Diversity & Inclusion in Drupal: Growing our Community

so this is not my talk really this is a good friend

DDI Talk

of mine has been promoting this I these ideas for a long time within Drupal a lot of people work on kind of diversity

inclusion across all of all of our society I'm just here to kind of convey what Nicki specifically been doing with

the specific Drupal in diversity diversity inclusion initiative so I'm a

white guy if you noticed I'm just you know I'm just a programmer but you know

I think about it the reason I was is because I was lucky enough to have computers in my house it sounds like five years old me like a Commodore 64

and then all these old computers and I say his last generation because they're hand-me-downs from my father's office

but that kind of led me into HTML instead of like 3d graphics and all the

cutting-edge stuff so I'm still new at all this you know diversity stuff but

I'm trying I'm learning and growing so I'm not and like I said an official

member of the DDI group because there really is no membership it's just loose

group of all to volunteers I'm not a spokesperson for the group because again

there isn't really one I'm not an expert on this topic and so I'm clearly not the

best person that speak on this topic but I'm here why am I here because again

I've known Nicki for a long time so I met her at Drupal con in San Francisco she moved to New York a couple years

later she gave a talk way back in 2012 I think it was at the World Trade Center

meetup and you know I was basically given the opportunity to speak on anything and I didn't know what to speak

I've done a bunch of technical talks I asked whole thing I was like any theme or whatever and she said I don't know a

DrupalCon recaps and I was like okay you know what this is a big deal it's important I'm gonna go ahead and talk about this

initiative this working group that Nikki's been working on and they've really just because they're

so inspiring and just make me want to just you know tell everybody about this because this is really important stuff

only half the world is on the internet right now and it's the rest of its coming online they're coming from

everywhere but here you know and Drupal changes our lives gives us jobs in a

very real way and you know we all deserve an opportunity to be a part of this community and feel welcome and you

know all that so this is Nikki she's like a verifiable genius she's an

engineer extraordinaire she's hilarious and everyone loves her PhD student just

crazy all around my person she starts off whenever talks I'm basically just

gonna go through history she gave a bunch of talks I'm gonna like summarize them and it's almost all Nikki quotes

but she's here in Drupal and started this group because she believes in open source I I believe in the values that it

stands for I believe in doing work and give anyway and believe that benefits all of us yeah so primarily she's here

because of Drupal and open source in that power she's not just here to you know to be an activist if you care get

involved it's kind of this theme that came out on Twitter so I took good a

challenge it was like alright let's do it why not this talk is not I forgot to

animate this slide but it's about the working group its history goals successes and challenges discussion on

how we can all be more welcoming inclusive our lives invitation for everyone to join the discussion

contribute their opinions in honest respectful way and it's mostly just great quotes from Nicki and others and

it's this is not about why diversity is a good thing we're not debating that that's been debated and it's over you can go learn why on your own is Google

not an official presentation I consider earlier this is not a lecture on how to be more politically correct and this is

certainly not about any Drupal drama of any kind and so again this is all just

like ivory appropriated from their presentations I've got a lot of quotes from there but what many label political correctness is in fact a minimally

difficult effort at using language that shows respect so you know political correct is thrown

around like it's a bad thing but come on it just means like be nice and have some respect for people right so the group

this is they have a website trick Twitter account they're on github and on slack

they are collection of volunteers completely transparent all work is on github issues and slack channels

meeting notes or markdown files it's open to anybody can go into that slack channel and just start talking and

you're gonna be treated with respect and whatever your opinion might be if the

group is not directly affiliated with the Drupal Association or the working group or a Drupal con or Drees or any of

the official power structures it's just loose volunteers that came together and started talking it's not funny by any

outside groups it's not involved in Drupal governance so this isn't a conversation about the rules and the all

that stuff the purpose is to advocate for a more diverse inclusive and respectful community provide a safe

space to discuss you should discuss issues of diversity inclusion within the Drupal community which is that slack channel you know even if you don't agree

with different things you can come in and feel safe talking about it and then provide support for people who are

marginalized in technology about strategies this is off their website provide strategies for increasing the

diversity inclusivity of the community and organizations and to share resources about all this stuff so there's a lot of

links and books and all sorts of things on their website that you can learn about all these things and they're all

