Overview
In this episode, guest co-hosts and PhD students Natalie Araujo Melo and Stephanie Jones talk with Dr. Nicki Washington and Shana V. White about resisting institutions, namely resisting academia, problematic K-12 norms, systems of power and oppression, and other harmful spaces. Tune in as they unpack resistance, rest, and refusal.
We encourage you to engage with the resources in Part 1 to become more familiar with the topic of resisting institutions before engaging with this kitchen-table talk. The resources were curated by our kitchen-table talk guest speakers and hosts– among many others, the resources they share have helped inform their scholarship and their own lived resistance.
If you’d like to contribute to an episode’s follow up (part 3, coming out in March!), please feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to feature art, poetry, think pieces, and other forms of media inspired by the conversations from our podcast!
Speakers
Co-hosted by: Natalie Araujo Melo and Stephanie Jones
Featuring: Dr. Nicki Washington and Shana V. White
Listen
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Read (Transcript)
Victoria: Hello, and welcome back to the Recipes for Resistance Podcast, a multimodal podcast centering justice, joy, and healing. I’m your host Victoria.
Briana: And I’m your host Bri. We’re here today with Natalie and Stephanie, who are the co-hosts covering this episode with a wonderfully thought provoking conversation on resisting institutions.
Stephanie: Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie Jones. I’m entering my fifth year of the Computer Science and Learning Sciences PhD program at Northwestern. [others: Woo hoo!] I’m originally from the Philly area. I study at the intersections of, and I put this in parentheses, so like anti and then Blackness. So it’s, I’m studying both anti-Blackness and Blackness broadly within computing and education, as well as refusal liberation, and where we can go from there.
Natalie: And I’m Stephanie’s co-host, me and Stephanie are co-hosts today. I’m Natalie and I guess I had a little bit of my intro at the last podcast, but I’m a fourth year, PhD student in the same program as Stephanie. We’re friends actually , and I broadly study, just like relationships in, computer science and computer science education and how our understandings of our relationships with one another can inform the ways we create, use, and yeah, create and use technologies.
Victoria: And joining today in this kitchen table talk are our guests, Dr. Nicki Washington and Shana V. White.
Nicki Washington: I am Nicki Washington. Hey everybody. A Professor of the Practice at Duke University in Computer Science and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. My work kind of lies at the intersection of identity and computing, specifically how identity impacts and is impacted by computing. And not just the technology, but especially the environments. That’s a little bit about me.
Shana V. White: I’m Shana V. White. She, her pronouns. I am currently the senior associate for CS Equity and Justice Initiatives at the Kapor Center, which is a really long title to just say that I call out people’s bullshit at the K12 level, with CS and Nonsense. I’ve been there for almost two years. Before that I was a 16 year classroom teacher, who got kind of plucked out by my boss, Dr. Scott. She’s like, "We need you on a bigger level to be able to impact more teachers". So I work mostly with teacher professional development, around the framework we just released, which is culturally responsive- sustaining computer science, teaching teachers how to be anti-racist, teaching teachers how to teach all kids, being inclusive with their lessons and understanding that computer science is something that all students should be able to attain, have access to, and opportunity to participate in. But the methods in which we give them that information also should change to meet the student’s needs and interest. The only other thing that I work on is the curriculum, and a lot of the PD [professional development] sessions that we go to as a Kapor Center. I do a lot of like writing of proposals, to speak even though I hate speaking. But that’s pretty much, I do a lot of things at Kapor Center, but that’s just enough to talk about right now.
Stephanie: Let’s dive in and plate up some new perspectives on the intersections of computer science, justice, and academia that we’re sure will get your mind simmering. This podcast usually starts out with asking what resistance means to you. And we wanted to flip that question around a bit and think about who we honor in this space of resistance. Are there any names or voices that you wanna speak into this space as guiding examples of resistance? And these could be authors, family members, mentors, musicians, artists, et cetera.
Nicki Washington: Ooh, that’s a wide range.
Shana V. White: Sure is.
Nicki Washington: I’ll say for me, to the first part, resistance right now for me looks like rest because I am just exhausted. Just for a number of reasons. And so, in that, I feel like I’m honoring especially my grandmother and my mom. My grandmother was a domestic worker in the south, in western North Carolina, in extremely hostile and racist environments. And that’s one thing that she really never had: was rest.
Natalie: Mm-hmm.
Nicki Washington: And she had, she had and seven kids that survived, and I think about 13 total, that survived past about age five or six. And so having that, and even pulling that out of the conversations of Black feminist thought of how, Black women served as these outsiders within. And when the feminist movement pushed to get white women in the working world, Black women and other women of color had already been there for the longest. So for me, it’s rest. And right now honoring my grandma.
Shana V. White: I would say there’s a lot of people, not only past and present. I think for me, my background– and I’m a third generation educator, my grandmother taught and segregated schools in New Orleans, my mom was one of the first Black teachers in some of the public schools in Atlanta as a math teacher. So I would say both of them influenced cause I was so anti: "I’m not gonna be a teacher" my whole life growing up, and of course I became a teacher. And so I definitely know that is because of their influence and just shaping my growing experiences. My dad, I would say is also a huge hero of mine. He was also very big in the public health sector. One of the first Black men to work for the CDC in public health administration. And he passed away when I was a teenager. So it was really hard to have somebody who was a guiding light to continue to like keep his light going after he passed. But he was a big influence on who I am today, why I speak out, and why I have a "bad attitude" as I have been called before, just because I don’t put up with people’s crap. But my dad kind of molded me to overcome that. And then I would say people in the present that I look up to, Dr. Washington is one of them. Dr. Ruha Benjamin, Dr. Safiya Noble, Dr. Timnit Gebru, there’s so many Black women in the space– they’re doing right by people in technology and fighting the good fight. There’s a lot of us, but we still have to continue to be loud. And so I always try to promote their voices, because their scholarship is amazing and they’ve kind of been there, done that. I’m just , I don’t wanna say a newbie on the block, but I would say the tech sector and like K12 academics are completely different things. And so I can just talk to you about like classroom experiences, and what I’ve experienced. So I try to amplify other people’s voices, but those would be some of the people at the present moment, that I enjoy learning from, reading from, and also enjoy watching them drag people as well.
Natalie: Drag them all! [laughter] Oh wow. Phew. Touched my heart. [laughter] Thank you both. So thank you for being here. Our episode, as you know, is titled Resisting Institutions. And you already started speaking to this. But I’ll just ask a little more explicitly, what does resisting institutions mean to you and particularly, can you name some of the institutions you resist, drag them, and what are some of the things you resist within them?
Nicki Washington: Shana, you wanna kick off first?
Shana V. White: I’ll go first. I would say one thing that I’ve been a lot more cognizant of is just anti-Black racism. And I was cognizant of it before, but I guess it’s intensified. And I think I actually tweeted about this a while ago. Like it’s really, I would say, more painful to see it coming from other people of color– non-white people. I kind of expect it now from white people. White people just innately are gonna be anti-Black. But to hear it from other marginalized groups, especially when it’s directed towards Black women, because Black women always try to pull everybody up. We wanna make sure that nobody’s left behind. So I say that is something I’m seeing in tech. I would say K12 education, et cetera, is one thing that I see in institutions that, is, I don’t wanna say beyond troubling, it’s just one of those things that I feel like it’s more intense. And I totally agree with Dr. Washington as far as having to rest because the emotional bandwidth, is just so completely stretched, I think for a lot of Black women in all spaces, but especially in this tech space. And so it’s one of those things that I would say that would be one of the biggest things that I’ve seen, just like transitioning from the classroom just to like a nonprofit tech space type of thing, that I’m trying to resist. And I’m also trying to help other non-white people realize that like they’re feeding into the anti-Blackness, which is not helping anybody. I would say that would be one of the big ones that I feel like I’m trying to resist or help others resist.
