lot of creatives in the XR space
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and the gaming space. And she's doing a huge event
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showcasing some games that are black, black, black developed today.
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So that's really huge. I want to give a huge
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shout out to black, black public network. I'm sorry, black
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public media.
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Excuse me.
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Black public media.
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Yeah, you kind of skipped over because you were just
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doing a list, which is great. But what is DevColor?
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So DevColor is an organization that is an organization of
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a group of developers, and they just come together and
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they hold community for developers that are black.
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You're talking about developers of Software?
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Yep. That's primarily like software developers.
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Okay.
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And they hosted a coworking coffee yesterday, and it was
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quite a few of, you know, people that were from
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DevColor but then are not from DevColor that came and
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really like networked, co-worked, and I was seeing like a
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lot of things get done. People were really getting some
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work done. So DevColor is an organization of, yeah, of
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black developers. technology developers, software developers.
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I mean, I think that Miles and I were talking
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earlier about how, you know, despite the algorithms in many cases,
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you know, being biased against black people, despite the fact
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that we are not running the big, big companies and
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we are underrepresented in tech, there's all this stuff going
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on that a lot of folks don't even know about.
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Some of these organizations on your website I had never
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even heard of And, you know, you've got thousands of
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people coming together this week for Black LA Tech Week.
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So it's like despite or maybe because of the way
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that we're shut out, we are proliferating. Is that how
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you see it?
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I see it as in, I mean, we... The way
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I see it is that we're always going to be
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in a space. Even if we think that we're not
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in a space, we're there. Like, Black people... just overall
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are innovative. We're always solving problems, solutions. We're always creating
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solutions for ourselves. So I think it's a part of
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our responsibility to try to get the word out there,
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to make sure that people know about us. They know
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what we're doing, each organization individually, but then collectively. And
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then it's also a part of our community to seek
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things out because we're here. I know the Deaf Color
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has been around for a little bit and even if
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an organization is new, I think that there's ways that
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we can like find each other and seek each other out.
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So I'm like, me personally, I'm always just like seeing
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like who's here, who's around, what's going on, what's happening
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in my community, what organizations exist, what organizations might need support,
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what organizations are coming up. So I think that that's
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a part of, you know, like, just curiosity to seek
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out groups and organizations and services that are available in
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your community. That's one part of it. But then, like
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I said, it's also organizations' responsibility to make sure that
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the community knows that they're there and that we're here.
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And so I think what came out of Black LA
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Tech Week is all of these organizations really collectively powering
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together and leveraging the fact that it's LA Tech Week
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to let the larger Los Angeles tech community know that
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there are black organizations in the tech space. There's actually
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20 plus more of us. So, and this is what
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we're doing. And this is what we're putting into practice
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every single year now. So this is year two. There's
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plans to continue for year three, four, five, as long
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as we can. And so I think people should also
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support Black LA Tech Week because while we have, you know,
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in this first and second year, we've definitely did what
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we could with budget. There's also, you know, we got
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to make, we got to fund these things.
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So absolutely.
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Everybody think about that.
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Paris McCoy is with me. She's the executive director of Teclamert.
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We'll continue this conversation after news traffic and sports on
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KBLA Talk 1580. Oh my, my, my. Paris McCoy is
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here from She's the executive director. She's been hanging out
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at LA Black Tech Week, LA Tech Week. All the
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tech things are here. I'm saying, oh, my, my, my,
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because I just saw this video. that the resident posted.
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It's an AI generated video of himself wrestling a tiger.
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And then he hugs the tiger. And you know, people
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are angry because of course, somebody was recently fatally mauled
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by a tiger of course the person went into the
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tiger enclosure but i just bring it up because we
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were talking about this with journalist char josel earlier it's
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so hard to know what's real and what's fake i
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mean you can tell this is fake because he's running
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and when have you ever seen the resident running but
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i mean generally it gets more and more difficult the
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other day i got tricked by something that really upset
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me because this my job to know the real from
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the fake um you know, I didn't, I didn't stay
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tricked because I was down the rabbit hole. Well, that
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doesn't seem right. And double checking it, but it's, it's spent,
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it wasted 20 minutes of my life. Yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah. It does. It does. And I, you, I'm
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a hundred percent right there with you. Um, my friends
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and I, when we see things, you're like, this is
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getting pretty good. So, you know, and we, we have
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trained eyes and you have trained eyes and we're still like,
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I need to look at this actually twice because, you know,
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I need to find the point where it's off, but yes,
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it's getting very, very good.
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I mean, it's like, but it's like we were in
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election season. And I think about, you know, just the
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deep fakes and the, there's so many videos, AI videos
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up now of black women doing horrible things that are
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just meant to look us, make us look bad in general. Right.
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And anyway, I have a couple of boomer friends that
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are constantly sending me videos and I'm thinking to myself,
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you know, that's AI, right? You know, you know that anyway.
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Um, yeah, I have, I have a blue, I have
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bloomer parents myself and I'm always like, you know, we're
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having conversations and I'm always in their ear about, uh,
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maintaining like their level of hyper-vigilance when it comes to
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seeing things. And so, you know, yes, but when people
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send videos and I'm like, you know, that's, you gotta,
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you gotta really look at these things and you think like,
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You know, as my boomer parents would say, like, you know,
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common sense. Think about the common sense. Like, would this
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particular person be saying this or doing this? Like, you
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really have to be, you have to judge. You have
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to judge. You have to use your judgment about what
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is and what isn't, you know, factual. You have to
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start relying on that a lot more. Yeah.
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Well, I mean, yeah, we've got to use our own head.
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Context clues. I think that's what they used to tell
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us when we were little kids. Steve is calling us
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from L.A. Good morning, Steve.
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Hi, good morning.
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Hi, what's on your mind? Oh, yes.
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So I wanted to find out, like, I was listening
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about the organizations and stuff. Is there an intentionality to, like,
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use black spaces and, like, vendors as well? um, when
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it comes to Black LA Tech Week and how can, um,
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other people get involved with that?
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Yeah.
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So I would, I would like for, uh, this is,
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this is really wonderful. So Steven is one of the, uh,
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the founders of Black LA Tech Week or one of
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the persons that's really driving this. So, um, I would
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invite you, Stephen, to actually answer that question.
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Oh, if Paris wants you to answer your own question. Okay,
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we can do that. I talk to myself, too.
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I wanted to hear it in your words, Paris. But, yeah, yeah. Oh,
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good morning, Dominique. I'm a big fan of yours.
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Thank you.
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Yes, yes. But, yeah, there is an intentionality with not
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only– partnering with the great organizations that we've partnered with,
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but also using black spaces. Like our main venue partner
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is LDU, Life Development University, right near your station in
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Leimert Park. As well as, for instance, we had a
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co-working day yesterday that was put on by DevColor, and
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our coffee vendor was a black coffee vendor, a tech-themed
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coffee vendor at that, named File Systems for Coffee and
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stuff like that. So there definitely is an intentionality to
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use black vendors, food vendors, coffee, whatever the needs, we're
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looking for black vendors to be a part of that
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message like, hey, we're here And we have all these
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resources for the community.
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Yeah, how do people get involved? Like, let's say I
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have a space or I am a vendor of some kind.
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How would I get on the list or get in
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the queue?
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There are a couple of ways. So you can go
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to our website, blacklatechweek.com. There's a form that you can
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submit from there, or you can send an email to
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info at blacklatechweek.com. You can also hit us up on
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our socials. On Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, you know, all those.
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It's Black LA Tech Week on those.
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00:25:22.660 --> 00:25:26.349
Okay, you said info at blacklatechweek.com if people want to inquire.
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00:25:26.369 --> 00:25:29.769
I'm assuming it's probably too late for this year because
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we're done Sunday, but you can get in the sort
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of system, if you will.
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I mean, hey, you know, one of the nights that
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we had this week, we had a food truck pull
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up right in front of LDU. For the remaining nights,
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we've got a great video game event tonight. We have
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the family day on Sunday. If someone wants to pull up,
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you know, by all means, hit us up.
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Okay.
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I love that. I love that for us because sometimes
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we like to be a little bit spontaneous. Okay. You know,
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a little or a lot. Is this a place or
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a space, Paris, for beginners? You know, we talk so
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much about sort of the denial and the fear around AI. And,
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you know, Miles is over here holding folks' hands saying,
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use it to your advantage because it's not going nowhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Other folks are saying, but it's sucking up the water.
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And I'm one of those folks, but also... I do
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listen to Miles, you know, and I've seen some of
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the efficiencies and things, although like I've often said, if
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I have to look at one more AI flyer, my
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head might explode. Yeah, I heard that, I heard that.
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Except for there's probably some that I don't know are
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AI flyers because they're using it differently, right? But anyway,
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is this a place for beginners, for people that are
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just trying to, to get their feelers anywhere in the
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tech world, whether it's AI or software or games or,
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you know, the many things that you guys are focused on.
