Race, Careers, and Privilege

Over the weekend, I came across this short Vice documentary on the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Objects.

I knew this stuff exists. I knew this shit happened.

But I also grew up as a white guy in a primarily white suburban town in one of the most liberal areas of the country. As a result, I’ve been in many ways insulated from this kind of thing.

The recency of some of the items in that museum was shocking to me. The utter lack of humanity in some of the items contained there (alligator bait!?) shocked me. Again… I know it shouldn’t. I know for people who have different life experience than me, this is not surprising.

But because it was for me, I feel like museums like this are critically important. I wish there were more of them. School does not properly cover how horrific America’s history is.

Then this morning, I came across this awesome Twitter thread on systemic oppression:

So you really just don’t understand what systemic oppression is.

The thing about systemic oppression is that it doesn’t require hate to run.

Lemme explain.

Let’s say that there’s two sets of kids. North side kids and South side kids. They live a few hours apart, but only have a single school to go to that they must share.

And the school is on the South Side

Now it only takes the kids from South Side 15 minutes tops to get to school. Walking.

But the North side kids have a two hour commute.

Let’s say that classes at South Side start at 8am. And being late to homeroom penalIzes your grade.

Now these rules apply to everyone equally.

But they affect the North Side kids more deeply

A North side kid has to get up way earlier in the morning than a South side kid to make it to class on time.

This means that the likelihood of being late to homeroom is also higher.

Which means that they have to work harder to not get grade penalties.

The North Side kids also either have to choose between getting less done after school (homework, family time, recreation, extra curriculars) or getting less sleep.

Both put them at a disadvantage versus the South Side kids.

Now let’s say that not only are there penalties for poor attendance, but perks for coming in early.

Anyone who does, gets a boost in their grade.

Now the North side kids are falling behind twice. They’re less likely to get boosts AND more likely to get docked.

Someone simply looking at the raw student grades might say “Wow. North Side kids are much worse students”

Sentiments like these can affect education policy for those students if they are held by policy makers.

So despite a lack of malice or hatred, despite a rule that was written to apply equally to all students, despite a lack of conspiratorial intent…

We have simple systemic oppression.

Likewise, the South Side kids, having done nothing to earn their proximity to school, are still both rewarded for it and insulated from the negative attendance effects of living on the North side.

This is called privilege.

Now because South Side kids grow up in the shadow of school, they internalize that if one of them are late, either there was a huge excusable crisis or they were just delinquent.

To them there is no other logical reason that someone would have a hard time getting to class

Because of this failure of perspective, South Side kids rest pretty comfortably in the notion that even though they may like them just fine, all in all they’re better students than the North Side kids.

And they begin to believe they are more worthy of their education.

One thing far too few successful people acknowledge is the role that luck played in their success.

Their “coming up story” is always filled with long hours and hustle. But there’s a shit ton of people hustling and working hard. Many don’t make it.

Before I was a web developer, I was an HR guy. I ended up in this role because as college was ending I realized I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.

My dad was an HR guy. He thought I’d like it, so he helped me network my way into a job. I eventually ended up working in a training role, giving career guidance to software engineers. A few years later, I used that same advice to transition myself into a web development role.

To help me do this, I spent nights and weekends teaching myself to code, open sourcing projects, getting feedback, reaching out to people, putting in the hours.

I worked hard. But I was also really, really, fucking lucky.

I lucked into amazing, super supportive parents who kept me from fucking up in school even though I was super hyperactive and bored. My mom and dad saved up for my college, so I graduated without a mountain of student debt.

Because my dad was in HR already, he was able to help me make connections that led to my first job, and that experience gave me a process I’ve used to get every job I’ve had since (networking is HUGE).

Because of all this, I had the financial security (and time) to spend my spare time learning code, working on open source, and so on.

I worked hard. But I also had tremendous privilege that enabled that success. Born into a different set of circumstances, my path would have been markedly different.

I also had a fuck ton of help from other developers.

One of my best friends is a bonafide, Computer Science degree holding software engineer. He would help me work through roadblocks and rip apart my code. Todd Motto, a stranger at the time and now a friend, patiently and kindly answered my emails and incredibly basic questions (after spending his own free time creating amazing articles on JavaScript).

Brad Frost agreed to have a video chat to talk to me about different career options when I was kind of stuck on what to focus on. Dave Rupert, Zach Leatherman, Todd Parker, and countless others were kind enough to answer emails with questions about things they’d shared.

Dave in particular gave me a passion for web performance and was super supportive when I launched my first open source project, which was honestly just a rip off of something he’d already done with one or two minor tweaks.

I’m only where I am because of a combination of hard work, luck, and an absurd amount of help from strangers.

And with that in mind, I try to give back to this wonderful community of ours as much as possible.

I open source as much of my code as humanly possible. To the surprise of people who read my articles, I actually do read and answer almost every email I get.

I provide discounts on my guides and courses to people from underrepresented groups. And in all seriousness, if my learning resources are still too expensive for you, please email me.

I also wrote a career guide for web developers that details all of the techniques I’ve used to get to where I am and some insider stuff I learned from my time in HR. It includes my kick-ass resume template to helps get you in-front of a real person. I sell it for $39, but you can get it for free with the code FREECAREER at checkout. Share that widely.

I’m insanely lucky, and I want to give back as much as possible.

If I can help you with anything, please reach out. I read almost every email. I answer almost every tweet. My only ask is that you pay it forward.