result I ended up with this lovely logo that you may have seen if you went to

Drupal con Baltimore so in last year New

Orleans there was a great session I had a boss afterwards and the discussions were this was before I was officially a

working group or whatever it just inspired so many people to come together and talk that very quickly after the

session they started having meetings in IRC they moved to slack like a week later she got Nicki was invited to be

the keynote Andrew pagana Costa Rica in September at Bad camp they put up a website they and by October in January

the Drupal Association started engaging with them too to see what they could do to kind of

make things a little more inclusive and they started taking like they started asking questions on the sessions

submission form I'll talk about that a little later this year there was another

session that was put into the community conversations track it was an awesome

high like it was like like kind of like a lightning session of a hundred ways you could be now I bye bye Nikki she won

the Arin wind board award which goes to outstanding community members and some

of the main Oh Aaron passed from ALS and so they made an award they give out to

people that are just stellar community members they launched a photo booth at the sponsors Hall so they were taking

pictures of everybody and put it on Twitter on Instagram Drees was act about asked about diversity in the Q&A and he

basically said like I really support it but I don't know much about it so we should look towards people that do know a lot about it and mention the group as

a way to learn more about how to make make the community more diverse and so as of yesterday they had 435 members of

the slack channel and 500 Paul's on Twitter so it's not a huge thing but it's only been a year right so I kind of

just listened to all these sessions and just started transcribing a lot of stuff because it's not even in her slides it's like the stuff that she says that is so

inspiring so I'm just gonna kind of like read read what some of the stuff she says and I'll try to go fast because this is but and this is all from her

voice right so it feels like well I'm just a person I can't change the number of women who are under extend programs of college I can't change the experiences that people

are having at fortune 500 companies but what I can do is change the way that I interact with the people around me and

hope that the people around me change the way that they interact with people around them we are constantly denying each other's

lived experience or something as small as well the Wi-Fi works for me I don't know you're complaining to me about what

I don't know I don't care because it works for me - I thought that conference was super welcoming I felt so at home do

you you didn't feel welcome you know to just like oh that you you got a bad vibe from

that guy or I think he's fine he's friendly to me right or like you got offended by that joke

why let's see it's nothing wrong with that so we do it to each other constantly it's just like what we do as

human beings right just kind of not think about in the moment what that other person is going through so it

doesn't make us bad people it's just something that we have been acculturated to do and it's something that we can absolutely unlearn to do and she thinks

she says I think this is absolutely foundational to being a good Ally to each other when someone is saying I had

a hard time this makes me feel uncomfortable I don't feel welcome here this is not accessible to me because of

my different set of abilities just honor that we - say that that didn't make make

you feel uncomfortable or didn't and this is from Karen new co-presented this

session but she talks about like the office environment is a cool cool place

to work or is it exclusionary ganic doesn't she was talking about a place that just had a wall of skateboards it

was like we don't all skateboard or care so she's like well if I don't skateboarder I don't play ping-pong am I

gonna be able to feel stupid and I'll take my boss's challenge every day - ping-pong I don't want to lose and I don't suck you know maybe I suck so

there's there's a lot of things that we take for granted they're like oh it's a cool place to work and it's fine but you know it doesn't really might not be cool

for everybody that it might just not be interested at all I don't care about the beer in ping pong I'm gonna be there I'm

gonna work and then I'm gonna go home I'm stuff too - all right so this is

like this is an interesting room so when you think about risk and technology we all take risks all the time and

everything most of us are pretty comfortable with it we'll say you're a big project we'll be like yeah I'll get

done and I think I know how to do that you know or I'll present I'll do that thing but when it comes to something

much smaller like saying hey I didn't think that joke was too cool suddenly were super risk-averse

so like standing up and saying something that we might feel but we can all make a

decision within ourselves that were going to be someone who stands up for diversity inclusion I'm a person who when I see something that I believe is

unfair or unjust or inappropriate I'm gonna stand up because when you're in that moment if somebody makes a joke and

you're like I'm just not gonna say anything I'm just gonna pack a week I'm really uncomfortable I don't want them to think I'm not cool if you've already

decided it kind of takes the pressure off and you're kind prepared to be like you know what that's

not so hot so as we're trying to learn from the people around us we are absolutely going to make mistakes and

part of it is slowing down and not getting defensive when those mistakes are called out and trying to just make a

point to learn from them because they're sure gonna happen and this just is this

is just taking the things that we learn as engineering technology workers we've all learned to take a close look at the situation before we make an estimate or

before we make a decision and I'm just applying that to people in situations so you can kind of see like her super

perspective and I just I'm so inspired by the way she had to she approaches these things and talks about them

because it's it's you know this could be like controversial thing that people

start fighting over but it's not it's very simple so after that session I mean

you could see why like a lot of people were just really passionate about talking more and continuing the effort and so like right away again they just

started meeting in IRC had week have had weekly meetings since that first session just to talk about how they can advocate

and make make things better for everybody they've developed this diversity of the