Nicki Washington: I would add to that, it is especially, I feel the same way, especially disheartening to see other people of color exude so much anti-Black racism. It’s unsurprising unfortunately, but it is extremely disheartening, especially given how we’re all fighting the same fight a lot of times, just from different angles. I would also add, patriarchy to that, which touches on Shana’s point of how Black women especially are being treated. But then I would flip that even and talk about just the institutions of education in general. I think higher education is, well, you know, K-16 education itself, it was never designed for people who look like us, right? So there’s that issue, and because it was never designed for people who look like us, then we see all of the inequities and inequalities that are happening, especially at the K12 level. But if you separate that out and look at post-secondary education, you know, I just told my students we’re doing, Oh gosh, this week was the lesson on white supremacy and I’m literally standing in front of a class of predominantly white students telling them that, you know, I’m not even supposed to be here. The only reason I would be on campus at Duke was to build this campus, not to teach. But trying to reconcile that as you move in spaces in higher ed, knowing that these were never designed for you. They still are extremely harmful towards you and nobody, a lot of times, if they don’t look like you will even acknowledge that part of it in order to begin to address all of the current issues that you’re facing and mapping those to the historical context. It’s a challenge, it’s frustrating, and I feel like that’s one of the biggest things I try to resist because how I show up on campus every day. It’s hard because you’re showing up on campus, so part of it is you’re still part of the machine, right? But within the machine, how can I push back and how can I create a space that starts to feel like it’s doing some good? It’s a challenge. And that’s probably the best way that I could put it in terms of resisting.
Shana V. White: I think the other thing, as, Dr. Washington put about the patriarchy and misogynoir, and just the overwhelming umbrella that it puts on places like higher ed and K-12. I definitely don’t understand how Nicki Washington and others in higher ed deal with the nonsense. I think K-12, we get to be insulated a little bit, from it, just because nobody really cares about teachers in K-12 spaces. And literally we just teach to a test is what only people care about is standardized test scores. But I think the other thing that I guess with the resistance piece is, I think also knowing like when it’s time to fight back, and then also having the right tactics to fight back. Because a lot of times, sometimes people just need to be cussed out. Sometimes people need their hand kind of held because they’ve mistepped and not necessarily done it, I don’t wanna say like, intentionally cuz everything has an intent behind it, but done it to the point where the harm can’t be repaired. And then some people are just, like I said, need to be cussed out just because they know that they’re being harmful and no one has told them "no" before, or nobody has told them that they’re being harmful and they get applause or pats on the back from other people. So I think also learning with the resistance, like how to address the resistance and like the tactics to use, sometimes people need to be publicly dragged on Twitter. Sometimes people need to be like talked to behind the scenes. But ultimately I think the person who knows, like the harm that has happened should be best equipped to be able to handle what tactics to use. Also, I would just say for me, I have little patience. So like I usually just pick the cuss them out tactic, because literally even with CSEdCon going on the last two days, I’m sitting there, I’m like, Y’all have said the same things over and over again, but literally the leader of Code.org puts out, basically saying "All lives matter". And they care about [[Natalie: I saw that!]] Yeah. And they care about equity. And I was like, that can’t even be in the same sentence. It’s like, are you kidding me? But just whatever. But it’s stuff like that. And then the fact that it was hosted in Florida. Like, all of these things are intentional. And so, I would say he would be a person that would need to be cussed out, because he continues to do this stuff. And so that’s why a lot of times on Twitter, I just make comments or ask questions and just say "Hey, they’re all talking about culture responsive teaching, like, who are you getting your scholarship from? This is not what culturally responsive teaching is." When I’m looking at slides they’re putting on the screen. So I think some people have to be called out, like the tactics that we use, I think is also important with resistance because it’ll make more power, and cause more disruption of the nonsense and the harm, based on the tactics we use as well.
Stephanie: Yeah. And that, that ties right into where we’re going. Like, what are some of those tools of resistance that you might offer for those who are struggling to navigate these institutional spaces? You’re naming social media as one of them, and you can go, you can continue going in depth on the social media lane if you want to too, but love to hear other tools that you’ve used or suggested such as rest as a tool of resistance.
Nicki Washington: So, I wanna say I, I feel like this is where Shana and I are lot alike, because I opt to the calling you out. And I think it’s, it is interesting because we had Jessie Daniels, who was the author of Nice White Ladies this week, give a talk and her talk was titled "Calling in the Nice White Ladies of the Tech World" and so the first question before we opened it up is that I kept saying to her, cuz in the blurb it said "how we", and I said, well, you know, I need to understand because in cultural context, when people say "we", Black folks turn around and say, "who is ‘we’ that you’re talking about?" Because I don’t feel like -
Stephanie: Who all gonna be there?
Nicki Washington: "We" don’t need to do anything. You know, like Toni Morrison, this is a white people’s problem and y’all need to figure out what y’all are gonna do about it and leave me out of it. And so I am a huge proponent of calling out people, mainly because in my 40 plus years of existence, I have yet to see very few examples of when white folks have been able to make true intentional change when they’ve been called in. Not by Black folks, because when they’re called in, then it becomes a private behind the scenes, he said, she said, they said, and then it becomes an issue of offense, defensiveness, tears. And somehow it very quickly shifts into this idea of, they’re the victim and you’re the oppressor, right? [[Natalie screams in frustration]]
Natalie: The bullying, like-
Nicki Washington: Yes! And nobody knows it because you’ve called them "in". And so for me, I wholeheartedly think that social media, for all of the negatives that it has, I think that one of the things, it forces more accountability because people can’t hide now behind word of mouth conversations at a conference anymore. Because you don’t have any engagement with people outside of that. So I use my social media, and to Shana’s point, you use it strategically, right? I have used it to call out multiple people in this space, multiple people who claim to be about the business of justice and abolition but yet continue to cause harm. I think rest is good. But rest for me is something I think that we internalize to be better for ourselves, but it doesn’t really change anyone else’s mindsets. I think for, a lot of times too, particularly white folks, I’m not sure if they still don’t have this mentality of when Black folks decide that we’re gonna take rest, that we’re not, we’re underperforming, and then there’s a level of laziness that comes about, right? I struggle with how to resist outside of using social media and the influence I have in the classroom. I’d say that’s probably my biggest base. And that’s one of probably the biggest differences between K12 and higher ed that I can see: is that college professors get to create and do whatever they want in the classroom, right? My class was just a whim idea that I had, which was actually my protest at my former institution because of all of the harm I was experiencing and anti-Black racism. And so I figured if I can’t get my department chair, if I can’t get my dean to recognize me as a whole person who, and respect the fact that when I say something is happening, it’s happening. I’m not just making it up because it’s a fly by night kind of situation that I’ve gotta figure out how to save myself. And so I think that that’s my biggest, my biggest place of resistance right now is to make sure I impact as many kids, No, sorry, not kids, students who take my classes, right. And it’s a opt in so they don’t have to enroll in it, which, if it was a required course, that could create its own set of issues. But the fact that you have students, 80-100 a semester who are willing to opt in, in a computer science department that is the largest undergrad department on campus that is dominated by people who identify as white, followed by Asian. To me, I feel like I’m making progress. And if I can make progress with those 80-100 per semester, then, you know, mission accomplished.
