Andrew Clay Shafer – What Can I Do?

I guess we're going to do this. When I first signed up for this, I imagined I would probably be speaking about transformation or some quasi technical DevOps-related topic. And I knew I'd be remote and recorded.

But, with COVID, obviously, I didn't realize there would be so much going on by now. And as a consequence of that, I'm going to talk about something else. So you may not like this talk, but if you want to see me talk about those other things.

There's other videos online. And if you Google Andrew Shafer, there is no talent shortage or DevOps progressions or open transformation, and there's a few hours of videos that you might find amusing. I might not be qualified to give this talk.

I probably wasn't qualified to give those other talks either, but I gave them and people keep asking me to talk. So this may not be what you want to hear today, but this is really the only topic I can kind of bring myself to talk about. And, I'll probably make mistakes in the way that I frame or think or articulate some of this.

I'll say it wrong, but I can't say nothing. And I will continue to educate myself and I won't pretend to always do do the best in this regard. But I definitely think about what it takes to learn and a lot of the themes in some of these other topics are about learning as an individual and learning as an organization.

And all I can do is take the information that I get and and try to synthesize it and and make sense of it. And really, that's that's the whole ⁠— my whole career is essentially trying to say words that make sense to me and hoping they make sense to other people. So that being said.

Just to kind of get right to the point. And, you know, there's a bit more. But I just want to say Black Lives Matter and that's, you know, if I was in a room full of people and getting that interaction, then I might suggest that we all say that out loud together, but we're not.

And I'll just say it by myself in a room far, far removed from any of the real issues or protests. I mean, I live pretty far from an urban center, close to the Mexican border and in a place that's essentially got space and food and I'm not base with this. But I just can't stop thinking about what's happening and other people that I know and what they're experiencing.

And so I'm going to try to it, like I said, synthesize. So my thoughts and my understanding about what this means and hopefully it'll be informative and interesting, thought, provocative. But if it isn't, I still can't talk about anything else.

So, if you do not care to listen to me. I understand. If you do not care.

I do not understand. I really don't understand how people can see what's going on and why wouldn't we talk about what's gone on before, how we got to this point? And if you if you don't think this matters or you don't understand why it matters, then I'm sorry, but maybe this will help.

I swore to never be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

" Those aren't my words. That's a Nobel Peace Prize winning Holocaust survivor talking about why it's important in the framing for. Never not taking sides.

We always must take sides. This is a similar sentiment expressed from someone who was part of an experienced apartheid in South Africa. So, some similar some similar patterns.

" Desmond Tutu. Wise words. " And to those people who want to keep politics out of tech.

That is literally impossible. There is no technology that is not political, there is no human action that is not political. And whenever anyone is saying, "Keep politics out of this," what they really always mean is do not try to change this.

" Whatever this thing is. Almost always invoke politics for their particular issue. And if you see that, you know, if you want to have a fun diversion.

Google the CIA handbook on simple sabotage and the recommendations for taking things to committee and following the process to prevent things from changing. So there's really no possibility to keep politics out of technology. There's bias implicit in everything we do.

It's built into the algorithms. And this isn't necessarily the focus of this talk. But, at the same time it is problematic when you have algorithms that are built with certain data, certain bias.

Then, you know, if you just watch videos of the soap or the, you know, different dispensers trying to detect darker skin color, then you get what at the time, you know, in some context seems amusing. But in reality, that's that's indicative of the way that those algorithms, the way that those sensors are programmed. So you've already got a bias embedded in that technology.

So, everything we do is political. Everything we do is politics. And police, the word "police" is definitionally political.

They're literally the same word. It's the same root word. So the politic, the politics and the policing are really part of the same notional concept, going back to the, you know, the Greek word for the city.

And by, you know, 500 years ago, you've already got this notion of politics and and policing. " Let's think about that. What that means.

The regulation control of a community. And I'm not one to argue that there is no need for police. There is no need for law.

That there's no need for order and maybe some mechanisms and personnel to enforce and regulate and control. That's an argument I'm going to make today. But I am going to recognize that I am extremely privileged.

Maybe not the most privileged, but certainly in the in the spectrum of human experience. The country I was born in, the skin color I was born with. I won't say that I that I grew up poor, but I didn't necessarily grow up rich either.

And I saw ⁠— I didn't live in a trailer park, but I went to school with the kids who did. So, that's a little bit of a frame. But at the same time, I definitely have privilege and I want to recognize that in a meaningful way.