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I will, I mean, in taking a second thought about
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that question that you asked earlier about who this is for,
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I think it might be for the beginners the most.
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Technology has always been difficult to navigate. It can have
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like a lot of things going on, and it can
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be very, very intimidating for anyone. And so if this
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is like where the beginner can come and, you know,
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it's our job in all of the organizations is to
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demystify the technology world and then also to show doors
474
00:27:46.539 --> 00:27:51.180
of access, right? Because, you know, collectively, we've all went
475
00:27:51.220 --> 00:27:54.160
up against a lot of different things. If it's the workplace,
476
00:27:54.240 --> 00:27:56.890
if it's, you know, like we're not getting access, we're
477
00:27:56.910 --> 00:28:00.670
like looking at policy, we're looking at all these different things. Collectively,
478
00:28:01.309 --> 00:28:04.740
you know, we're attacking these things head on together. And
479
00:28:04.779 --> 00:28:07.680
so like for that beginner to be in a safe space,
480
00:28:07.740 --> 00:28:11.180
be amongst people that look like themselves, then they might
481
00:28:11.220 --> 00:28:14.039
be more inclined to ask those initial questions that somebody
482
00:28:14.059 --> 00:28:16.700
may not want to ask. So yes, I think it's
483
00:28:16.779 --> 00:28:20.829
for the beginner actually the most, you know, come through. Like,
484
00:28:20.869 --> 00:28:24.250
you know, we're, there's some, all of these organizations are
485
00:28:24.269 --> 00:28:27.990
so warm and welcoming. There's been so many, and like
486
00:28:28.049 --> 00:28:31.109
for Like I would say, you know, somebody like me
487
00:28:31.150 --> 00:28:34.029
who's been navigating these spaces for so long, I've had
488
00:28:34.109 --> 00:28:40.099
some very encouraging conversations. And they're always fresh and new
489
00:28:40.140 --> 00:28:42.980
and like these different perspectives. So, you know, if somebody's
490
00:28:43.039 --> 00:28:46.769
like nervous, this is the place where you don't have
491
00:28:46.809 --> 00:28:51.390
to be nervous at all because we're having these real conversations. So, yes,
492
00:28:51.630 --> 00:28:53.210
it's for the newcomer, actually.
493
00:28:53.230 --> 00:28:58.170
Yeah. All right, well, we're being joined by Paris McCoy,
494
00:28:58.250 --> 00:29:02.269
the Executive Director of TechLimert. Steve is on the phone.
495
00:29:02.289 --> 00:29:04.509
He's one of the founders. And we'll keep it going.
496
00:29:04.549 --> 00:29:08.299
If you've got a question or a commentary or just
497
00:29:08.319 --> 00:29:13.160
a thought, 800-920-1580, 800-920-1580. Let's see what they're talking about
498
00:29:13.579 --> 00:29:17.779
in this chat. I'm Dominique DiFrima for KBLA Talk 1580.
499
00:29:17.779 --> 00:29:20.480
Paris McCoy is with us on the phone. She is
500
00:29:20.519 --> 00:29:24.559
the Executive Director of TechLimert. We also have, uh, Stephen
501
00:29:24.619 --> 00:29:28.269
Barrios joining us on the phone. Um, your Instagram says
502
00:29:28.309 --> 00:29:33.390
you're an LA native and a techie. Um, and how does,
503
00:29:33.589 --> 00:29:38.109
how does that happen, Stephen? Like, how did you, become
504
00:29:38.130 --> 00:29:38.690
a techie?
505
00:29:40.369 --> 00:29:41.049
Oh, yeah.
506
00:29:41.170 --> 00:29:46.170
So I'm going to date myself a little bit. So
507
00:29:47.069 --> 00:29:50.690
around four years old, I would get dropped off at
508
00:29:50.730 --> 00:29:55.440
my grandma's house. And around that time when Nickelodeon there
509
00:29:55.460 --> 00:29:58.799
was this show called Mr. Wizard's World. This was before
510
00:29:59.079 --> 00:30:02.529
like Beakman's World and, you know, Bill Nye the Science
511
00:30:02.589 --> 00:30:03.890
Guy and all that stuff.
512
00:30:03.930 --> 00:30:04.269
Mr.
513
00:30:04.309 --> 00:30:08.569
Wizard's World. Yeah, yeah. And they would do like these,
514
00:30:08.589 --> 00:30:12.930
you know, science experiments with kids and the episodes that
515
00:30:12.990 --> 00:30:16.309
covered like computers and robots and all that stuff, I
516
00:30:16.329 --> 00:30:21.730
just gravitated to and stuff. So since I was very young,
517
00:30:21.779 --> 00:30:26.740
I've been excited about technology, and decided back then I
518
00:30:26.779 --> 00:30:30.589
wanted to be an engineer. And I went to USC,
519
00:30:30.660 --> 00:30:34.130
got my degree in computer science, and, yeah, I've been
520
00:30:34.190 --> 00:30:39.930
a software engineer ever since then. So only lived two
521
00:30:39.970 --> 00:30:42.829
places my whole life, L.A., and then after college moved
522
00:30:42.849 --> 00:30:45.170
to New York for a little while. But I tell
523
00:30:45.210 --> 00:30:47.519
folks after the second blizzard I came back home.
524
00:30:49.619 --> 00:30:51.339
Where did you go to high school here in L.A.
525
00:30:53.789 --> 00:30:59.430
So Crenshaw Christian Center recently closed Frederick Casey Price III
526
00:31:00.069 --> 00:31:03.529
schools and stuff, which was kind of a full circle
527
00:31:03.569 --> 00:31:07.299
moment because our kickoff this year was that what used
528
00:31:07.319 --> 00:31:10.839
to be the Savoy that was bought by the Jones
529
00:31:10.900 --> 00:31:15.960
sisters who own 1010 Wine Bar in Inglewood. And we
530
00:31:15.980 --> 00:31:18.339
went to school together there at Price and stuff. So
531
00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:20.990
that was kind of cool. To work together.
532
00:31:21.210 --> 00:31:23.349
So you were just always that way. You just always
533
00:31:23.450 --> 00:31:29.299
gravitated toward technology. And obviously you took to it and
534
00:31:29.319 --> 00:31:32.460
it worked out for you. You graduated from USC. You're working.
535
00:31:33.660 --> 00:31:36.579
We always hear so much about people in the space, creators,
536
00:31:36.900 --> 00:31:40.819
black creators in the space, feeling isolated, not getting the
537
00:31:40.859 --> 00:31:45.700
same opportunities, being discriminated against. Have you found that or
538
00:31:45.720 --> 00:31:48.750
have you found it's like, oh, we found a black engineer.
539
00:31:48.809 --> 00:31:51.630
We need you. Or is it a combination of both?
540
00:31:53.289 --> 00:31:59.420
It's been interesting because... How can I answer that? I
541
00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:07.880
haven't really struggled with, like, opportunities, but I've felt kind
542
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:10.920
of alone a lot of times in that. Like, I
543
00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:14.700
didn't see a lot of people like myself. And then
544
00:32:14.740 --> 00:32:18.960
that's where kind of imposter syndrome may come in because...
545
00:32:19.220 --> 00:32:21.630
if you see a bunch of other folks in your
546
00:32:21.710 --> 00:32:24.849
field and not many look like you, it's like, man,
547
00:32:25.089 --> 00:32:29.130
like that little voice is like, do I belong here? Like,
548
00:32:29.329 --> 00:32:32.289
you know, and all that stuff. Like, I know I do,
549
00:32:32.390 --> 00:32:34.849
but it would be nice if I saw other folks
550
00:32:34.890 --> 00:32:37.430
that look like me and stuff like that. And so
551
00:32:37.990 --> 00:32:42.480
what led to me getting involved with DevColor is I
552
00:32:42.519 --> 00:32:45.279
was 10 years into my career and it just kind
553
00:32:45.339 --> 00:32:47.759
of hit me like, man, I've never worked with another
554
00:32:48.410 --> 00:32:51.769
black software engineer. Like, I got to do something about this.
555
00:32:51.869 --> 00:32:55.930
So I did a search and found DevColor, which has
556
00:32:55.970 --> 00:32:59.990
been around for about 11 years now and, you know,
557
00:33:00.109 --> 00:33:02.369
signed up for their conference. And that was the first
558
00:33:02.430 --> 00:33:05.930
time I was around other black software engineers and stuff.
559
00:33:06.410 --> 00:33:08.400
And it kind of lit a fire in me as
560
00:33:08.500 --> 00:33:12.240
far as like building community from that point on with
561
00:33:12.319 --> 00:33:16.569
other folks from similar backgrounds and all that. So, And
562
00:33:16.670 --> 00:33:20.750
also hearing from them, their perspectives and stuff about working
563
00:33:20.829 --> 00:33:24.819
at big companies, small companies in between and all that.