Shana V. White: I guess, like I said, I use social media as a big one. Just unannounced when I know that I’ve had enough. [Natalie: Mm-hmm.] , especially when I see other people fighting the same battles. Didn’t we have this conversation like three months ago? Or didn’t we, whatever? And you still have not changed, learned, et cetera. I think the other thing that has been at least helpful for me, one of the things that helps ground me is like my family. Just because I have two Black children that are going through the public education system right now. And hearing their stories when they tell me, cuz they are very good at making sure that they are paying attention, and speak out when they see stuff that like isn’t right. But right now my daughter has a Karen as a teacher and I went to open house and I was like, I’m gonna warn you, this lady is gonna be a Karen. I knew it just from meeting her at open house and she’s, she times their bathroom breaks. Threatens silent lunch. Threatens like everything that you can think of and it’s always towards the Black kids. And literally my daughter, it’s so like sad that she’s doing this, but she and her friends are keeping a running total of how many times she just yells at the Black kids in class. And so that helps keep me like grounded in the sense I’m helping to protect my kids from the white nonsense that’s happening in educational spaces. And granted, all the nonsense that’s out there is gonna still be there, but how can I at least empower my kid to fight back so that she can like claim her humanity in a system that, as Nicki said, is not built for anybody Black or brown. And so I think that helps me tremendously is just to hear Wow, this has not changed since I left the classroom. Or like, my year three compared to year 16, like a lot of these white people have not changed. And I think that’s also a conversation I have, with my colleagues– is kind of having a circle of people that I can, like vent whenever there is something that I’m trying to resist to. And then also get their suggestions and advice. And I always talk, Frieda McAlear, my colleague at the Kapor Center, she’s always great at listening and supporting what I’m doing, giving me great advice. And I think she helps ground me and feeling like, is this a battle worth fighting? Is this the like seventh, eighth time, whatever. And then also, I’ve learned just in my little bit of time outside of the classroom, is a lot of these people are narcissist. And so what you have to do is literally ignore narcissistic behavior because they’re basically doing this to get a reaction. And ignoring it literally drives them up a wall. And so my first reaction always is to like, say something, but I’ve realized how much more power it is when I’m like, Okay, and just walk away or don’t say anything else. I’ve realized that with several people in the tech space, CS education, et cetera, that narcissm runs deep. And so with narcissists, you like, you can’t even, I don’t wanna say, you can’t embarrass them, you can, but the way you embarrass them is literally let them fall on their faces. And so you don’t have to correct them, eventually karma comes around and corrects them, themselves. And so I’ve learned that, and I truly thank Frieda for teaching me that because I have, I’ve probably have dealt with Narcissists before but didn’t realize it. But I realize that that is a rampant, kind of like thought process for a lot of people and a lot of the white people in CS, they think they know everything, and they cannot take correction. And that to me is kind of classic narcissistic behavior that you can’t even take any type of nudge. Like, Hey, have you rethought this? You automatically label me as mean or being aggressive or whatever.
Nicki Washington: Mm-hmm.
Shana V. White: Just because I’m like, Can you consider something different, not like you need to change this. So I think that that has also been helpful is just understanding, like, I’ve been listening. There’s a doctor, she’s from , she’s of south Asian descent, who talks solely about narcissism. She’s a therapist. She has all these tons of videos on YouTube that Frieda linked me up to. And I’ve been watching them and I’m like, Oh my gosh, this makes so much sense now. And so I would say that would be another thing is like educating myself on how to deal with narcissists, has been a way that I’ve been able to resist, a lot of the white nonsense, in tech and CS.
Nicki Washington: I’m laughing because I’ve dated a couple of narcissists, so I’ve… you hit it on the head with quite a few people in the CS-Ed space. Definitely. And Frieda, God, I love her so much. She’s such a calming spirit. Like, just her presence. You just zone out. You cannot get worked up around Frieda. It’s impossible.
Shana V. White: You cannot. It is. It is literally impossible. Even, I mean, we have weekly calls and literally I sit there and I’m just like, this is the calming moment of my week. And we always, and we joke about like, we don’t even talk about work most of the time we’re joking about other stuff, but like you said, her presence literally, like my blood pressure drops, my heart rate drops.
Shana V. White: It’s just and all sense calm. And I think that that helps me fight the resistance to have somebody who can like [Nicki: Right.] Hold me in a space and literally just like care for me and make me feel like, Hey, you’re not alone in this, but we’re gonna be calm and be able to collect whatever we need to collect and et cetera. I think like Frieda, she has been immensely like a tremendous help for me, since I joined the Kapor Center.
Nicki Washington: And I would like to note that I think Frieda is an important co-conspirator for Black women in computer science. And I don’t think she gets enough credit for that.
Natalie: I love Frieda’s the reason I’m here, Frieda is the reason I am a PhD student. She was the first presentation I saw at a computer science conference that I could relate to and connected and spoke to women of color. I was just like, Wow, I can do this? Like, this is research? [Nicki: right.] Yeah.
Natalie: And
Nicki Washington: I don’t think she gives herself enough credit [Shana: She doesn’t.] in that space. And just in the computer science space in general, like she’s just amazing. And she is the perfect combination of a trained social scientist and computer scientist. And I think that that, that plus her positionality just makes her such a unique gem in this community.
Shana V. White: Yep. Absolutely. I mean, I like 100% second that, I think also the big thing, like you said before, she is a big ally for Black women because she surrounds herself with Black women. She supports Black organizers in Oakland. That is where her ideology is, is that Black feminism is the only way that we can push through to this liberating space, the space that’s better for all people. And I think that that’s huge that she does that. And I think the other big thing that she always tells me that helps her is that when people see her, they see her as white presenting. So it’s a lot easier to take feedback from her. And so a lot of times she’ll convey feedback that I’ve literally cussed somebody out, and she’ll phrase it in a way that they’re able to listen to it because she looks white when you see her or come up to her. And also her calming presence, that she’s helped so many times, just with conveying a message in a manner that made sense to her, made sense to me, but also made sense to that other person. But they need to cut whatever they were doing out. And so she’s a tremendous ally. Like I said, I talk to Frieda every day. She actually just text me a few minutes ago. So, yeah, I love Frieda like dearly, and she’s a tremendous ally and co-conspirator in this space, for Black women. I know she is for me. And I know she’s been for other Black women too.
Natalie: Yeah.
Nicki Washington: Mm-hmm.
Natalie: Stephanie, do you mind if I ask, an in between question before we get to our–
Stephanie: Go ‘head girl.
