It’s easy and good, but insufficient, to tweet that Black Lives Matter. Here are some harder things:
1) I grew up around anti-Blackness in Missouri. I thought I’d gotten rid of it in college; I had definitely not. I still haven’t fully—I'm still noticing new ways I’ve overlooked Black realities—but I sure want to. Pretending otherwise gets in the way of getting better.
2) I’ve been aware for a long time of systemic racism and the inequities around criminal justice, and I have not prioritized contributing to fixing them. I think the other things I’ve prioritized are important but I wish I’d set the balance differently.
3) There are a lot of serious struggles in the country, but racism in the US is different—it’s the original sin of the country.
4) Twitter activism doesn’t cut it. I’m still trying to figure out how I can best personally contribute, but I commit to figure it out and will report back by the end of the month.
Update: I am doing the obvious things like donating to organizations working on criminal justice reform, and am excited that OpenAI is expanding the Scholars program with a focus on the Black community.
The specific thing I want to do is to help Black investors. I believe that changing the investor base is the highest-leverage way to change the tech ecosystem, and training people to be startup investors is a somewhat rare way that I can help.
The change that has been the hardest for me is a new commitment to really talk to people, even if I don’t know them, when they say something vaguely racist. I hate confrontation so this doesn’t come easily to me. Thankfully it doesn’t happen often, but it’s gone well every time.