564
00:33:24.940 --> 00:33:32.369
So since that time, yes, I have seen companies and
565
00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:37.930
like different situations where it's like, okay, something isn't right here.
566
00:33:38.009 --> 00:33:42.900
Like the vibe is off. there's this buzzword of culture fit.
567
00:33:43.140 --> 00:33:46.559
You know what I'm saying? That comes up sometimes doing
568
00:33:46.579 --> 00:33:49.700
job interviews and it could be like, okay, that might
569
00:33:49.740 --> 00:33:53.769
be a dog whistle in this case. But, you know,
570
00:33:53.910 --> 00:33:59.009
but overall, personally, I haven't, I've been very blessed to
571
00:33:59.069 --> 00:34:04.190
have great opportunities. There was a black director when I
572
00:34:04.230 --> 00:34:07.359
was a student on campus at USC that kind of
573
00:34:07.809 --> 00:34:12.449
like launched my professional career because he had an idea
574
00:34:12.469 --> 00:34:16.949
to build this system. And, you know, the IT department
575
00:34:16.969 --> 00:34:19.329
didn't really have capacity to do it. So he asked
576
00:34:19.409 --> 00:34:22.530
me like, Hey, are you interested? And I wound up
577
00:34:22.570 --> 00:34:25.780
building that and that landed me my first job after college.
578
00:34:25.880 --> 00:34:29.139
So I've been very blessed with the people around me
579
00:34:29.179 --> 00:34:29.739
and stuff.
580
00:34:29.820 --> 00:34:32.599
Yeah. Congratulations. I know we probably have some in our
581
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:36.199
delegation that are in similar situations and tech jobs or spaces.
582
00:34:36.260 --> 00:34:40.860
And certainly, um, Black Tech Week, Black LA Tech Week
583
00:34:41.010 --> 00:34:43.869
is a great place to connect. It's going on now.
584
00:34:43.929 --> 00:34:50.750
It's going on through the weekend. You can go to blacklatechweek.com. Oh, look,
585
00:34:51.070 --> 00:34:54.730
they've decided they will not live stream that execution. Speaking
586
00:34:54.769 --> 00:34:58.170
of tech, we were speculating about who's going to let
587
00:34:58.210 --> 00:35:01.550
you live stream that, an actual killing. But I guess
588
00:35:01.650 --> 00:35:07.889
the president has decided to not go ahead and live stream.
589
00:35:08.190 --> 00:35:11.909
It's just a really weird use of tech. Let's broadcast
590
00:35:11.969 --> 00:35:15.570
murder as entertainment all over the world. I guess that
591
00:35:15.670 --> 00:35:19.110
has been squashed. So that's good news on the tech front.
592
00:35:19.150 --> 00:35:23.030
We were trying to figure out like what platform would say, oh, sure,
593
00:35:23.090 --> 00:35:26.050
go ahead. And, you know, and I mean, I guess
594
00:35:26.070 --> 00:35:30.409
you're the government, you have different rules, but still that
595
00:35:30.429 --> 00:35:33.340
I would consider that good news. I don't know if Paris,
596
00:35:33.360 --> 00:35:34.900
if you want to have anything to say about that,
597
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:38.309
we were like, Whose terms of service allow live executions?
598
00:35:40.530 --> 00:35:43.579
Yeah, I think that the only thing that I would
599
00:35:43.820 --> 00:35:47.679
say about that in full is that I'm very, very
600
00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:53.969
happy that that's not being done. That's not being live
601
00:35:53.989 --> 00:35:58.489
streamed because the implications of that go far beyond what
602
00:35:58.909 --> 00:36:02.730
our current government is. you know, things are like, there'll
603
00:36:02.750 --> 00:36:04.570
be a lot of consequences from that. So I'm glad
604
00:36:04.590 --> 00:36:06.170
that we're not, we're not doing that.
605
00:36:06.409 --> 00:36:09.489
Yeah. It's a terrible, um, door to open. And I
606
00:36:09.530 --> 00:36:11.750
think once you open it, you know, it's hard to
607
00:36:11.789 --> 00:36:14.239
close it. We've already got enough people beating people up
608
00:36:14.300 --> 00:36:18.000
and torturing puppies and stuff on, on, on YouTube. We
609
00:36:18.019 --> 00:36:20.099
don't need actual murders.
610
00:36:21.179 --> 00:36:22.179
Yeah, absolutely.
611
00:36:22.340 --> 00:36:25.900
A hundred percent. And it's just a very, like you said,
612
00:36:25.940 --> 00:36:29.190
it's a, it's a, not a great way to use
613
00:36:29.230 --> 00:36:33.059
technology and it also just says a lot on the
614
00:36:33.099 --> 00:36:36.219
world stage or even more about where we are as
615
00:36:36.300 --> 00:36:39.800
a society yeah and it's not a good message you know.
616
00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:42.579
Absolutely well thank you so much for being with us
617
00:36:42.639 --> 00:36:45.780
this morning sounds like a great opportunity for a lot
618
00:36:45.800 --> 00:36:49.269
of folks to go out to la tech week network
619
00:36:49.369 --> 00:36:53.050
learn and hang out have some fun uh do some
620
00:36:53.070 --> 00:36:57.760
playing Um, so Stephen Barrios and, um, Paris McCoy, thank
621
00:36:57.780 --> 00:36:59.539
you so much for being with us this morning.
622
00:37:01.119 --> 00:37:01.940
Thank you so much.
623
00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:03.099
Thank you.
624
00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:06.539
Yes, indeed. There's a lot going on around here. Happy
625
00:37:07.260 --> 00:37:11.210
60th anniversary to the black Panther party. There are, there
626
00:37:11.269 --> 00:37:14.750
are events going on all over California and celebration. I
627
00:37:14.769 --> 00:37:17.690
would argue all over the nation in celebration of that.
628
00:37:18.150 --> 00:37:20.750
Tavis Smiley's up next. He's got a great show on
629
00:37:20.809 --> 00:37:23.510
deck for you. You do not want to miss it. Um,
630
00:37:24.139 --> 00:37:27.539
He has got, in fact, the man who may be
631
00:37:27.559 --> 00:37:30.449
the next governor of the state of California, Javier Becerra,
632
00:37:30.840 --> 00:37:34.329
joins Tavis Smiley live in studio today. And that's a
633
00:37:34.349 --> 00:37:36.929
really big deal. You don't want to miss it. You
634
00:37:36.969 --> 00:37:41.139
can find me on social media at DiPrima Radio, D-I-P-R-I-M-A.
635
00:37:41.530 --> 00:37:44.239
And then radio, you can find the station everywhere at
636
00:37:44.320 --> 00:37:49.590
KBLA 1580. Please like, follow, and subscribe. Like my mama,
637
00:37:49.659 --> 00:37:52.860
the late great poet laureate of San Francisco, Diane de Prima,
638
00:37:52.920 --> 00:37:56.619
said in one of her poems, the ultimate famine is
639
00:37:56.679 --> 00:38:01.869
the starvation of the imagination. Until tomorrow, KBLA Delegation, I'm
640
00:38:01.909 --> 00:38:04.030
Dominique de Prima. One love.
1
00:00:00.470 --> 00:00:04.669
Rest in peace, Pac. Thinking about it. Keep it deep.
2
00:00:04.750 --> 00:00:08.859
Doing 40 years. I was thinking about it, how you
3
00:00:08.900 --> 00:00:12.539
and I weren't, you know, we're not feeling a strong
4
00:00:12.599 --> 00:00:16.219
identification with that whole trial and stuff. And then I realized,
5
00:00:16.260 --> 00:00:19.199
you know, people got Tupac's name in their mouths, and
6
00:00:19.219 --> 00:00:21.170
that's a good thing, too. I'll take it.
7
00:00:22.149 --> 00:00:24.429
The whole time. The entire time had his name in it.
8
00:00:24.429 --> 00:00:24.710
Yeah.
9
00:00:25.030 --> 00:00:28.750
Well, it's another round. You know, the mainstream media. We
10
00:00:28.789 --> 00:00:33.549
know the people. We know the people. As we mark
11
00:00:33.549 --> 00:00:38.479
60 years of the Black Panther Party, of which Tupac
12
00:00:38.500 --> 00:00:42.100
Shakur is a product. You think about all the impacts
13
00:00:42.539 --> 00:00:44.619
of the Black Panther Party. That right there is one
14
00:00:44.659 --> 00:00:49.719
of them, people. So happy 60th to Tupac. the struggle
15
00:00:49.780 --> 00:00:52.859
happy 60th to the soldiers in the struggle, many of
16
00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:56.740
whom are still with us today. Um, we appreciate you.
17
00:00:56.799 --> 00:00:59.399
We see you and we thank you for your service.
18
00:01:00.009 --> 00:01:02.649
So miles, you actually been attending some of this black
19
00:01:02.689 --> 00:01:03.770
tech week stuff, right?