Natalie: Okay. Cause y’all made me think about how, like mental health and rest are discussed and yet are really different. Like they should be different for the oppressor versus the oppressed. Like when I give, when I tell you that I need rest as someone who’s oppressed, it’s because I’ve been shouting, screaming, and it’s, there’s a lot of not only labor that, that I’ve been doing, but like on top of that, like receiving all these microaggressions slash full aggressions. It’s bringing me down and I physically, like I need physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, I need rest to be alive, to be alive each day. And it’s different from someone who is part of a dominant community. And I’m not saying that I am not part of, like I am, like I’m cisgendered. I experience things that I don’t like, I don’t understand fully how trans folks experience their lives day to day. And so, I just hear like us talk about rest in a way that’s just different. It’s different from like white folks resting because when we call you out, it’s like, you need to be okay with those emotions. You need to be like, you can’t just like rest it off and go another day. You need to sit with it. You need to really let it sink in. But yeah, I was just wondering if you wanted to speak to that or if I said all of it.
Nicki Washington: No, you, that’s a good point. And so that last point, by calling things out, that is taking a very calculated risk.
Natalie: Right
Nicki Washington: And so that risk, there’s already the mental and emotional drain of do I do this? If I do it, what’s gonna happen? Preparing for every response every other way, which is why I keep telling people, when you see Black women– And I’ll just stick in computer science– when you see Black women on social media calling out things, I always start with Timnit because the one thing– when I remember in December of 2021 when Timnit started tweeting out what was happening to her, the first thing I started quote tweeting of her was, What I need y’all to know is that she has thought about this for months before she actually did it. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back for her. But don’t think and take this lightly, like this is again, a fly by night. And the mental anguish that goes into that is already draining. So then having to deal with the repercussions of what comes as a result of that is just a totally different beast. I’m a huge proponent for mental health. I think that I’m glad to see that a lot more people in the Black community are prioritizing mental health and talking about therapy and mental health struggles. Because I think for a long time, even, you know, my generation Gen X, we didn’t necessarily talk about that, right? Everybody had this assumption, you can pray it away or just deal with it and keep going. And we see the impact of that. I know the times that I’ve actually called people out on Twitter, the emotions and the time that it takes to get to that point is, it’s to the point that sometimes with those tweets, I’ve literally had to show them to Shani who I feel like is my, better half, right? We have this thing where we’re two, two sides of the same coin and I’m like, Shani, how does this look? And we have this whole back and forth about what I, it’s gonna make you seem like you’re the aggressor. So there’s all of this push and pull that happens there– of two Black women now having to discuss how we call out the harm that one of them experienced because we already know what’s coming. And you’re right, like they don’t have… rest for them is just like, Oh, I don’t have to work this weekend. Right? I don’t have the kids this weekend, so I’m gonna get some more sleep. That’s it. Like we’re dealing with so much more and not only that, collectively, whatever’s happening in the world that’s happening to us as a people, we’re also embedding that or internalizing that in some way. And it’s just so much harm that I think other people don’t think about, specifically white folks, right? Cuz every other group of color I think is dealing with these in some way, but not like we do.
Shana V. White: Mm-hmm.
Shana V. White: Yeah, I think that you, Natalie pretty much talked about everything. I think mental health is really important. I think just the stigma. Surrounding it, especially just in the Black community, is rough. Just like a lot of other things. But I think it’s so important, and I think a lot of times, and I even had this conversation with a bunch of my teacher friends when I was still in the classroom, is that, do people really know how to rest? A lot of times I feel like as a K-12 teacher, I didn’t know how to rest. I didn know how to turn my brain off just because I’m concerned about this kid in my fourth period class who, you know, shared something with me. And I’m just kinda like, okay, like are they gonna, you know, be okay? How can I help resolve this situation or assist or whatever. So I think that’s also a thing that I’ve been trying to learn is my type A brain– I, it’s very hard for me to cut it off. But like you mentioned before, like watching like Abbott Elementary is a way that I can cut my brain off. I try to find as much stuff as I can to cut my brain off. I really like sports. So watching sports is another way that I kind of cut my brain off, but I think a lot of times we don’t really know how to rest because we’ve been fighting our whole lives. I mean, I tell people the story all the time. When I was in kindergarten, I had a Black teacher, which was amazing, and she wanted me to be tested for gifted. And so I worked, I lived in Georgia and the county said, we’ve never tested somebody in kindergarten for gifted. And she’s like, "this girl is gifted you need to test her." And they tested me and I only missed one question on the test.
Natalie: Wow.
Shana V. White: And one of the white teachers in the hallway said, "I can’t believe that Black girl passed that test." And I remember that as a five year old, I was called the N word on the playground as a five year old. And I remember these things and I’ve been fighting this battle and I know that I have a lot of privilege you mentioned before, because I’m cis gender, I’m also, I have light skin privilege.
Natalie: Right.
Shana V. White: Which I get away with like more, I think. And a lot of times, because when we think of tropes of angry Black women, think of dark skin, angry Black women as what people wanna say as the trope for an angry Black woman. And so I know I have light skin privilege, but like to fight this battle, to have been called the N word as early as five years old, it’s exhausting. And so it’s like, do we really know how to rest? Like when is the next microaggression or aggression coming around the corner? And then I think for me it’s also important just because I have to show my kids that you have to rest because they’re gonna be battling this until the asteroid hopefully takes this whole planet out. Cuz we don’t, nobody deserves to be here. But basically like until the end of time, like they’re gonna be dealing with the exact same stuff because white people are not gonna change. And so it’s one of those things where it’s like I have to teach them, you have to find solace in something that gives you peace and comfort, as just like I have to because you’re gonna be dealing with all this white nonsense pretty much your whole life.
Nicki Washington: I mean, generationally have we ever, we haven’t even been afforded proper rest, so we definitely don’t know how, Right? Those small moments of time that we can steal for ourselves, like those are so fleeting.
Shana V. White: Yep.
Nicki Washington: That as wild. But I do appreciate when you said that you disappear off social media without announcing it. I think that’s important as well, Right? Cause there’s so many people like, Oh, I’m gonna take a break for X amount of time. If you need me, you can reach me. You know how, And it’s like, yeah. But when you do that, the people who– they’re not gonna respect your boundaries.
Shana V. White: Right– right.
Natalie: Well, thank you. That’s it. I’m like feeling lots of emotions right now, so I’ma hand it off to Stephanie for the next one.
Stephanie: Okay, I think we have been talking about this a bit and it’s one of those major institutions that we’re all wrestling with, which is like anti-Black racism and how that’s been seeping into our lives, our jobs, in our field. However, all four of us have been attending specifically to anti-Black racism in computer science education. And we wanted to uplift that first of all, but also, spend some time thinking about what does our attention to this do for a field like computer science education?
Nicki Washington: What does attention on anti-Black racism do to CS ed? The short version I could start with is that it just, it forces people to call attention to who has been allowed to be in CSed. Cuz for the longest time, and still to this day, it’s dominated by white folks, right? So when you start calling out anti-Blackness, then now it’s forcing that community, that community that was allegedly designed for the goal of increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion is now putting a spotlight on: but y’all are the problem. So now what? And now , it’s causing a lot of discomfort. It’s causing a lot of tears. It’s causing a lot of spiraling as I’m starting to see. Because as Shana appointed to the narcissists who have been upheld, as, you know, all praise be to this person who’s been doing this great work or these groups of people who have been doing this great work are now being called to task that yeah, well, you know, your shit stinks like some other people around here and they don’t know how to deal with that. And instead of taking that, digesting it and acknowledging, addressing, and apologizing, it becomes more of, "Oh, woe is me and look at how everyone is piling up on me now and I just can’t function." And I think it also calls attention to all of the Black and brown scholars and students who have been doing this work, not because it was, in vogue. Because it was a matter of survival. [Natalie: Yeah]. Right. And I think that that’s been the biggest thing. I think turning that spotlight has made a lot of space for folks like y’all at the Papaya Project to actually come through like, the Kool-Aid man and say, you know, "we’re here, this is what we’re doing." And y’all weren’t limited like a lot of us, who are more senior in position, who were told, you can’t do that work until you get tenure. You can’t do that work if you wanna get a job in a computer science department. Well, if you wanna get a PhD in computer science. And so because of that, we were always trying to wear these two masks and basically do what we had to do in order to get to the point that we could do what we wanted to do. Right.
