There Is No Diversity Problem

“Do you feel as though you need a pic for social media with everything?”, someone asked me at a tech event I attended recently. They were obviously annoyed by the fact that I always insist on publicly documenting a lot of the things that I’m doing. I hate looking like a fanboy or coming off as ostentatious or braggadocious, but to answer their question, yes, I do.

For seven years of my life I worked to improve at-risk communities and change cultures. Making a long term impact is hard. During my tenure as a community organizer I garnered an immense amount of empirical evidence that says we have an exposure & support problem. Diversity in tech, domestic violence, lack of women & minorities focused on STEM, drug abuse, the gender pay gap, and everything else are simply side effects of those true problems.

Granted, there are good messages out there, the ones that dominate mass media expose us to a paradigm that is perpetuating the culture that causes these issues to exist.

• As a woman, your value is in your outward appearance and your ability to elicit sexual desire.
• Music, sports, drug trafficking, and dance are the only gateways to success for Blacks & Hispanics.
• STEM related subjects are hard, therefore it’s okay to ignore them if at all possible.
• Women’s participation in intellectual or business conversation should be minimal.
• Blacks & Hispanics are synonymous to crime and chaos.
• A woman’s place is to follow a man

I can go on forever. These ideas are birthed from various sources and then spread via television, radio, and more. When they’re fully grown we get the side effects.

Once we’re exposed to something, it only takes root when it is supported on a consistent basis the way those negative viewpoints are. We have to continue to create programs, awards, initiatives, and whatever else we can to hold up the positive things that people are being exposed to. The opportunity I received to attend an engineering camp at the University of Houston at 17 years old helped propel me forward into what I'm doing today. Black Girls Rock is another great example.

People that I've worked with in the community, as well as people I don't know reach out to me and ask questions like what are hackathons, what is Y Combinator, who is Kat Cole, what is PartPic, what should I do if I want to code, who's Tyler Droll, and more. I don't work in the community day to day anymore, but a lot of the things I do are calculated to provoke dialogue in order to expose others. We have to attack the root of the problem to succeed. For instance, legislation to close the gender pay gap will not fix the issue (it will help). Why not? Because a person that doesn't comprehend your value will find another way to discount you.

Individually, we should all be sharing our experiences, accomplishments, trials that we’ve overcome and et cetera, especially if you’re walking down paths that need more people like you on them! Some may feel as though you’re doing too much, but it’s okay, ignore them. The world needs your journey into defying norms exposed and your support for anything that moves your demographic forward.