20
00:01:04.489 --> 00:01:06.930
Yeah. I caught the, uh, the opening night where they had, uh,
21
00:01:07.010 --> 00:01:09.250
down in Englewood. It was very nice turnout. Um, it's
22
00:01:09.269 --> 00:01:15.810
beautiful to see the black tech economy in real time. Um, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
23
00:01:15.849 --> 00:01:18.590
Seeing the ideas come together, seeing people get out and
24
00:01:18.670 --> 00:01:21.730
actually real world, you know, I mean, vibe with each other,
25
00:01:21.750 --> 00:01:24.650
not just vibe code online through headsets and on Zooms
26
00:01:24.689 --> 00:01:27.129
and with AI, like actually meet the people who are
27
00:01:27.170 --> 00:01:29.939
putting ideas in motion. So, yeah, it was great. I
28
00:01:29.950 --> 00:01:31.780
caught the first line. I meant to go last night.
29
00:01:31.799 --> 00:01:33.799
They had another event right here at Leimert Park. Your
30
00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:36.079
boy Money B was there and Raz Kaz. They were
31
00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:40.209
talking about AI and hip hop. And I ended up
32
00:01:40.390 --> 00:01:41.689
missing it because I had a class I had to
33
00:01:41.930 --> 00:01:45.549
be a part of. But, yeah, the events have been very,
34
00:01:45.650 --> 00:01:48.269
very well attended. I'm seeing the people all around town.
35
00:01:48.310 --> 00:01:51.230
I followed a couple people that night that I went. And, yeah,
36
00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:54.900
just seeing the motion and the excitement. And, you know,
37
00:01:54.920 --> 00:01:57.739
we just got off with Shard Zed. He was talking about,
38
00:01:57.900 --> 00:01:59.939
you know, the notebook LMs and all of them. And
39
00:02:00.319 --> 00:02:03.680
it's just seeing the flip side of where we are
40
00:02:03.719 --> 00:02:07.409
as well, seeing the people that are as, jovial and, and,
41
00:02:08.009 --> 00:02:10.509
you know, as clear riding as I am, you know,
42
00:02:10.569 --> 00:02:12.210
it was great event to, to be a part of
43
00:02:12.229 --> 00:02:12.530
for sure.
44
00:02:13.009 --> 00:02:15.710
Yeah. I think we talked so much about how we're
45
00:02:15.750 --> 00:02:18.569
shut out of tech and tech isn't built for us.
46
00:02:18.650 --> 00:02:21.729
And the digital divide was a thing. And so it's,
47
00:02:22.069 --> 00:02:24.580
it's great to see how many creators are in the space,
48
00:02:24.620 --> 00:02:26.759
how many are thriving in the space. I haven't had
49
00:02:26.800 --> 00:02:28.819
the opportunity to go this week, but a lot of
50
00:02:28.860 --> 00:02:32.780
the things that I've attended with Tecla Mert, um, I,
51
00:02:32.900 --> 00:02:37.150
I meet people, I meet creators, um, whole companies led
52
00:02:37.210 --> 00:02:39.960
by black folks in the tech space. And I don't
53
00:02:39.969 --> 00:02:42.740
think we talk enough about the success stories in that.
54
00:02:43.300 --> 00:02:45.620
Yeah. And that's been the beauty of it too, is
55
00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:49.099
networking with the The people who have the infrastructure put
56
00:02:49.150 --> 00:02:52.949
in place because the ideas are one thing. One or
57
00:02:52.990 --> 00:02:57.289
two products is something as well. But a full infrastructure
58
00:02:57.969 --> 00:03:00.969
and systems built around you that's ready to implement people
59
00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:04.080
who have and are ready for these opportunities. Yeah, that's
60
00:03:04.159 --> 00:03:06.139
that's where the power move really comes in. And that's
61
00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:09.379
a blessing to see because, you know, it's moving fast
62
00:03:09.400 --> 00:03:12.500
and it's really easy to get caught behind. And, you know,
63
00:03:12.520 --> 00:03:14.500
behind the waves. So to stay on the cutting edge
64
00:03:14.580 --> 00:03:16.020
of it and see so many of us still on
65
00:03:16.039 --> 00:03:17.759
the cutting edge of it, you know, it gave me
66
00:03:17.780 --> 00:03:19.020
a lot of a lot of hope, a lot of faith.
67
00:03:19.060 --> 00:03:20.340
And I'm proud and excited.
68
00:03:20.840 --> 00:03:22.379
Yeah. I mean, I know you work and you move
69
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in that space. That's you've got your show, The Do
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Better Show, Saturdays at noon.
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But amazing show, by the way.
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Amazing show.
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Yeah.
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You got you want to tell us what you have
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on deck this week?
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Still putting it together, but I was doing a little
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bit more research, though, and I'm probably going to launch
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a few more of my products. Dominique, you know I've
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been making games and making apps and websites, so I
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might share some more of my behind-the-scenes on actually putting
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that together and maybe share the game a little bit.
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I even played one of your games, one of your
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Do Better games, Do Better Arcade. I'm thinking of Camille Terry,
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who was in here. She's a co-founder of Charger Help.
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That's one of the people that I met indirectly through
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Tech Leimert. And it's a black woman that owns a
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company that repairs the EV charging stations. It's like there's
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all these Madam and Senor Tussauds in the tech space
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that are doing it. And so I think for me,
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it's also a reminder that not, you know, yes, it's true.
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There's discrimination. Yes, it's true. The algorithms are stacked against us.
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And it's an opportunity. And it is a field of opportunity.
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And it is a place where we can make a
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way for ourselves.
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It's a window. It's a window that's wide open right now.
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And it's not going to be open forever. Not just
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in the ai space but like you said the infrastructure
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space the uh actually people who who are in the
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engineering space and want to engineer and build products and
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our computer programmers and cyber security and the the financial
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uh movement that we've had over these last few years
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so i'm invest fest on to wealth building wednesdays you
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know i'm saying like there's there's there's millions and of
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opportunities that are out there and i think that everybody
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has opportunity to Get involved. You've got to figure out
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what it is that you can get involved in, what
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your specialty is, what aligns with you. But, no, it's
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not the panic at all. It's not the time to panic, y'all.
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It's the time to focus up, be intentional, and make
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some moves because it's here.
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Apparently, there's one in Detroit, Michigan also, something called Dunamis Charger.
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This woman actually manufactures the chargers. Her name is Natalie King,
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another black woman.
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Yep.
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And so it's black men and women. There's a number
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of them. And I think if you can dream it up,
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if you can imagine it, then you can find someone
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to make it technically sound. It's like the man we
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had on the other day with closed loop engineering. There's
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folks out there that will help you figure out The
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engineering pieces of it, the coding pieces of it, just
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dream of an idea. And yeah, so Black Tech Week,
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great opportunity.
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I want to add on top what you just said, Dominique.
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We just talked about all these black people who have
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been let go of jobs, who are engineers and lifelong
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doctors and lifelong teachers and and program designers, and now's
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the time where if you have the idea, you should
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put those black people to work on your idea to
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bring it to life. That's how you keep the dollar circulating.
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Got to keep them circulating, and especially in your own account.
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It is Tech Week. It's supposed to be in our
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thought consciousness today. We're on our Think Tank Thursday, and
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we're teaming up with Tech Leimert this morning. We'll keep
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the conversation going. And of course, Miles Lowe, our resident expert,
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keep the convo going when we come forward on KBLA
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Talk 1580. And I want to remind you, tomorrow's our
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Freedman Friday show, that our Freedman Friday archive is live,
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speaking of resources you can find online. You can find
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it at DominiqueDeprima.com. That's D-I-P-R-I-M-A.com, DominiqueDeprima.com. That's my personal website.
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And you can also find the playlist there for all
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of the Friedman Friday shows. If you're trying to get
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caught up on reparations, you can also find that hub
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on KBLA1580. com as well. And there's a catalog on my
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sub stack that tells us who called, who was on
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the show, when they were on the show and what
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they were talking about with links in case you're trying
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to do some research and get outside of the hallucinatory
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space with the reparations. Such great points that Char Giselle
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was making in terms of how we can get fooled,
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even journalists. I got fooled the other day by something
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and I was so mad. Of course, I figured it out,
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but the fact that I wasted 20 minutes of my
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life before I realized it was To quote the resident,
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fake news really irritated me. We're being joined now by
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creative producer, director of photography, and an early adopter. She
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is the executive director of Tech Leimert. Paris McCoy joins us.
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Good morning.
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Good morning. Good morning. How's everyone doing this morning?
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All is well. How are you?
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I'm doing good. We're in the middle of Black LA
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Tech weekend. It's been a great weekend. great last few days.
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Yeah, we were just talking about that. Miles and I,
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Miles has had the opportunity to spend some time at,
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you know, Black Tech Week. And I know it's, I
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know it's about networking. I know it's always about exposure, right?