And not only do I have privilege, but I am benefiting, personally benefiting, from systemic oppression. So, my privilege in this context is built on the systemic oppression of others with less privilege. And we'll talk a bit about that.

And in particular, I benefit from white supremacy. I get implicit and explicit benefits from this. And I know this is a case, I won't tell you all my stories today.

But, let's just say from some of my younger years, that choices I made, the things I did, things I was associated with probably would have put me in jail for a long time. You know, looking at the numbers that are there given to certain people. Or I'd be dead.

I can say that with near certainty. One of these two things would have been true if I was given more pigment at birth or blessed with more pigment. So, with that being said.

And we all witnessed this. This was one of the many benefits of the fact that we all carry around the supercomputing cameras connected to the internet. This man, George Floyd, was executed.

And he was executed by violence. And this is something even a casual observer. You know, my mother said this man died because the other man put his knee on his neck.

And we all watched this. We all saw this. Not only was there a knee on a man's neck for nearly 10 minutes, nine minutes.

But there was a crowd of people, almost close enough to touch them. Telling the people, the person that they're there, killing him, they're going to kill him. And not only did they not stop, but they looked rather intent on maintaining that violence, executing that person with violence.

And this was sanctioned and protected by a prejudiced system. That we all watched and witnessed and now we're sort of seeing the aftermath. My daddy plays with me.

My daddy reads to me. My daddy tucks me in at night. Please don't kill my daddy.

I promise he's a good dad. So, you have this little girl and this sign. You have all the flowers and the other signs and Black Lives Matter and the rest of it.

But there's also a few things. On the sign, there's names, there's other names and those other names have stories. And I'm going to tell a few of those, but also there's this there's this theme "I can't breath," which is interesting.

I'm not really OK with this. And leading up to this video that I'm recording right now, I had a hard time watching this from afar. So I can only imagine what it's like to be in this man's family or you know of this man's skin color in these cities watching this, I'm not OK.

And this is not OK. This is simply not OK. Watching very far away, and this is something that may or may not be relevant to you, but I definitely have a focus on lots of this stuff that happens around the world, and in particular I see a lot of the things or pay attention to a lot of things that happen in the Middle East.

And if you've paid any attention to what's happened in Syria in the last few years, in particular, essentially the complete decimation of a lot of the culture and the buildings and infrastructure, then to see that they essentially decided that this place that's far removed from what's going on, bombed basically back to the Stone Age, that what they were going to do in a show of solidarity was paint "I can't breathe" and a portrait of George Floyd, you know, as a testament in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. And if you never, you know, if you've been someplace where this sort of r efugee or ⁠⁠— I personally went to Sudan, and Sudan is not a place you go for great vacation as a tourist. And there were a lot of Syrian refugees in Sudan.

So, at the point where you end up as a refugee in Sudan, you know you came from someplace bad. "I can't breathe. " More than once.

Before going limp, losing his life. We witnessed it. " There was another video that the world watched when a man, w ith another man on his back with a chokehold being held down by another group of men, said, "I can't breathe," eleven times.

Eleven times. " And, that didn't matter. That didn't matter enough to stop.

And this man, Eric Garner, also lost his life. And with that video that we all saw, or we all had the opportunity to see, there was a grand jury that decided not to indict. Not only did they not indict any of the officers, but the person who took the video was basically persecuted for doing so.

So, the fact that person had dared to record this other man being murdered. Choked to death. "I can't breathe," eleven times.

They, the system, persecuted that person with the camera. I don't think it's OK, it's not OK. This is one of the more disturbing videos.

So this is Philando Castile, who was pulled over in the passer seat with ⁠— there's a broken tail light, so minor traffic stop. There's roughly 90 seconds between the person getting out of the car. So they're pulled over.

There's a video, officer comes to the car. D and then this man, this responsible, law abiding citizen who was later, you know ⁠— they try to demonize him for the little bit of marijuana that was found in a car. But he informs the officer that he has a firearm, a legal firearm.

He's licensed to carry a firearm. And within seconds of informing the officer in a relatively calm, measured manner, the officer fires seven shots into the car. Five of which hit Philando Castile, two of which penetrated his heart.

And he was killed. This officer was acquitted. And, I think it's also interesting, this is in Minneapolis.

You know, some of the same players involved in terms of the, you know, the chief of police or, you know, the same names from the same place inside a different time. The officer that shot him had recently, I think six months previous to this, gone through, quote unquote, warrior training. Which was a nonstop barrage of how, you know, you have to be violent, vigilant and violent, to protect yourself in the line of duty.