Diversity Survey

web survey in a different way than since there's been diversity surveys done before by like github and I think Stock

Exchange and some other ones but they wanted to do it slightly differently so they developed the questions themselves totally out in the open on github so

people could suggest changes to the options and whatnot and it just you know

it's really important to start asking these things so we can just start talking about them and everybody can

contribute there's a link somewhere you can go take the survey so Annette Knox

the next achievement really was for the Drupal satiation engaging them and they decided to directly this is a statement

from Drupal pucon website where they announced that we're making making

diversity at Drupal con goal explicitly we're communicating our intentions to a more diverse audience which means we're

saying yes we want to be more diverse come come speak come come join us providing resources

both monetary and supportive to those from underrepresented groups that want to submit and continuing supporting communication

with all selected speakers so they actually have like a $350 fee honorarium

ya scholarship to help people pay for travel or whatever to come come speak which is pretty big because they haven't

paid any speakers which is controversial on itself but it's good that they're at least putting the money where it's most

most going to be useful yeah so they added this to the session submission

application in an effort to help trooper Khan gather citizens of Drupal ecosystem

increase diversity and you can submit information saying you know self-identifying saying like you know

I'm from this particular group so maybe you know she both collect demographics

but also know that we're not just gonna select all of white dudes to speak did

anyone hear about this like github conference recently that got cancelled they did like a black blind session

thing and basically 100 percent of speakers ended up being white dudes and so they actually canceled the event and

started over oops so anyway they're proud to help

lower the financial barriers for persons and our offering stipend as I mentioned

Baltimore Session

so like so much has happened right so let's see okay so this is the Baltimore session this session was mostly like

kind of what I'm doing now just recapping here but there's some cool things what simple ways you can make the place

feel more welcoming inclusive they made these little badges and if you're wearing this badge it means I'm come talk to me I'm open to

be you can talk to me about anything and those people are like more active about being friendly and saying hello and like

inviting you to say just saying like I'm free to talk about anything there's the

photo booth another thing I like a lot of camps do I think New Jersey's been doing this for many years is not everyone likes to be photographed so

these camps have photographers all over and not everyone likes that so that they came up the way just have a different

colored lanyard so like it for you to kind of don't want your photo on the internet you just pick the other Lantern and we respect those people a to feel

less uncomfortable and they're actually more likely to come out come back a

little tweet mention earring leave the wall it was just really nice after all the

you know the community stuff to see everyone kind of showing their faces and smiling so the other session that was

given that this is this was awesome this is such a hardcore boot camp on on these

issues okay a hundred ways to be an ally and so this is the thing there's this thing called spectrum of allies so that

I'm learned about where you know the

world is rough people aren't so nice in the world you know and sometimes people kind of put up with those not nice

people and they're not nice things they do so there's a whole range of like do I am I gonna you know act against this

type of behavior am I just gonna kind of accept it and it's not you never like I'm I'm on board I'm a cool I'm a woke

dude no I like I care you know it's it's

a whole you know spectrum people will move from one to the other so this this

was literally a hundred different slides that she had that was like having it out this is one of the quotes you use where

each and every one of us has the capacity to be an oppressor and I'm sure we've all kind of been a jerk whether we

meant it or not at some point in our lives where we just kind of didn't know what we were saying I just didn't

understand how we were talking and kind of put her foot in her mouth or something right so I kind of went through this thing and

picked the top ten and it's very self-reflective stuff okay so the first

one this is no there's no importance tied to the numbers but knowledge and

understand your privileges like I have had a computer in my house my whole life you know I didn't really think about it

so I wasn't going oh yeah it doesn't mean I deserve a job just because I'm

smart with computers like there's a reason I was smart with computers because I was lucky enough to be in that household and I thought there was a