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But what else is, what else is the purpose? What
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is the stated goal of LA Black Tech Week?
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I think overall, in addition to what you mentioned, the
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point of Black LA Tech Week is to really just
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talk about and be in community about all the things
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that are affecting us from the technological standpoint or from
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the technology standpoint. There's so many things that are happening,
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and this is just an opportunity to meet with our
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folks and talk about it. To give you an example, Um,
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there's been some conversation around, uh, some of the things
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that my alma mater, Howard university is getting involved with
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Google and AI. And so like at black LA tech week,
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I'm able to meet folks and we're able to talk about,
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you know, the yays and nays and what we like
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and don't like about that particular situation. So it's really
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just a safe space for us to have these conversations.
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Yeah. Well, it's going on through the weekend?
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Yes, it's going on through the weekend. The last event
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is on the 18th, which is this coming Sunday.
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Man, it seems like everything is happening in LA this weekend.
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It's just a busy week, not to mention, you know,
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a week In election week, the election is today, and
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I'll be saying that every day until November 3rd. But
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I'm like, who goes to this thing?
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Who goes to this thing? It's intergenerational. I want to
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start with that. It's intergenerational. It's everyone, honestly. Like, I've
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come across people. And just to give some further context,
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it's also Los Angeles Tech Week. So that's the larger
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LA County really getting involved in Tech Week. So there's
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things happening all over the city that are not just
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a part of Black LA Tech Week, but just Tech
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Week in general. And I'm saying there's everyone from different
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career backgrounds, career switchers, intergenerational. We had Kids Day. like
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the family STEM day last Sunday, we're having it again
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this Sunday. So it's really just really everyone because tech
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is affecting all of our lives. So, you know, everyone's there, um,
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from people who are in the political space, from people
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who are in healthcare entrepreneurs, there's a lot of entrepreneurs
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and businesses. Like for instance, uh, tech Lamar this evening
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is doing the, um, co-pilot Microsoft co-pilot, uh, for small business.
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So that's like a, a workshop that we're doing. And
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those are all businesses that are coming through. So it's really,
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really everyone.
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Is that still open? Can people still sign up for
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that if they, um, have a small business?
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Um, they can still sign up for it. We have
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a wait list. Uh, we did reach capacity for people
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signing up, but sometimes, you know, people don't show. So,
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you know, we do, we do want to leave the
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wait list open and it's this evening from five 30
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to eight 30.
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Okay, and I'm sure you can find it. BlackLATechWeek.com is
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the website. BlackLATechWeek on Instagram is a good place to look.
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BlackLATechWeek is not just TechLimurn. It's a whole bunch of
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different organizations. Talk to me about what that coalition is
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and who these folks are that are coming together here.
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You are absolutely correct about that. It is about 20-plus
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organizations that have come together here. And that was the
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case last year when Black LA Tech Week, the inaugural
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year for Black LA Tech Week. I mean, we have
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the Hidden Genius Project, Out of Office, the Black Professionals Network, NSBE.
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NSBE is really, really huge. They were very involved last
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year and they're involved this year. And NSBE is the
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National Society of Black Engineers. We have We Are Science,
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Ocean AI. We have the Black Doctors Creative, which had
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an event yesterday. I believe it was yesterday or the
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day before at Life Development University. I mean, and they
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packed the house out like I drove by and I
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saw them in there. Yeah, on Crenshaw. We're doing this
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co-founder AI. There's DevColor. DevColor is important. There's Solar Robotics.
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I'm pretty sure people have heard about Solar Robotics. We
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actually have an organization that had a pitch competition yesterday.
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last night at the Angel City Lab, which is off
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of Jefferson, and Testify and Pitch actually is an organization
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that came from Atlanta, and they had a huge pitch
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session over at Angel City Business Lab last night, which
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I'm seeing some of the posts, and it looked like
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it was phenomenal. We also have Many Minds. So, you know,
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that's an organization that's also working with the youth. So
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there's quite a bit of organizations. And I do apologize
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to any of our partners if I left someone out,
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but there's quite a bit of organizations that are involved
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in this.
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And these are black-led or black-owned organizations. I see Black
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Education Expo. I'm looking on the website here. Neighborhood Linguists.
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The Neighborhood Linguist?
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Yeah, these are all Black ladder, Black-owned organizations.
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Absolutely, they are, which is really, really telling to the
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power of organizations that are in the neighborhood that are
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willing to put, like I said, even like Testify and Pitch,
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they're from Atlanta, but they heard about Black LA Tech
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Week and they really wanted to be a part of this.
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We also have, today we have like a gaming event
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a gaming event and Lisa, Lisa Osborne from the back from,
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from black public media. She's actually from Los Angeles and
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I mean, I'm sorry, New York. And she's been involved with,
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you know, a lot of creatives in the XR space
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and the gaming space. And she's doing a huge event
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showcasing some games that are black, black, black developed today.
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So that's really huge. I want to give a huge
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shout out to black, black public network. I'm sorry, black
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public media.
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Excuse me.
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Black public media.
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Yeah, you kind of skipped over because you were just
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doing a list, which is great. But what is DevColor?
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So DevColor is an organization that is an organization of
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a group of developers, and they just come together and
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they hold community for developers that are black.
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You're talking about developers of Software?
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Yep. That's primarily like software developers.
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Okay.
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And they hosted a coworking coffee yesterday, and it was
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quite a few of, you know, people that were from
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DevColor but then are not from DevColor that came and
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really like networked, co-worked, and I was seeing like a
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lot of things get done. People were really getting some
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work done. So DevColor is an organization of, yeah, of
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black developers. technology developers, software developers.
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I mean, I think that Miles and I were talking
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earlier about how, you know, despite the algorithms in many cases,
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you know, being biased against black people, despite the fact
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that we are not running the big, big companies and
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we are underrepresented in tech, there's all this stuff going
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on that a lot of folks don't even know about.
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Some of these organizations on your website I had never
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even heard of And, you know, you've got thousands of
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people coming together this week for Black LA Tech Week.
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So it's like despite or maybe because of the way
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that we're shut out, we are proliferating. Is that how
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you see it?
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I see it as in, I mean, we... The way
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I see it is that we're always going to be
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in a space. Even if we think that we're not
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in a space, we're there. Like, Black people... just overall
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are innovative. We're always solving problems, solutions. We're always creating
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solutions for ourselves. So I think it's a part of
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our responsibility to try to get the word out there,
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to make sure that people know about us. They know
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what we're doing, each organization individually, but then collectively. And
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then it's also a part of our community to seek
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things out because we're here. I know the Deaf Color
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has been around for a little bit and even if
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an organization is new, I think that there's ways that
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we can like find each other and seek each other out.
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So I'm like, me personally, I'm always just like seeing
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like who's here, who's around, what's going on, what's happening
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in my community, what organizations exist, what organizations might need support,
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00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:14.240
what organizations are coming up. So I think that that's
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a part of, you know, like, just curiosity to seek
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out groups and organizations and services that are available in
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your community. That's one part of it. But then, like
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I said, it's also organizations' responsibility to make sure that
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the community knows that they're there and that we're here.
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And so I think what came out of Black LA
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Tech Week is all of these organizations really collectively powering
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together and leveraging the fact that it's LA Tech Week
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to let the larger Los Angeles tech community know that
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there are black organizations in the tech space. There's actually
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20 plus more of us. So, and this is what
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we're doing. And this is what we're putting into practice
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every single year now. So this is year two. There's
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00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:04.660
plans to continue for year three, four, five, as long
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as we can. And so I think people should also
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support Black LA Tech Week because while we have, you know,
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in this first and second year, we've definitely did what
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we could with budget. There's also, you know, we got
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to make, we got to fund these things.
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So absolutely.
336
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Everybody think about that.
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Paris McCoy is with me. She's the executive director of Teclamert.
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We'll continue this conversation after news traffic and sports on
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KBLA Talk 1580. Oh my, my, my. Paris McCoy is
340
00:19:37.470 --> 00:19:41.130
here from She's the executive director. She's been hanging out
341
00:19:41.190 --> 00:19:44.890
at LA Black Tech Week, LA Tech Week. All the
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00:19:44.930 --> 00:19:48.109
tech things are here. I'm saying, oh, my, my, my,
343
00:19:48.150 --> 00:19:52.980
because I just saw this video. that the resident posted.
344
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It's an AI generated video of himself wrestling a tiger.