And you can watch the video if you've never seen this video. I find it disturbing. But, I don't understand how anyone could watch this video and think that that is the way that a citizen should be treated and that this was an act within the law, under the letter of the law or whatever interpretation you want to have for how you should be able to, as a law officer, as a law enforcement officer, take someone's life, because you're informed that they have a firearm.

That's not OK. This is Freddie Gray. So if you've never heard this story, this was a man who was, he was picked up ⁠— this one you don't have video evidence and the story is kind of all over the place with what happened.

But he was picked up, I believe, something like four blocks away from the police station. But it takes them somehow 30 minutes to get there. And there's these other stops and then they call the ambulance.

But this man who was picked up for whatever reason and in police custody got ⁠— this is the quote unquote, you know, doctor's assessment of what's happening, that there's injuries resembling those suffered in a diving accident. They were caused by an abrupt force to his neck. So something that happened to this man, in police custody, created a fracture of three vertebra.

Injuries to his voice box and 80% severed spine at neck. Just think about what kind of trauma it would take to do that to another human. And there, I believe there are six officers involved.

There were some charges that were filed. But all the charges were either dropped or the officers were acquitted. Not OK.

And this is Sandra Bland. Who was found hanged in a jail cell. And this is another one where it's unclear all the details.

There's some accounts where, you know, she was injured before going to the cell and other things where, you know, she got some witnesses and some discrepancies. But the official account is she was found hanged in a jail cell, three days after being arrested for what was called a pretextual traffic stop, which is essentially the traffic equivalent of stop and frisk. So this woman for whatever reason, was pulled over and then they decided ⁠— and there is a little bit of a video from this sort of confrontational exchange with the officer and, you know, for whatever reason, that officer decided that this woman needs to be put in jail.

And as a result, she is yet another black person that ended up dead in police custody. And the there's some more details about this story. But essentially, at the end of the day, the officer was charged with perjury and that charge was dismissed in return for.

Never seeking to accept or engage in employment in a capacity with law enforcement. Not OK. This one's the hardest.

If if you never seen the video of this one, this is Tamir Rice. And he was ⁠— I mean, just look at his face, look at his eyes. So this a 12 year old boy who was executed with extreme prejudice and, you know, I don't want to give you all the details but, essentially, he had no chance.

There is no exchange. They just shot him. Police just drove up and shot him.

And the officer who shot this boy, if you look into the case and, you know, there's some strict circumstances and I think it's really sad on several levels. But there's a 911 call that this person has a gun. He's got a toy gun that he was just given that day and he's playing around with it in a park just like any 12 year old boy with a toy gun would do.

And then someone decided to call the 911 and then these officers made whatever decisions with the information they had to essentially just execute this boy in a park. And, it turns out that the officer who did this had been dismissed or given the option to quit under the pressure of termination that this officer, on record it was recorded that this person lacked the emotional stability to be a police officer. And this was in another precinct, though, I believe it was 13 miles away from the city where this happened in Ohio.

And just look at his eyes. Just look at this little kid, just boy. And there is a grand jury.

The grand jury decided not to indict the officers. And in some other very interesting circumstances, if you go and look into the case of Tamir Rice, what you where you find is essentially a story where the prosecutors, the state paid prosecutors were the ones that were antagonistic to any of the expert witnesses or the evidence that would have have led to charges or anything against the officers. So they definitely protected the police.

Which I don't think is OK. And I don't know if anyone else is here with me, but I think there's a pretty obvious pattern if you're following along. And I think that we, you know, especially if you think about systems, which I hope you do, as someone in the tech field.

These are not just bad apples. This is a bad system. So these are actions taken in a bad system, and this is one of the things that I think really plays into lots of other conversations and I don't want to drag it back in to the mundane issues of what we deal with in our organizations.

But most of what happens is not a result of individuals. In all cases, a significant fraction of what happens is the system. And the data supports that.

So this is, you know, there's a link here with the reference to where I found some of this and there's more. But if you look at the, you know, this is the stop and frisk incidents in New York, which is policy for quite some time. 4 Million New York City stops between January 2004 and 2012.

And of those stops, in a city where 23% of the population is black. Fifty two percent of the people who were stopped were black. So that's a massive shift in the relative number.

And the whites represent 33% of the population and only 10% of the stop and frisk. And then you can see that the numbers for the deaths for those killed by the police. So the police killed a disproportionate number of black people.

And, it's not OK either. So this is the officer that was ⁠— this is actually a picture of the officer, you know, with his knee on the neck of George Floyd and he's told repeatedly, "You're going to kill this guy. " And, he not only doesn't change his posture or release the pressure.