Natalie: You opened the door for us. Seriously, both of y’all. Thank you.
Shana V. White: I would say I definitely, Dr. Washington, I have opened no doors.
Nicki Washington: But you have!
Shana V. White: I just rather punch people in face more than anything.
Natalie: Move people outta the way for us.
Shana V. White: Okay. I’ll take that I do a little bolley ball. Going back to my basketball and also my power lifting roots. I think the other big thing that, piggyback off of what, Nicki said was, also understanding, like putting people on alert. Because a lot of things, what I’ve noticed, is that people still cap toe or tip toe around these words instead of naming ‘em. And so that was the one big thing that, Dr. Scott, my boss, and I had a conversation about. Is because in our framework we, I said we have to name white supremacy. Like you can’t not name it at this point. Like all of this culturally relevant, anti-racist, there’s a reason it’s happening because of white supremacy.
Natalie: Mm-hmm.
Shana V. White: And it was one of those things where she’s like, I completely agree. She’s like, I don’t know how people are gonna react. And I said, They’re gonna react the way they wanna react. [Stephanie: Mm-hmm.] And ultimately that’s not our responsibility. Our responsibility is basically speak the truth. And the truth is, white supremacy is a big hindrance in every community, in every society, and especially in the CS technology community. I think it puts people on alert because it’s very hard to sit there now, I think even though people still try to say, Oh, I’m equity minded, or, I’m an ally and I’m this, and your actions don’t necessarily show that. But then, you can’t even say the words, right? You can’t define equity for me. What does equity mean? Or if I sit there and say, I’m shooting, like my goal, and Allison knows that, that’s why she gave me my title is I said, I’m a big proponent of like racial justice. Because I feel like if Black people get racial justice, a lot more other things will fall into place. Like it’s all tied to our liberation as Black people and getting what we deserve. And so a lot of times people are like, Oh, you’re saying the word race? Like it’s a cootie. And I’m like, We don’t have cooties. Like what in the world? Like we’re all grown adults and you can’t say racial justice. You can’t say the words white supremacy. And so when you let this pink elephant just continue to tip toe and tap around the room with nobody naming it, it’s really hard to do your work and it’s really impossible to me. And I think I tweeted yesterday, even though I think I had a grammar error in it, but I was like, it’s impossible for an organization to say that they’re equity minded when they don’t say the words. We don’t condone bigotry. We don’t condone white supremacy. We don’t condone X, Y, and Z, ableism, whatever the case may be. You’re not equity minded if you can’t even say those words in your statements. And so I think the other thing that the anti-Blackness and people calling it out now in the tech and CS communities, is help put people on notice to say, Hey, these people really aren’t fighting for equity– they’re fighting for assimilation, or they’re fighting for everything to stay status quo. So I think putting that on blast is very important because there’s a lot of people, as Dr. Washington mentioned before, about co-conspirators and they’ll say they’re an ally, et cetera and they’re really not. They’re upholding the exact same things that have been upheld. They just maybe have changed a few of the words and did a little song and dance around it to make it look appealing. But whereas Nicki said yesterday just vibes, that’s what some people are like, right? I’m like, equity is not just vibes like, what the hell are you talking about? But for them it is. White supremacy is just vibes and it’s life, death. It’s like life and death for people and for them it’s like just vibes. And so I think that like big, like delineation between a co-conspirator and an ally, that Dr. Washington, talked about like in her scholarship, is really important. And I think that a lot of people are now being put on notice, like, wow, I’m not as much of an ally co-conspirator as I thought I was. And a lot of them are embarrassed, because they’re starting to get called out. And I’m excited about that just because I feel like there’s so many times that we’ve been quiet and let them skate along as they’ve been doing. And now I want them to be put on notice because we’re not gonna allow you to continue with your bullshit, like, it’s just not gonna happen. And I love the fact that a lot of other people use social media and other platforms to step into their power because their voice is important. You have to have confidence to speak to people that literally continue to cater to white supremacy and whiteness. And that’s hard to speak up, but it’s something that’s so necessary. And if more of us are con constantly doing it, people like the leader at Code.org will sit there and say, "Oh, I’ve messed up." I said, That’s why you have people leaving your staff because you messed up. There’s lots of ways that you can correct people. And I just think that a lot more people stepping into their power and saying , "No, we’re not gonna tip toe around white supremacy anymore", it’s really important to get these people that are supposed allies off the fence and say, "You really ain’t an ally, or are you moving to the coconspirator role?"
Nicki Washington: And let’s be honest, the only reason people would even consider themselves allies or a lot of these people have even stepped into this space is because, Black is the new Black. They could find a way to get tenure, all of these awards from these ACM orgs, IEEE, other places of being these great scholars by saying, "Oh, we’re doing X, Y, and Z and now we have X number of Black and brown students who’ve taken AP Computer science, or AP CS principles." and it’s like, Yeah, but what, what are you saying? The work is beyond mediocre in terms of like impact, for real impact. And this probably goes into a segue that I probably didn’t intend to go into, but this idea in higher ed, especially of impact. And I remember tweeting about it the other day, Impact as defined by H- Index values, pub counts, all of these things that mean nothing to somebody like me, [Natalie: Right.] Who when I go home or when I’m on the street, nobody cares about my title. When I get pulled over by the cops, they don’t care that I’m Dr. Washington who has a H index of whatever, or X number of pubs or how many million in grants. They care that, I’m a Black person and I could probably be a threat, so I’m gonna have to worry about, is she gonna kill me first? So I need to be on alert. And I don’t think that enough people recognize that a lot of these people in these positions in CS education have banked on the fact that we would stay quiet because we knew the cost of speaking up and out. They’ve relished in that for a long time, even if they don’t think they have. And they don’t wanna give it up now. And I think that’s also what we’re seeing with the call to anti-Black racism. You’re seeing that discomfort of people wrestling with, I’ve got to acknowledge that in order to really accurately do this work, I have to cede space, but I don’t wanna cede space cuz I like my popularity and my privilege and my notoriety.
Natalie: Yeah. Something I think about too, like what you’re saying with the impact, we bear the brunt, we know the consequences. We live the consequences. Our kids live the consequences, our families live the consequences of this equity work. And so it’s different.
Nicki Washington: It’s immeasurable. That’s an impact that can’t be measured at all.
Natalie: Right. It shows like why it’s different, why our voices need to be there, because we’ll tell you if it’s impacting us, like hard. And I also wanna just because this, that with me, because there’s just way too many experiences of like anti-Black violence that we just say, and it becomes normalized, like your child’s experience with the teacher, your experience with being told that you’re, or being told that you’re not gifted, being called– like that is not okay. That I just wanna like rewind to that moment because violence should not be okay. Like harm should not be normalized. And we live that every single day. And y’all know this. I’m just like shouting out to the podcast. All you white folks listening, this is not okay!