345
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And then he hugs the tiger. And you know, people
346
00:20:04.730 --> 00:20:10.269
are angry because of course, somebody was recently fatally mauled
347
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by a tiger of course the person went into the
348
00:20:12.349 --> 00:20:14.779
tiger enclosure but i just bring it up because we
349
00:20:14.819 --> 00:20:17.839
were talking about this with journalist char josel earlier it's
350
00:20:17.900 --> 00:20:19.700
so hard to know what's real and what's fake i
351
00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:21.599
mean you can tell this is fake because he's running
352
00:20:21.819 --> 00:20:24.460
and when have you ever seen the resident running but
353
00:20:24.579 --> 00:20:28.039
i mean generally it gets more and more difficult the
354
00:20:28.059 --> 00:20:30.950
other day i got tricked by something that really upset
355
00:20:30.990 --> 00:20:33.109
me because this my job to know the real from
356
00:20:33.150 --> 00:20:37.359
the fake um you know, I didn't, I didn't stay
357
00:20:37.470 --> 00:20:39.539
tricked because I was down the rabbit hole. Well, that
358
00:20:39.579 --> 00:20:42.960
doesn't seem right. And double checking it, but it's, it's spent,
359
00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:47.059
it wasted 20 minutes of my life. Yeah.
360
00:20:47.119 --> 00:20:50.119
Yeah. Yeah. It does. It does. And I, you, I'm
361
00:20:50.180 --> 00:20:53.680
a hundred percent right there with you. Um, my friends
362
00:20:53.759 --> 00:20:55.779
and I, when we see things, you're like, this is
363
00:20:55.819 --> 00:21:00.000
getting pretty good. So, you know, and we, we have
364
00:21:00.019 --> 00:21:03.440
trained eyes and you have trained eyes and we're still like,
365
00:21:04.220 --> 00:21:07.440
I need to look at this actually twice because, you know,
366
00:21:07.500 --> 00:21:09.859
I need to find the point where it's off, but yes,
367
00:21:09.960 --> 00:21:11.319
it's getting very, very good.
368
00:21:11.339 --> 00:21:15.059
I mean, it's like, but it's like we were in
369
00:21:15.099 --> 00:21:18.319
election season. And I think about, you know, just the
370
00:21:18.819 --> 00:21:21.960
deep fakes and the, there's so many videos, AI videos
371
00:21:22.029 --> 00:21:24.710
up now of black women doing horrible things that are
372
00:21:24.750 --> 00:21:27.970
just meant to look us, make us look bad in general. Right.
373
00:21:28.569 --> 00:21:31.289
And anyway, I have a couple of boomer friends that
374
00:21:31.329 --> 00:21:36.210
are constantly sending me videos and I'm thinking to myself,
375
00:21:36.230 --> 00:21:38.670
you know, that's AI, right? You know, you know that anyway.
376
00:21:39.509 --> 00:21:41.910
Um, yeah, I have, I have a blue, I have
377
00:21:41.970 --> 00:21:44.900
bloomer parents myself and I'm always like, you know, we're
378
00:21:44.920 --> 00:21:47.559
having conversations and I'm always in their ear about, uh,
379
00:21:48.519 --> 00:21:52.180
maintaining like their level of hyper-vigilance when it comes to
380
00:21:52.220 --> 00:21:56.569
seeing things. And so, you know, yes, but when people
381
00:21:56.589 --> 00:21:59.769
send videos and I'm like, you know, that's, you gotta,
382
00:21:59.789 --> 00:22:02.210
you gotta really look at these things and you think like,
383
00:22:02.730 --> 00:22:06.049
You know, as my boomer parents would say, like, you know,
384
00:22:06.130 --> 00:22:09.119
common sense. Think about the common sense. Like, would this
385
00:22:09.140 --> 00:22:11.500
particular person be saying this or doing this? Like, you
386
00:22:11.559 --> 00:22:14.819
really have to be, you have to judge. You have
387
00:22:14.859 --> 00:22:17.180
to judge. You have to use your judgment about what
388
00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:22.009
is and what isn't, you know, factual. You have to
389
00:22:22.029 --> 00:22:25.210
start relying on that a lot more. Yeah.
390
00:22:25.490 --> 00:22:28.089
Well, I mean, yeah, we've got to use our own head.
391
00:22:29.130 --> 00:22:30.950
Context clues. I think that's what they used to tell
392
00:22:30.990 --> 00:22:33.440
us when we were little kids. Steve is calling us
393
00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:34.859
from L.A. Good morning, Steve.
394
00:22:36.539 --> 00:22:39.259
Hi, good morning.
395
00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:42.309
Hi, what's on your mind? Oh, yes.
396
00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:49.190
So I wanted to find out, like, I was listening
397
00:22:49.250 --> 00:22:54.769
about the organizations and stuff. Is there an intentionality to, like,
398
00:22:55.109 --> 00:22:59.799
use black spaces and, like, vendors as well? um, when
399
00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:02.420
it comes to Black LA Tech Week and how can, um,
400
00:23:03.619 --> 00:23:05.500
other people get involved with that?
401
00:23:07.880 --> 00:23:08.279
Yeah.
402
00:23:08.380 --> 00:23:10.950
So I would, I would like for, uh, this is,
403
00:23:10.970 --> 00:23:14.490
this is really wonderful. So Steven is one of the, uh,
404
00:23:14.890 --> 00:23:19.190
the founders of Black LA Tech Week or one of
405
00:23:19.490 --> 00:23:23.029
the persons that's really driving this. So, um, I would
406
00:23:23.089 --> 00:23:26.829
invite you, Stephen, to actually answer that question.
407
00:23:26.849 --> 00:23:29.200
Oh, if Paris wants you to answer your own question. Okay,
408
00:23:29.220 --> 00:23:32.640
we can do that. I talk to myself, too.
409
00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:38.220
I wanted to hear it in your words, Paris. But, yeah, yeah. Oh,
410
00:23:38.319 --> 00:23:41.200
good morning, Dominique. I'm a big fan of yours.
411
00:23:41.299 --> 00:23:41.799
Thank you.
412
00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:47.390
Yes, yes. But, yeah, there is an intentionality with not
413
00:23:47.529 --> 00:23:52.799
only– partnering with the great organizations that we've partnered with,
414
00:23:52.940 --> 00:23:59.529
but also using black spaces. Like our main venue partner
415
00:23:59.809 --> 00:24:05.509
is LDU, Life Development University, right near your station in
416
00:24:05.529 --> 00:24:11.559
Leimert Park. As well as, for instance, we had a
417
00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:16.539
co-working day yesterday that was put on by DevColor, and
418
00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:20.880
our coffee vendor was a black coffee vendor, a tech-themed
419
00:24:21.099 --> 00:24:26.539
coffee vendor at that, named File Systems for Coffee and
420
00:24:26.579 --> 00:24:29.720
stuff like that. So there definitely is an intentionality to
421
00:24:30.460 --> 00:24:37.509
use black vendors, food vendors, coffee, whatever the needs, we're
422
00:24:37.529 --> 00:24:40.789
looking for black vendors to be a part of that
423
00:24:40.930 --> 00:24:44.069
message like, hey, we're here And we have all these
424
00:24:44.150 --> 00:24:45.829
resources for the community.
425
00:24:47.029 --> 00:24:50.450
Yeah, how do people get involved? Like, let's say I
426
00:24:50.490 --> 00:24:52.730
have a space or I am a vendor of some kind.
427
00:24:53.130 --> 00:24:55.509
How would I get on the list or get in
428
00:24:55.549 --> 00:24:55.950
the queue?
429
00:24:57.630 --> 00:24:59.490
There are a couple of ways. So you can go
430
00:24:59.549 --> 00:25:04.420
to our website, blacklatechweek.com. There's a form that you can
431
00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:07.700
submit from there, or you can send an email to
432
00:25:07.819 --> 00:25:11.539
info at blacklatechweek.com. You can also hit us up on
433
00:25:11.579 --> 00:25:18.660
our socials. On Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, you know, all those.
434
00:25:18.680 --> 00:25:22.359
It's Black LA Tech Week on those.
435
00:25:22.660 --> 00:25:26.349
Okay, you said info at blacklatechweek.com if people want to inquire.
436
00:25:26.369 --> 00:25:29.769
I'm assuming it's probably too late for this year because
437
00:25:29.809 --> 00:25:34.089
we're done Sunday, but you can get in the sort
438
00:25:34.130 --> 00:25:35.390
of system, if you will.
439
00:25:36.839 --> 00:25:40.299
I mean, hey, you know, one of the nights that
440
00:25:40.339 --> 00:25:43.440
we had this week, we had a food truck pull
441
00:25:43.480 --> 00:25:48.059
up right in front of LDU. For the remaining nights,
442
00:25:48.099 --> 00:25:52.880
we've got a great video game event tonight. We have
443
00:25:52.980 --> 00:25:55.789
the family day on Sunday. If someone wants to pull up,
444
00:25:56.490 --> 00:25:58.369
you know, by all means, hit us up.
445
00:25:59.549 --> 00:25:59.910
Okay.
