Thread by @emshort

0/ Tracking down racist bugs in our own programming - a thread.

1/ Some years ago I read studies that progressive college professors were more responsive to white male students and least responsive to women of colour.

2/ When I looked at my own pattern, I found I also tended to respond fastest and devote most time to email requests from white men. Gross! I'd never consciously chosen this. Where did it come from?

3/ On self-observation, I found I would answer email at my own convenience _unless the email made me anxious_. Email that made me anxious, I would clear out of my inbox urgently, often misleading myself about why and the costs of doing so.

4/ Like: "Before I get to the important stuff, I'll just answer this thing so it's not here staring at me." And then spend 90 minutes replying to it and not get to the important other things.

5/ It wasn't that I had a higher opinion of the people I was responding to most quickly. Subconsciously I had a lower one -- that white men were more likely to get impatient, undercut me professionally later, even turn abusive.

6/ Even if there was no obvious risk of actual retaliation, I'd already learned that many men conflate "this woman is competent" and "this woman is useful to me." If I wasn't useful, I wasn't competent. QED.

7/ This was a huge bug in my programming. I'd internalised systemic racism and sexism in such a way that I both suffered from and perpetuated the system.

8/ It's not perfect, but I have been trying to work on this since, with things like
- Be conscious about prioritising requests based on what I want to do in the world rather than what I fear someone else will do in the world.

9/ - Share output; if someone asks me for resources, put the results on my blog for everyone, not just those who were comfortable asking for a 1-3 hour favour.

10/ - Get comfortable telling people, "I'm not doing X for you because I'm putting the resources into (something serving a less privileged group)."

11/ Usually the recipients of that message are supportive, which helps soothe my future anxiety. If they aren't supportive, well, they've shown what kind of people they are and I feel good about letting them go unhelped. Win/win.

12/ - Estimate how long I should spend on a request from someone who is neither a client nor a friend. If it runs over estimate, check myself. Usually anxiety is driving and I need a break.

13/ - Consciously confront the possible costs.

If I look straight at the possibility, I'm *not* that afraid of some random person thinking I don't know what I'm doing because I didn't insta-reply to their email, and if it does happen, I'm willing to pay that price.

14/ Unfortunately, the anxious part of me is both pretty foolish and completely unprincipled. So I need to get that stuff out of there so the rest of me can weigh in.

15/ I'm sure there's more to this and other variants on it, and I'd be interested in hearing if other people have good tips for dismantling the racism from their anxious/subconscious behaviour.