Nicki Washington: Say it again!
Natalie: We’re dying! I pulled my Cardi out like we’re dying. Yeah. But yeah, I just, I needed to name that because I’m just like, this cannot be another space where we name violence and it is just there and… please do something about it. Whoever’s listening, please know that this should not be okay. This cannot be normal.
Shana V. White: Yeah.
Nicki Washington: And Shana, to that point, I don’t know if the number is accurate, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the last time I checked that the CSED community at the K-12 level– CS teachers were dominated by white women, correct? And so there’s all, there’s still that, right? I call ‘em the academic Amy Coopers.
Natalie: Education in general is like, been dominated.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Nicki Washington: It’s triggering because I think we all have those experiences as elementary and middle school kids. So to hear that your, What grade is your daughter in Shana?
Shana V. White: Eighth grade.
Nicki Washington: So to hear that nothing’s changed.
Shana V. White: Yep.
Nicki Washington: Infuriating.
Shana V. White: Yeah. Don’t worry. I call her Karen, but I think, I forget what her name is. But literally my daughter, cuz she, I think at one point I sat there and I was like, The next time she times you in the bathroom, please let me know. I live a mile from the school. I said, I will walk if I have to or drive, but I will be in that building. We’re not doing this to any kid, let alone my kid. And that’s the big thing that, I’m glad that my kids feel comfortable enough that they speak up. When they see stuff like that, my daughter said, she goes, what if somebody’s on their period? Or what if somebody has like a stomach issue? Like you can’t say that every, and her big excuse was, "Oh, we’re missing instructional time" and I said, "The whole class is in the bathroom. So what are you instructing at this point?"
Nicki Washington: Exactly.
Shana V. White: Like what instructional time is being missed if everybody in the class is at the bathroom. And so it was good that my daughter spoke up, and some of her friends, but it’s you don’t, I don’t know how their parents were taking information. I don’t know if she’s framing it to where it’s all the kids fault and those parents are just taking what the teacher said and running with it. Like I said, I knew she was a Karen beforehand, I take whatever she says with a grain of salt. She’ll send emails in all capital letters and I’m like, Why are you screaming at this? Like, what is wrong with you ? It’s just stuff that’s Just for me being in education so long, and you, as you would know, Dr. Washington, like we dealt with these people for so long.
Nicki Washington: Yeah.
Shana V. White: But I’m just trying to equip my daughter to not be so traumatized by it. And say, literally when I drop her off, I was like, Karen is gonna be Karen today. Your job is to make sure that you protect yourself. And I said, If there’s something where you need to speak up that somebody else is getting harassed, et cetera, just say that this is not appropriate or whatever you need to say. And I said, All the repercussions, I said, Let me handle them. I said, But you’ve gotta be able to stick up for yourself. And I said, Your friends, too, And I said, I hate that you have to do that, but the only other way is me sitting in the classroom every single day and I can’t.
Nicki Washington: Yeah, it’s so normalized. We had a… we had that white supremacy pyramid in class this week, and I made students take like a minute and read through everything that was above the line of overt versus covert. And then I asked them like, How many of these do you think before qualified as microaggressions? And they just started naming them off. And I kept saying, well what does that tell you about microaggressions in general? Because people tend to think that they’re like, Oh, it’s a one off and whatever else, but these are so embedded in the culture and the mindsets of people that they don’t even think about how oppressive and harmful they are. Yeah, I, my, I remember my mom saying she would, had never been so glad for me to graduate high school so that she and my daddy could not have to go back into any school to go at it with some teachers again. I hate that for so many Black students. One, the students who don’t have the parents who are gonna fight for them like that, but two, that you even have to do that.
Shana V. White: You have to do it. Yep.
Natalie: Yep.
Stephanie: Yeah. And so when people are like sitting with and listening to this, we want you to take seriously what we’re talking about. Like just naming anti-Black racism is just the very first step. But how are you actually working to undo that in your life and how are you working to undo that in the people around you’s lives? Like you can’t just sit here and listen and be a passive recipient of all this great wisdom that’s being shared with you today. You need to take it and see how you can operationalize that. Whether that’s in therapy, if you gotta go to therapy and work through those hard feelings, go do that. I know it might sound cheesy, but if that’s what it takes for you, if you need to cry it out, you need to cry out your last ties to white supremacy, good. Go cry ‘em out so that we can move towards a new world. Okay?
Natalie: Yeah. Let it go. Let it .
Shana V. White: Yeah.
Natalie: Let that shit go. Not a good relationship.
Nicki Washington: My God. Yeah.
Shana V. White: Yeah.
Natalie: Oh man. Stephanie, do you wanna ask the next question? I feel like yeah..
Nicki Washington: We just all had a moment.
Stephanie: And so.
Nicki Washington: See, this is what it does to us white folks. This is how it wears us out.
Stephanie: Yes, if you, if for those who can’t tell Natalie, our lovely cancer is feeling very emotional over here. But that’s really what it’s like on the inside when you’re less maybe jaded as I am. I too have these moments and Natalie and I have shared these crying moments before over the like, effects of this stuff. And even like thinking about the writing we do, I’m like, am I going to get in trouble for this? What is really about to happen? And so that’s tied to our next question where we’re wondering like, how have you seen openings and closings of opportunities as a person who is resisting white supremacy? So we’re like, we’re trying to say these words, we’re trying to resist things. We wanna get paid, we gotta eat, right? We gotta eat. Not all of us can be kept, even though that sounds very nice. So, can you speak more to like, how maybe resisting has opened and closed different opportunities and what that might teach people who are opening and closing things too.
Nicki Washington: Hmm.
Shana V. White: Oh, fun times.
Nicki Washington: We both laugh.
Shana V. White: Yeah, I mean, I can name a few things. For example, I’m not gonna, I won’t, Yeah, I am gonna name the conference: CS Ed Con, I have been banned, I am not allowed to attend.
Nicki Washington: Shut up!
Shana V. White: Yes, CS Edcon anymore. I actually wasn’t supposed to attend last year, but my boss told me to come, because Hadi is intimidated by me and doesn’t like that I like to bring up stuff about race at their events.
Nicki Washington: Shut up Shana, He banned you?