446
00:26:00.089 --> 00:26:02.670
I love that. I love that for us because sometimes
447
00:26:02.710 --> 00:26:06.859
we like to be a little bit spontaneous. Okay. You know,
448
00:26:06.940 --> 00:26:10.900
a little or a lot. Is this a place or
449
00:26:10.940 --> 00:26:15.119
a space, Paris, for beginners? You know, we talk so
450
00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:21.299
much about sort of the denial and the fear around AI. And,
451
00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:25.279
you know, Miles is over here holding folks' hands saying,
452
00:26:25.380 --> 00:26:30.140
use it to your advantage because it's not going nowhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
453
00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:33.150
Other folks are saying, but it's sucking up the water.
454
00:26:33.549 --> 00:26:36.460
And I'm one of those folks, but also... I do
455
00:26:36.519 --> 00:26:41.410
listen to Miles, you know, and I've seen some of
456
00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:44.609
the efficiencies and things, although like I've often said, if
457
00:26:44.650 --> 00:26:47.730
I have to look at one more AI flyer, my
458
00:26:47.750 --> 00:26:52.839
head might explode. Yeah, I heard that, I heard that.
459
00:26:53.599 --> 00:26:55.460
Except for there's probably some that I don't know are
460
00:26:55.500 --> 00:26:58.420
AI flyers because they're using it differently, right? But anyway,
461
00:26:59.599 --> 00:27:02.019
is this a place for beginners, for people that are
462
00:27:02.059 --> 00:27:04.630
just trying to, to get their feelers anywhere in the
463
00:27:04.690 --> 00:27:08.950
tech world, whether it's AI or software or games or,
464
00:27:09.490 --> 00:27:12.390
you know, the many things that you guys are focused on.
465
00:27:12.410 --> 00:27:16.279
I will, I mean, in taking a second thought about
466
00:27:16.319 --> 00:27:19.000
that question that you asked earlier about who this is for,
467
00:27:19.460 --> 00:27:21.980
I think it might be for the beginners the most.
468
00:27:22.920 --> 00:27:28.700
Technology has always been difficult to navigate. It can have
469
00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:30.200
like a lot of things going on, and it can
470
00:27:30.220 --> 00:27:33.660
be very, very intimidating for anyone. And so if this
471
00:27:33.740 --> 00:27:37.099
is like where the beginner can come and, you know,
472
00:27:37.380 --> 00:27:40.200
it's our job in all of the organizations is to
473
00:27:40.700 --> 00:27:46.500
demystify the technology world and then also to show doors
474
00:27:46.539 --> 00:27:51.180
of access, right? Because, you know, collectively, we've all went
475
00:27:51.220 --> 00:27:54.160
up against a lot of different things. If it's the workplace,
476
00:27:54.240 --> 00:27:56.890
if it's, you know, like we're not getting access, we're
477
00:27:56.910 --> 00:28:00.670
like looking at policy, we're looking at all these different things. Collectively,
478
00:28:01.309 --> 00:28:04.740
you know, we're attacking these things head on together. And
479
00:28:04.779 --> 00:28:07.680
so like for that beginner to be in a safe space,
480
00:28:07.740 --> 00:28:11.180
be amongst people that look like themselves, then they might
481
00:28:11.220 --> 00:28:14.039
be more inclined to ask those initial questions that somebody
482
00:28:14.059 --> 00:28:16.700
may not want to ask. So yes, I think it's
483
00:28:16.779 --> 00:28:20.829
for the beginner actually the most, you know, come through. Like,
484
00:28:20.869 --> 00:28:24.250
you know, we're, there's some, all of these organizations are
485
00:28:24.269 --> 00:28:27.990
so warm and welcoming. There's been so many, and like
486
00:28:28.049 --> 00:28:31.109
for Like I would say, you know, somebody like me
487
00:28:31.150 --> 00:28:34.029
who's been navigating these spaces for so long, I've had
488
00:28:34.109 --> 00:28:40.099
some very encouraging conversations. And they're always fresh and new
489
00:28:40.140 --> 00:28:42.980
and like these different perspectives. So, you know, if somebody's
490
00:28:43.039 --> 00:28:46.769
like nervous, this is the place where you don't have
491
00:28:46.809 --> 00:28:51.390
to be nervous at all because we're having these real conversations. So, yes,
492
00:28:51.630 --> 00:28:53.210
it's for the newcomer, actually.
493
00:28:53.230 --> 00:28:58.170
Yeah. All right, well, we're being joined by Paris McCoy,
494
00:28:58.250 --> 00:29:02.269
the Executive Director of TechLimert. Steve is on the phone.
495
00:29:02.289 --> 00:29:04.509
He's one of the founders. And we'll keep it going.
496
00:29:04.549 --> 00:29:08.299
If you've got a question or a commentary or just
497
00:29:08.319 --> 00:29:13.160
a thought, 800-920-1580, 800-920-1580. Let's see what they're talking about
498
00:29:13.579 --> 00:29:17.779
in this chat. I'm Dominique DiFrima for KBLA Talk 1580.
499
00:29:17.779 --> 00:29:20.480
Paris McCoy is with us on the phone. She is
500
00:29:20.519 --> 00:29:24.559
the Executive Director of TechLimert. We also have, uh, Stephen
501
00:29:24.619 --> 00:29:28.269
Barrios joining us on the phone. Um, your Instagram says
502
00:29:28.309 --> 00:29:33.390
you're an LA native and a techie. Um, and how does,
503
00:29:33.589 --> 00:29:38.109
how does that happen, Stephen? Like, how did you, become
504
00:29:38.130 --> 00:29:38.690
a techie?
505
00:29:40.369 --> 00:29:41.049
Oh, yeah.
506
00:29:41.170 --> 00:29:46.170
So I'm going to date myself a little bit. So
507
00:29:47.069 --> 00:29:50.690
around four years old, I would get dropped off at
508
00:29:50.730 --> 00:29:55.440
my grandma's house. And around that time when Nickelodeon there
509
00:29:55.460 --> 00:29:58.799
was this show called Mr. Wizard's World. This was before
510
00:29:59.079 --> 00:30:02.529
like Beakman's World and, you know, Bill Nye the Science
511
00:30:02.589 --> 00:30:03.890
Guy and all that stuff.
512
00:30:03.930 --> 00:30:04.269
Mr.
513
00:30:04.309 --> 00:30:08.569
Wizard's World. Yeah, yeah. And they would do like these,
514
00:30:08.589 --> 00:30:12.930
you know, science experiments with kids and the episodes that
515
00:30:12.990 --> 00:30:16.309
covered like computers and robots and all that stuff, I
516
00:30:16.329 --> 00:30:21.730
just gravitated to and stuff. So since I was very young,
517
00:30:21.779 --> 00:30:26.740
I've been excited about technology, and decided back then I
518
00:30:26.779 --> 00:30:30.589
wanted to be an engineer. And I went to USC,
519
00:30:30.660 --> 00:30:34.130
got my degree in computer science, and, yeah, I've been
520
00:30:34.190 --> 00:30:39.930
a software engineer ever since then. So only lived two
521
00:30:39.970 --> 00:30:42.829
places my whole life, L.A., and then after college moved
522
00:30:42.849 --> 00:30:45.170
to New York for a little while. But I tell
523
00:30:45.210 --> 00:30:47.519
folks after the second blizzard I came back home.
524
00:30:49.619 --> 00:30:51.339
Where did you go to high school here in L.A.
525
00:30:53.789 --> 00:30:59.430
So Crenshaw Christian Center recently closed Frederick Casey Price III
526
00:31:00.069 --> 00:31:03.529
schools and stuff, which was kind of a full circle
527
00:31:03.569 --> 00:31:07.299
moment because our kickoff this year was that what used
528
00:31:07.319 --> 00:31:10.839
to be the Savoy that was bought by the Jones
529
00:31:10.900 --> 00:31:15.960
sisters who own 1010 Wine Bar in Inglewood. And we
530
00:31:15.980 --> 00:31:18.339
went to school together there at Price and stuff. So
531
00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:20.990
that was kind of cool. To work together.
532
00:31:21.210 --> 00:31:23.349
So you were just always that way. You just always
533
00:31:23.450 --> 00:31:29.299
gravitated toward technology. And obviously you took to it and
534
00:31:29.319 --> 00:31:32.460
it worked out for you. You graduated from USC. You're working.
535
00:31:33.660 --> 00:31:36.579
We always hear so much about people in the space, creators,
536
00:31:36.900 --> 00:31:40.819
black creators in the space, feeling isolated, not getting the
537
00:31:40.859 --> 00:31:45.700
same opportunities, being discriminated against. Have you found that or
538
00:31:45.720 --> 00:31:48.750
have you found it's like, oh, we found a black engineer.
539
00:31:48.809 --> 00:31:51.630
We need you. Or is it a combination of both?
540
00:31:53.289 --> 00:31:59.420
It's been interesting because... How can I answer that? I
541
00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:07.880
haven't really struggled with, like, opportunities, but I've felt kind
542
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:10.920
of alone a lot of times in that. Like, I
543
00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:14.700
didn't see a lot of people like myself. And then
544
00:32:14.740 --> 00:32:18.960
that's where kind of imposter syndrome may come in because...