lawyer and had computers that were just giving away you know we literally didn't you have to pay for I mean were just keep sent home so everyone has that if

you're an American you're you have privilege you're living in you know if you're any you know and there's all sorts of things I just understand that

stuff and if the word privilege is a trigger for you you got to find out why

acknowledge that systemic racism sexism and the Able's and exist I did a quick

search to try to find something to add to this slide and it was like many Jerry's calm yeah really cool little

infographics and it was really great little article actually and so come on you know these guys recognize systemic

racism exist at the point where they're like because this is important

get a grip on your fragilities these are all copied from her but I agree with all

of them people get their feelings hurt when you call it cuz someone calls them a racist or sexist but being called the sexist isn't as bad as experiencing

sexism okay it's really not so like let's put things in perspective and just

uh you know and that leads into this thing number seven learn how to apologize and move on it's like again

her approach is awesome she's not like saying everyone that makes a mistake or says something slightly sexist is a bad

guy you know it's like but if you don't accept it and recognize it and don't know how to apologize and move on and

you know comes problematic so you're not disqualifying experiences like we can't

say to someone else that shouldn't offended you or that shouldn't have bothered you you know we

have no right to do that when we're white dudes we're offended all the time people say things make us uncomfortable

all the time so when people tell I'm gonna like doing the exact impersonation with people something tells you that

they're experiencing something just believe them it's very simple just believe him you know

number five consume media made by people not like you one of the other ones she

was like follow people of color on Twitter very simple steps it's very internet I did it wasn't hard it's very

energy it's it's highly entertaining and enlightening you know you learn things that you don't see from just following

other Drupal developers right stop trying to help this I've did I do this a

lot I was huge fall I'm hugely at fault at this you know tips giving tips compliments

and splaining just trying to help it's just a stop just not it's okay I have to

learn this too it's hard not to help you always want to help and solve their problems again these are all things I'm

being taught and just passing on these lessons right so ah number three say hi to new people know there's meetup or

camp or whatever like we kind of are all introverted nerds right but you know everyone's there somebody's new somebody

doesn't know anything know everybody and like this was just an off-the-cuff statement by her from a question in the

audience and I just had to write down because this was brilliant and she got an applause for this it's like common sense just make direct

eye contact with people when you see them in the hallway and smile at them when you're at the conventions or

wherever makes a big difference you know they might they might get a feeling like oh wow it wasn't lonely and weird I actually

made a friend and now I'm gonna come back to the convention number two and

this one's for me right now standing up here break away from the Savior complex your being in LA that's great you should

be you don't get kind of candy for it you don't get a reward for being a decent human being for the people around you but it's tempting to think that you

do because the thing that you're doing might feel so scary for you and she's right it's terrifying so the last number

one one is just to listen you know we need to shut up learn and listen and I interrupt people all the time and it's

not a good habit so just the number one thing you can ever do is just to listen people more and again a flyaway quote of

hers just the underlying message of all this is empathy just empathy patience with each other

Air Wind Board Award

and you know because of all of this inspiring stuff they gave her the air

and wind board award which is very kind of a moving thing is you know Erin you

know was just well-known and he really inspired countless number of people with

knowledge and excitement and mentorship and all of these things so I'm not gonna

you know I've read that enough words but you can kind of read the statement that they mine about why her leadership in

particular has been instrumental and inspiring others to help tell their stories bringing people together to make our community a place where more people

can feel welcome we have a long way left to go but the work Nikki and others are doing now is building the foundation for

a better more sustainable project and community both now and in the future so again if you care get involved this

is their website very basic there's initiatives and get involved link right at the top from the primary links it

created an organizer packet for event organizers to kind of give tips and how to kind of make it make your men a

little more open and welcoming there's plenty of you know

github stuff you can do resources there's a ton of articles and books on

this page there's actually they started a book club so they're like are sharing

they're reading the same chapters of interesting books and every week they're talking about it in the slack chat room

which is really cool and there's you know like I said

everything's in github out in the open it was organized a resource packet

weekly meeting notes in markdown so like

I said this is conversation great really

quickly you may have said it but I might have missed it because I was on there slacking in the channel did you mention

that there was a meeting tomorrow morning it's nice

all right that was awesome thank you thanks all right face-off settled all