Leslie Hawthorn OSCON 2014 Keynote: 'Checking Your Privilege: A How-To for Hard Things'

From OSCON 2014: Over the past 3 years, we've witnessed the discussion of the role of women and other underrepresented groups in technology grow broader, deeper and louder. From Wired to the Wall Street Journal, we've heard the message that we all have a problem. Even more exciting, major tech employers are just starting to respond with hard demographic data to back up years of academic research -- and lived experiences -- on the gender gap.

So, the first step is admitting we have a problem. But where do we all go from here?

The answer is simple, but the solutions are not: understanding one's privilege requires hard work. Doing something productive with that understanding is even more difficult. We'll all require a great deal more empathy for individuals whose lives we've never led, whose experiences we've never shared and whose challenges are all the same, but still quite different -- and often greater -- than our own.

In this talk, I'll provide the audience with a how-to for journeying on the path to greater self-awareness and empathy:

- Understanding your own biases
- Taking the first steps toward leveling up in your interactions
- Having more useful conversations and collaborations with everyone you know

The purpose of this talk is to reexamine the topic through the lens of concrete things individuals can do to check their privilege -- and to put it to work serving themselves and others.

About Leslie Hawthorn (Elasticsearch):
An internationally known community manager, speaker and author, Leslie Hawthorn has spent the past decade creating, cultivating and enabling open source communities. She created the world's first initiative to involve pre-university students in open source software development, launched Google's #2 Developer Blog, received an O'Reilly Open Source Award in 2010 and gave a few great talks on many things open source.

In August 2013, she joined Elasticsearch as Community Manager, where she leads Developer Relations. She works from Elasticsearch's EU HQ in Amsterdam, The Netherlands -- when not out and about gathering user praise and pain points. You can follow her adventures on Twitter.

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[MarcPoulin]

The answer was given to us 2000 years ago -- "Do unto others..."

[oreilly]

*Leslie Hawthorn OSCON 2014 Keynote*
_Checking Your Privilege: A How-To for Hard Things_

Over the past 3 years, we've witnessed the discussion of the role of women and other underrepresented groups in technology grow broader, deeper and louder. From Wired to the Wall Street Journal, we've heard the message that we all have a problem. Even more exciting, major tech employers are just starting to respond with hard demographic data to back up years of academic research -- and lived experiences -- on the gender gap.

So, the first step is admitting we have a problem. But where do we all go from here?

The answer is simple, but the solutions are not: understanding one's privilege requires hard work. Doing something productive with that understanding is even more difficult. We'll all require a great deal more empathy for individuals whose lives we've never led, whose experiences we've never shared and whose challenges are all the same, but still quite different -- and often greater -- than our own.
#OSCON   #oscon2014   #oscon14 #Technology  

[GligarVids]

Oh crap, I can't use FreeBSD anymore without checking my privilege.

[NathanPalmer]

"Greetings, humans"
Annnd stopped

[CringeKing]

I cant dislike this twice which is a shame

[ghostmanual]

When I was a kid, we mostly used colorful band-aids, imagine something like Mickey Mouse pictures against a green background. Speaking of Mickey Mouse, did you ever notice his color? "This, my friends, is a systemic problem."

I wonder what was going on in her affluent, majority white neighborhood if she thought something was "terribly wrong" when a band-aid didn't match another girl's skin color. It isn't really a sane reaction. The color of the traditional band-aid was dictated by the dollar. The target customer, the main buyer of the product, the source of profit. And at this point it's a traditional look. It's like the Statue of Liberty or the Nike logo.

First world problems tend to result from people having too much free time for their own good and starting to read too much into everything. Victim playing is very dangerous when it leaves individuals and becomes a societal disease.

Who is stopping women or black people from coding and being diligent techies? If you're good at something, you're good. Affirmative action and victim narratives just don't cut it. Why is it that the Asian slice is constantly growing, by the way? Asians are even taking over classical music which has traditionally been almost exclusively the sphere of Jews and white Europeans. Maybe Asians thrive because Asians are not programming themselves with the victimhood illness. Think about it.

[BMD]

Holy cow.  How about check yourself!  This crap has gotten way out of hand.

[milkinglols]

I thought that was David Cross in a fat suit, and drag.