545
00:32:19.220 --> 00:32:21.630
if you see a bunch of other folks in your
546
00:32:21.710 --> 00:32:24.849
field and not many look like you, it's like, man,
547
00:32:25.089 --> 00:32:29.130
like that little voice is like, do I belong here? Like,
548
00:32:29.329 --> 00:32:32.289
you know, and all that stuff. Like, I know I do,
549
00:32:32.390 --> 00:32:34.849
but it would be nice if I saw other folks
550
00:32:34.890 --> 00:32:37.430
that look like me and stuff like that. And so
551
00:32:37.990 --> 00:32:42.480
what led to me getting involved with DevColor is I
552
00:32:42.519 --> 00:32:45.279
was 10 years into my career and it just kind
553
00:32:45.339 --> 00:32:47.759
of hit me like, man, I've never worked with another
554
00:32:48.410 --> 00:32:51.769
black software engineer. Like, I got to do something about this.
555
00:32:51.869 --> 00:32:55.930
So I did a search and found DevColor, which has
556
00:32:55.970 --> 00:32:59.990
been around for about 11 years now and, you know,
557
00:33:00.109 --> 00:33:02.369
signed up for their conference. And that was the first
558
00:33:02.430 --> 00:33:05.930
time I was around other black software engineers and stuff.
559
00:33:06.410 --> 00:33:08.400
And it kind of lit a fire in me as
560
00:33:08.500 --> 00:33:12.240
far as like building community from that point on with
561
00:33:12.319 --> 00:33:16.569
other folks from similar backgrounds and all that. So, And
562
00:33:16.670 --> 00:33:20.750
also hearing from them, their perspectives and stuff about working
563
00:33:20.829 --> 00:33:24.819
at big companies, small companies in between and all that.
564
00:33:24.940 --> 00:33:32.369
So since that time, yes, I have seen companies and
565
00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:37.930
like different situations where it's like, okay, something isn't right here.
566
00:33:38.009 --> 00:33:42.900
Like the vibe is off. there's this buzzword of culture fit.
567
00:33:43.140 --> 00:33:46.559
You know what I'm saying? That comes up sometimes doing
568
00:33:46.579 --> 00:33:49.700
job interviews and it could be like, okay, that might
569
00:33:49.740 --> 00:33:53.769
be a dog whistle in this case. But, you know,
570
00:33:53.910 --> 00:33:59.009
but overall, personally, I haven't, I've been very blessed to
571
00:33:59.069 --> 00:34:04.190
have great opportunities. There was a black director when I
572
00:34:04.230 --> 00:34:07.359
was a student on campus at USC that kind of
573
00:34:07.809 --> 00:34:12.449
like launched my professional career because he had an idea
574
00:34:12.469 --> 00:34:16.949
to build this system. And, you know, the IT department
575
00:34:16.969 --> 00:34:19.329
didn't really have capacity to do it. So he asked
576
00:34:19.409 --> 00:34:22.530
me like, Hey, are you interested? And I wound up
577
00:34:22.570 --> 00:34:25.780
building that and that landed me my first job after college.
578
00:34:25.880 --> 00:34:29.139
So I've been very blessed with the people around me
579
00:34:29.179 --> 00:34:29.739
and stuff.
580
00:34:29.820 --> 00:34:32.599
Yeah. Congratulations. I know we probably have some in our
581
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:36.199
delegation that are in similar situations and tech jobs or spaces.
582
00:34:36.260 --> 00:34:40.860
And certainly, um, Black Tech Week, Black LA Tech Week
583
00:34:41.010 --> 00:34:43.869
is a great place to connect. It's going on now.
584
00:34:43.929 --> 00:34:50.750
It's going on through the weekend. You can go to blacklatechweek.com. Oh, look,
585
00:34:51.070 --> 00:34:54.730
they've decided they will not live stream that execution. Speaking
586
00:34:54.769 --> 00:34:58.170
of tech, we were speculating about who's going to let
587
00:34:58.210 --> 00:35:01.550
you live stream that, an actual killing. But I guess
588
00:35:01.650 --> 00:35:07.889
the president has decided to not go ahead and live stream.
589
00:35:08.190 --> 00:35:11.909
It's just a really weird use of tech. Let's broadcast
590
00:35:11.969 --> 00:35:15.570
murder as entertainment all over the world. I guess that
591
00:35:15.670 --> 00:35:19.110
has been squashed. So that's good news on the tech front.
592
00:35:19.150 --> 00:35:23.030
We were trying to figure out like what platform would say, oh, sure,
593
00:35:23.090 --> 00:35:26.050
go ahead. And, you know, and I mean, I guess
594
00:35:26.070 --> 00:35:30.409
you're the government, you have different rules, but still that
595
00:35:30.429 --> 00:35:33.340
I would consider that good news. I don't know if Paris,
596
00:35:33.360 --> 00:35:34.900
if you want to have anything to say about that,
597
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:38.309
we were like, Whose terms of service allow live executions?
598
00:35:40.530 --> 00:35:43.579
Yeah, I think that the only thing that I would
599
00:35:43.820 --> 00:35:47.679
say about that in full is that I'm very, very
600
00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:53.969
happy that that's not being done. That's not being live
601
00:35:53.989 --> 00:35:58.489
streamed because the implications of that go far beyond what
602
00:35:58.909 --> 00:36:02.730
our current government is. you know, things are like, there'll
603
00:36:02.750 --> 00:36:04.570
be a lot of consequences from that. So I'm glad
604
00:36:04.590 --> 00:36:06.170
that we're not, we're not doing that.
605
00:36:06.409 --> 00:36:09.489
Yeah. It's a terrible, um, door to open. And I
606
00:36:09.530 --> 00:36:11.750
think once you open it, you know, it's hard to
607
00:36:11.789 --> 00:36:14.239
close it. We've already got enough people beating people up
608
00:36:14.300 --> 00:36:18.000
and torturing puppies and stuff on, on, on YouTube. We
609
00:36:18.019 --> 00:36:20.099
don't need actual murders.
610
00:36:21.179 --> 00:36:22.179
Yeah, absolutely.
611
00:36:22.340 --> 00:36:25.900
A hundred percent. And it's just a very, like you said,
612
00:36:25.940 --> 00:36:29.190
it's a, it's a, not a great way to use
613
00:36:29.230 --> 00:36:33.059
technology and it also just says a lot on the
614
00:36:33.099 --> 00:36:36.219
world stage or even more about where we are as
615
00:36:36.300 --> 00:36:39.800
a society yeah and it's not a good message you know.
616
00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:42.579
Absolutely well thank you so much for being with us
617
00:36:42.639 --> 00:36:45.780
this morning sounds like a great opportunity for a lot
618
00:36:45.800 --> 00:36:49.269
of folks to go out to la tech week network
619
00:36:49.369 --> 00:36:53.050
learn and hang out have some fun uh do some
620
00:36:53.070 --> 00:36:57.760
playing Um, so Stephen Barrios and, um, Paris McCoy, thank
621
00:36:57.780 --> 00:36:59.539
you so much for being with us this morning.
622
00:37:01.119 --> 00:37:01.940
Thank you so much.
623
00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:03.099
Thank you.
624
00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:06.539
Yes, indeed. There's a lot going on around here. Happy
625
00:37:07.260 --> 00:37:11.210
60th anniversary to the black Panther party. There are, there
626
00:37:11.269 --> 00:37:14.750
are events going on all over California and celebration. I
627
00:37:14.769 --> 00:37:17.690
would argue all over the nation in celebration of that.
628
00:37:18.150 --> 00:37:20.750
Tavis Smiley's up next. He's got a great show on
629
00:37:20.809 --> 00:37:23.510
deck for you. You do not want to miss it. Um,
630
00:37:24.139 --> 00:37:27.539
He has got, in fact, the man who may be
631
00:37:27.559 --> 00:37:30.449
the next governor of the state of California, Javier Becerra,
632
00:37:30.840 --> 00:37:34.329
joins Tavis Smiley live in studio today. And that's a
633
00:37:34.349 --> 00:37:36.929
really big deal. You don't want to miss it. You
634
00:37:36.969 --> 00:37:41.139
can find me on social media at DiPrima Radio, D-I-P-R-I-M-A.
635
00:37:41.530 --> 00:37:44.239
And then radio, you can find the station everywhere at
636
00:37:44.320 --> 00:37:49.590
KBLA 1580. Please like, follow, and subscribe. Like my mama,
637
00:37:49.659 --> 00:37:52.860
the late great poet laureate of San Francisco, Diane de Prima,
638
00:37:52.920 --> 00:37:56.619
said in one of her poems, the ultimate famine is
639
00:37:56.679 --> 00:38:01.869
the starvation of the imagination. Until tomorrow, KBLA Delegation, I'm
640
00:38:01.909 --> 00:38:04.030
Dominique de Prima. One love.