Shana V. White: Yep, he banned me. He banned Aman. Aman Yadav got banned as well. We talked about this at Tapia. So nobody from– and I, to me that’s the other thing I think is hilarious just because CSED Con just happened and literally nobody from the Kapor Center was there. I was banned cuz they were mad that I came last year. And like I said, my colleagues were like, Hey, yeah, just come like and I came and I didn’t stick around for much, so I really actually wasn’t mean last time. Cause they had a session about being Black in CS and I was like, what are y’all talking about? Dr. Tamara Pearson was there and she was like, do you understand what’s going [on]? I said, "No ma’am." I said, "That’s why I’m about to leave". So I just left the session. But yeah, that event is one thing that, I think is hilarious. The other thing that I got in trouble for, which again, like I said, I don’t like to put people on blast, but… I just asked because originally there’s another event going on in Florida at the same time. And I was grateful to not only Frieda, but Nicki even reminded me about the, don’t say gay bans in Florida because originally I was gonna put a proposal in for Grace Hopper, for us to talk about Black women’s experiences in K- 16 education. And we ended up doing it at Tapia anyways. But I actually asked Brenda, I said, "Has there been any consideration to take it out of Florida, like from anybody?" And behind closed doors, she reprimanded me and said that I embarrassed her publicly on social media by just saying, "Have you considered moving it out of Florida?" and I’m just kind of like, I just asked a question. If you took it as me embarrassing you, I apologize. That was not my intent. But ultimately, like you can’t sit there and say you are in solidarity with gender nonconforming and non-binary people by having an event in a place where you can’t say the word gay, like you just can’t. And so literally like dropped, she dropped all connection on social media, et cetera. And this is somebody I looked up to, when I was like a CS Equity fellow for CSTA, she was one of the guest speakers. So I looked up to her and I was just kind of like, wow, I mean, I understand money changes how people act and I get that, but just one thing I will never compromise is my stance or values on things. And if I’m really in solidarity with somebody, then I’m gonna be in solidarity with them. I mean, even my daughter plays competitive soccer and they were supposed to have a tournament in Florida and I was like, we won’t go. And we eventually got the tournament moved and now we’re playing in North Carolina, which is no better, but it’s better than Florida. But to me, there’s just certain things that I just, I feel like I have to take a stand on. And I do, and I don’t mind dealing with the repercussions of it, just because I think not only do I have tough skin, but like I expect it now. If somebody does the opposite of letting me down, it’s surprising at this point. So I would just say it’s gonna happen. You’re gonna have doors closed in your face, You’re gonna be reprimanded, whatever the case may be. But ultimately, like my mom has always told me, she always literally, she said that the reason that a lot of people, not necessarily are intimidated by me, but a lot of times a lot of people, get frustrated by me is because I bring a light and I bring a mirror at the same time. And they have to not only see the truth with the light, but they also see how they are reflected in the mirror with that truth. And so my mom always called me, Sojourner Truth even as a little kid, just because that was how I navigated life. And so there’s a lot of people I’ve pissed off. But ultimately I know that I’m standing on the side of the people that are marginalized and oppressed. So I can go to sleep with a clean conscience and go to bed comfortably. Knowing that I did not literally cater to white supremacy, whiteness, bigotry, any of those things. Even if it’s a group that I’m not, I don’t identify with or not a part of. Like I’m not a, you know, I’m a cisgender woman. So sitting there and saying if I’m really in solidarity with trans people and non-binary people, then I have to actually like show what that solidarity is. Solidarity’s not just saying it, but it’s proving it. It’s like, "Hey, I’m not going to the state of Florida for any event." Like, it’s just that, you know what I mean? And so I think that just understanding that you are not going to be liked by everybody, but most likely the people that don’t like you are the ones that can’t look at themselves in the mirror and go to bed with probably a really crappy conscience at night because they know the truth and they know that they are on the wrong side of truth.
Nicki Washington: I would like to say North Carolina is nothing like Florida.
Shana V. White: Y’all got your mess, but y’all.
Nicki Washington: [inaudible in between laughter]
Shana V. White: But Y’all are way better.
Nicki Washington: Yeah thanks Cal Cunningham. Um yeah, I do… I did not know about the Code.Org stuff. I remember we did discuss the GHC stuff. I’m surprised that I don’t even know what being banned from a conference would look like from them. That is just really weird.
Shana V. White: Yeah.
Nicki Washington: But it’s not surprising. I’m so unsurprised because nothing, nothing surprises me at this point with folks. I would say, losses and wins. So I have shared this story probably only a couple of times, but I find telling it, you know, I talk to people a lot about my experience at my prior institution, Winthrop University, and that I, experienced a lot of white supremacy. I was denied promotion of full professor because of a set of course evaluations that were extremely biased that said I was rude, disrespectful and mean. They were only less than 10 or 15% of all my course evaluations. When we talk about racism and the distraction and having to take time to do work of meticulously calculating the number of students in the class versus who completed the course evaluations and that percentage. And I, I remember sitting in the office, and being told, "I’m a brown person and I have the same course expectations as you, Nicki. I don’t have these issues". And that was my dean. And it was " how do we fix this? Are there people?" And I said, "What do you mean, how do you fix this?" "Are there people that you know who you can talk to–" "For- what?" "On how to be a more effective teacher?" And I said, "This is not my problem, and I will not be talking to anybody. And if y’all think that I’m gonna change who I am down here to be liked by students, then I’m letting you know right now I won’t be here that much longer." And I told him also, you know, that "you are not Black, you are not a woman, you are not a Black woman from the south. And your experience as a South Asian man in higher ed is not gonna be the same as mine as a Black woman in South Carolina." I dealt with a whole team of parents that collectively were called among colleagues as the mean girls in the college. Because that was their thing. There were snide little white women who, found it very interesting and got off on causing harm to people. And I would call some of them out, as it happened. And I suffered again. That happened in one year. I, put out the book, got featured in Essence, was doing all of this stuff. When the university is using that to their advantage, but then they’re causing all this harm internally. And we had a new provost at the time. I had actually met with the old provost, the president, I have receipts for days still. And the new provost came in and said, "I think that you should go up again just to have make sure you had a fair shot". And I said, "Well, you’re asking a Black woman again to do the labor that you as a white woman and a white woman who has a background in feminism already understands, but I’m gonna do this to prove you wrong once again." And so I submitted the same package, didn’t even update anything. They denied it. Now the dean didn’t support it now for a different reason, which caused even more, it was just back around my course evaluations. And I remember sitting in that office with him and a white woman because it got to the point that literally the two of us could not be in a room alone because there needed to be somebody else. I, because there were complaints going to HR from both of us, and being told again that my course evaluations now in a different area were an issue. And I again, grabbed the numbers and I said, "There’s no more than 15% of my course evals, are negative. And I remember looking at the VP and saying, You tell me you agree with this?" And she said, "Well, you know, I understand what you’re saying about 85% of the course evals are positive, but there’s also the 15% that aren’t." And I said, "So now you’re telling me that I have to have 100% pass rate or effectiveness in order– are we, is this what we’re doing?" And I stopped. I said, "You know what? I’m not doing this." I had been applying for jobs at the time. I hadn’t told anyone. I walked outta there and my heart rate was so high. And I knew, cause this was the first time in my life working at this job that I’d ever had high blood pressure. And I kept saying, This job is gonna kill me. And I left out of there, cussing, screaming, talking to my mom on the phone, jumped on the highway to drive back to Charlotte, and flew in front of a state trooper. And he pulled me over and I started panicking. And when he got to the car and asked for my license and registration, I remember just saying, "I don’t have a gun. Please don’t kill me." And then I just broke down crying. And he was well, you know, okay. And then he takes my information, comes back like, well, why were you speeding? I said, I’ve had a bad day. I just wanna get home. I just wanna go home. I’m dealing with racism at work. I cannot deal with this too. I just wanna get home. And so he says, I’m gonna give you a warning, but please, just make sure you’re following the speed limit. But I had to sit there on the, off this exit for 30 minutes and calm myself down to the point that I could get home. And I got home and I made the commitment to myself when I walked in the door that said, If I don’t get this job at Duke, I am quitting this job this summer. My lease was up in July. I would go back home and stay with my mom and consult until I can figure out what’s happening next. The very next morning I got an email from the then department chair from Duke that said, "Do you have a moment to talk?" So when he called, he said, "You know, I apologize. You know, we, we took longer to get back to you because we really felt like in reviewing your package, you should be at the level of full professor. Would you be willing, We wanna give you the offer, but would you be willing to submit a package to apply for a promotion?" I’m like, say less. I’ve had this ready for years! So when I say– I say that to people because sometimes I, you know, you have to take a L to actually win. Right? Some wins are gonna show up in the lost column. And for me, that was a big lesson. It’s not always gonna come when you want it to come, but it’s gonna come exactly when you need it to. And yeah, I, and so for that, I would tell people to stay true to yourself because I could have very easily conformed to what they wanted at that institution. I would be miserable. I was miserable there. I hated showing up. My blood pressure just went up every single day. And that’s how you know it’s time to go. There’s a difference between just being worked up about the work and then just being in a stressful and toxic environment. And the environment– you can’t do this work in an environment that refuses to acknowledge your humanity and your decency. So I’m grateful to the fact that I do have this position now. You know, because Duke is gonna Duke right. It’s not perfect, but I do feel like I’m in a much better situation. I’m still within the confines of the machine. So I’ve got battles every day. I gave up tenure taking this job, right? So now I’m in a non-tenure position, which puts me in even more of a precarious position with the work I do. But for me, it was a matter of do I take the security of being tenured in a place that I hate? 98% of the people I’m working with– I will never be seen as, anything other than a uppity Black woman. Or do I take the risk and bet on me, and I’m gonna always bet on myself before anybody else.