But he just has this look in his eyes like he normally is entitled to do that, but that they, you know, he resents the fact they even question his authority to do that. That that's his right. And he's entitled to do that.

So this is something that was tweeted, at probably one of the the nicest human beings I've ever met in technology, saying things that really should never be said anyway. But in the context that they were said and the way that they were said. It's just, it's not OK.

It's not OK with me. And, you know, I just imagine the person typing just kind of having the same look, the same spirit. That he's going to show, you know, these other people what it's about.

And I don't think that's OK. And reflecting on that, this person, you know, I'm not going to say this is my best friend, but I mean, I wish he was my best friend. He's just a special person.

Anyone who met him or or, you know, did anything around him, knows how giving he is and how kind he is and how thoughtful he is about everything. And he puts himself into everything he gives. He gives his all and this is me taking a selfie with him, when he picked me up from the airport in his car, and then another time.

These these are about a year and half apart. I gotta go hang out with Kelsey at his house. And there's a bunch of other times that we got to be in the same place.

He doesn't follow me on Twitter because he only follows 30 people. And also, I'm probably annoying on Twitter, but he does usually take my phone calls and I mean he's just a blessing in my life. And inspiring to me.

And you know that someone would think that this person, who's given so much to tech and so much to these communities he's part of, that that was the thing that they needed to say to this man in that tone and with those words. That's just not OK. And this is Kelsey Hightower, who literally does more than anyone I know, like he's one of the hardest working people.

And, you know, there's other hardworking people, too. But I would say, you know, Kelsey works harder than me. And he's given more than me.

He's better than me at pretty much everything, you know. And that's what he asked to experience. And if that's what the best of us has to experience in technology.

I can only imagine what tech is like for black people who aren't so accomplished. And that's crazy. So one of the things that I see, and I don't always speak out because I don't feel it's my place.

But a lot of diversity and inclusion efforts end up kind of pulling people up that are already pretty far up. And it's not that those people don't deserve to be to be pulled up higher. It's just that it leaves a lot of people down below.

And, you know, so if you think about this notion of privilege, then the people who have the most privilege, you know, they definitely benefit. But then the law, the diversity and inclusion work that I see ends up benefiting kind of like the next most privileged. And, it's not that I don't think those people deserve more.

It's that there's all these other people below them. And in particular, how many more Kelsey Hightowers are out there that are kind of below the radar that don't have that lift. They don't have that work.

And so there's a few things I'm going to say in a minute, but I think that there's more work to do than this sort of superficial DNI work. So this is, you know, this is not necessarily only about tech, but, you know, I think tech definitely has implications here when, particularly, with the power that we have to create solutions for these types of problems. If you look at what's happening in the United States and to some degree, probably in a lot of other countries, but definitely in the United States, it's that these systems are set up.

And when we talk about diversity in tech and bringing talent into technology, there's all these people that are sort of lost before they even get that far, even get that chance. And if you look at the numbers and the way this is set up, you know, this is a little dated, but it's not that old. It's only a couple years old.

It says that 40% of the population, the prison population, is black. From 13% of the population total, 40% is black. And only 6% of the college population is black.

So when people are talking about talent and tech and getting people into it, we're often lifting from the top. But if we think a little bit harder and look at the systems are in place, there's so many more. And so in some sense, so much better use of our energy and resources, if we can lift people up from the bottom.

And I think, personally, that starts with education at the lowest level. And if we can solve this ⁠— which I know this is not something we get solved in one second ⁠— then maybe we get more beautiful minds like Kelsey to do our demos. And maybe we get less males, black males that go through prison.

Twenty five percent will go through corrections in a lifetime. And this, I mean, the thing that's crazy about this is we build a system, we allow a system, where this is done for profit. There's an incentive built into the system to have these people go to prison.

So it's already a deck stacked against someone from certain background, because it doesn't matter if you step off the straight and narrow path for yourself, then you're kind of done. You're in the pipeline. And this also goes to the comment I made earlier about myself, because I was, I'm not very good at walking on a straight, narrow line.

This is just a framing, you know, there's a couple version of this. But I think this is true. And I see lots of people, in lots of positions that have overcome or are struggling with things now.

" So a lot of times, you know, we put people on a pedestal because we can see their display of strength. But, there's people that we work with, that I work with, that they're overcoming or have overcome so much more that we don't even see. So, a safe space is not enough.

We have to build safe systems. It's not about space, it's the system, the inputs and outputs you want to feed safety in and keep safety. And also in relation to that, I think it's important that we recognize it.

If there's if there's bad systems, if there's the, you know, the school to prison pipeline in place, that there's, you know, always going to be bad outcomes. It's set up to have these bad outcomes. I want to recognize that I could do more.

I could have done more before and, you know, I could do more now. And I think there's some straightforward things that I can do and that we can do. And then there's some more nuance things.

And the kind of opportunistic performance of activism is not that interesting to me, but really revisiting these systems from a fundamental level and being part of the kind of overarching political solution to make things change is more interesting. So we must be actively anti-racist. It's not enough to be not racist.

We have to oppose racism in all forms, actively. And this is something, this is like the performative thing. You can't renounce white privilege.

This is like the whole system is built on it. So, we have to actively dismantle those systems. And, it's not that I necessarily want to have less privilege.

I want more people to have more privilege. And I think that's possible. So the real opportunity here is to improve the system, improve the systems that we're all part of.

For everyone. And not just performative, selective, opportunistic activism, but really get to the root of this. And, you know, I've had this opinion for a long time, but we see massive, massive fortunes built in technology and there's this philanthropy and, you know, people do things, but to me, we need to build activism in the order of millionaires, groups of millionaires, maybe even get some billionaires involved .

Not just saying on the street, but we need at the highest level. We need to lift from the bottom, but we need to be able to do that from the top. I think it's hard when ⁠— we saw this in a lot of other things.

Not that protesting doesn't have some impact. But if you look at the dynamics of power, they really drive things in this country, in the world. We need to build these reinforcing systems with the power that we have as technologies, with the influence that we have to to build these systems of wealth, not just to perpetuate the bad systems but to reimagine better ones.

So the next time you're looking for a speaker, there's a lot of great speakers out there that ⁠— and I know I missed some. And this was me spending, 10, 15 minutes looking at my own Twitter feed and some of these people follow me and I'm friends with and we have dialog. And some of these people, I just sort of watch from afar.

Although, if you want to hang out, let me know. I missed some people, but I just I think it's sort of sad and and not to point fingers, but there's not good representation of t hese talented people in a lot of these faces, a lot of these programs. I don't want to call anyone out, and I definitely miss some people and, you know, I should probably go through my feed and there's definitely people in other time zones or what have you that I miss.

But here's a list of some beautiful people with some amazing perspectives and talent. And you shouldn't have them, these speakers, because they're black, you should have them, these speakers because they're awesome. And I can only imagine how exhausting it is for people of color, you know, of any color, minority or ⁠— and women for that matter ⁠— to be to be constantly asked to comment about, you know, being under represented minority in tech.

That's got to be exhausting work. And what we can and should do is celebrate these people for their amazing talent as technologists, not for the fact that they come from these classes. So, with that, I want to also point out that this is only one of many, many wicked problems that are facing all of us.

And a lot of them are interconnected and have some similar roots. But, there's only enough time for one problem today. So let's move on.

So, this is another quote from Holocaust survivor, "Technology without hatred can be a blessing. Technology with hatred is always a disaster. " Simon Wiesenthal.

So going forward, we we will make mistakes. We will do the wrong thing. But we cannot do nothing.

I cannot do nothing. Hopefully, the supplies from me and for me. " So, at some point, someone has to move past their grievances, and not that that's necessarily needs to be you and not that that's what we need to do right this second, while we're feeling the brunt of the pain, but to move forward into the new systems, to build the new systems at some point.

And not that this is anywhere near the gravity of things I've experienced, but I personally feel like I've grown the most when I forgave things and people. And frankly, you know, this related to everything we do. If we can't improve ourselves, our organizations in our society.

What is the point? I will continue to educate myself. I'm not sure anyone still listening, but maybe someone learned something today.

That's ⁠— this is the saddest one to me. But, they're all sad. We cannot do nothing.

So that may or may not be what you thought you were going to experience today. But like I said before, that was the only topic I could bring myself to talk about. And I have the rest of the time and the rest of the year to give talks about all these other topics.

And hopefully those will lay down. And like I said, there's plenty of YouTube videos online right now. So, if you're still listening, thanks for your time.

If you want to engage about any of these topics ⁠— like I said, I'm not sure I'm the most qualified to do that but I do have some resources that you can check out and get involved. And, you know, there's no shortage of opportunities to participate in fundraising, protests, activism. What I hope we can get to coming out of this sort of acute period where it's opportunistic and performative is a chance to think deeply and act deeply to build a better system.

So, thanks for your time.