Stephanie: Snaps.
Natalie: Okay, so we’re moving, at least I’m hearing it already, and I don’t know if you are Stephanie too, but–
Stephanie: mm-hmm.
Natalie: We wanted to think about moving beyond this space of resistance, into a space of refusal. And what I mean by that is, Stephanie and I were talking about resistance and refusal the other day, in planning this podcast. And so we’re seeing resistance, as, fighting the institution, making changes to the institution. And it’s always like still centering the institution, it’s centering this place that hurts you over and over and over again. And though that place like exists in our lives, we were wondering what is, what would it mean to start, like from a place of refusal, which is just a straight up like "hell no". It’s like a, "Nope!" I don’t know if anyone has seen that. Nope. So it’s what takes you outside the institution where you’re doing your own thing, independent of whatever is going on, hegemonically. And so, yeah, we just wanted to know your thoughts on this. Like it thinking from a place of refusal, which I think I see like that you already do. What would be, how do you or could you refuse cultures within the institution, like knowing that it still exists? What are ways in which you do refusal?
Nicki Washington: Shout out to E-40, too. Just because you’re quoting "Nope", and in the song, everybody’s got choices, you have to make a choice how you’re gonna show up every day, right? My refusals at this point, I feel like I’m making refusals that may cost me later on in my career. And that’s just being honest, right? I’m not tenured, which means I’m contractual. So at any given point, the university could decide, this is not a good fit anymore. but I still stand by and refuse to conform to what I think I should be doing in order to secure my job. Even though I am born and raised in Durham, I would prefer to remain here because my mom is here. But I recognize that sometimes you don’t get what you want. For me, I have tried to very much show up in spaces and refuse to let anyone deter me from what I know I need to do for myself or for the students who look like me. I can give a quick example: was, in our group, the CS-Ed group on campus, there’s a meeting that would happen almost weekly. And I started fall 2020– y’all already know how chaotic that was– and I remember folks were like, all, Well, Nicki, are you gonna come to meetings? No, I’m not. And I remember my response was, if this is not a an absolute necessary meeting, I will not be be coming. Between covid and white supremacy, I am tired. Put it in an email. And that was it. But there’s this idea of expectation that it, this is how it’s been done, so this is how you should do it. And that’s hard for people to do, when you’re not tenured if you’re junior faculty. But I think it’s very necessary. I refuse to acknowledge or, um, support anything that is not going to allow students to show up in their best versions of themselves. I’m pushing back even in things like citations, refusing to cite people. That has cost me a couple of publications now for a couple of years, that I have submitted in a number of places that claim to be about the business of CS education and justice. But I recognize that my talents need to be taken outside of CS, including in the publication space. But I refuse, and a lot of them will come back like, You didn’t cite X, Y and Z people, white women. I’m not gonna cite them. I’m not. And that’s a big refusal, but that’s also part of changing that paradigm of CSED and infusing anti-Black racism at the forefront.
Shana V. White: I wish I was more like Dr. Washington. My, I wish I could refuse a lot more. I think I did when I was a teacher. And I am able to at the Kapor Center just because I, my boss is a Black woman. But I think there still are times where I’m not able to just because, as Nicki mentioned, I don’t necessarily have to deal with tenure in that piece, but when I was in school– Georgia’s a right to work state and they had a file like super thick on me of stuff that I’d said on social media, like Black Lives Matter, et cetera. I’d been doxxed, all these things, just as a normal K12 teacher in public schools in Georgia. And so there are times that I had to protect myself. And so I guess refusal looked like that for me in the sense of, okay, like y’all wanna fire me over saying Black Lives Matter. Y’all can have it like, just delete my Twitter account. Like whatever it’s gonna take for y’all just to leave me to hell alone. I think it also, the refusal looks a little different for me just because I wanna see all the other Black women win. Even though I do know not all skin folk are kin folk, but most of the Black women that I’ve met in the CS education space are fighting like the right fight. And so like for me that is Hey, if I know something’s happening, I’m gonna be like, "Hey, let me give you a heads up, Dr. Washington, so and so was doing this" so that something that they’re working on doesn’t get screwed over by somebody white, white adjacent, white, whatever. And so to me, I feel like I’m more of a… I have very good discernment about people and I know people that are about that life and people that are not about that life. And so I feel that my active refusal is to give other people that are doing the right thing and in this kind of fight against white supremacy in CS, a heads up, "Hey, I wouldn’t trust this person like X, Y, and Z." And I’d give them reasons not to. You can make the final decision, as far as refusal to work with them, whatever the case may be but my job is just to give you that clear, this is my intuition and discernment about this person, this organization, this etcetera. And so I feel like that is my kind of, behind the scenes active refusal, to just protect other people from their work being tarnished, hurt, harmed, et cetera, by people that I already know– cuz I’ve dealt with them or I know other people that’ve dealt with them– that can hurt or harm them, giving them a heads up about them in advance. And so I think that’s how I refuse a lot of things, by giving people a heads up because sometimes you don’t know how people are. And so like to me, I’m just like, apparently everybody wants to talk to Shana. So in talking to Shana, you’ve given me some intel on who you are as a person. And so I’m gonna share that intel with other people so they can either watch their back, so that they don’t get hurt, harmed, or just whatever, or like, yeah, this is a good person to work with, et cetera. So I feel like that’s how I refuse things. I can’t, I guess with my new job it’s really hard to refuse things. I was able to do so more in the classroom, like I’m gonna do what’s best for my kids. And like I said, I got punished for that by my principals, where they were like observing me every week to see if I was talking about racism in my class, et cetera. I had my kids on a– we had like a whole plan that we would be talking about binary whenever the administration came in. But we would be talking about other topics and when they weren’t coming in, just so they could save my job. So I would say I do that kind of like resistance that’s not necessarily always seen, but it is eventually felt, in some form or fashion, but it’s always not necessarily public- facing as far as resistance.
Stephanie: Yes. Literally the work of Jarvis Givens was, he was talking about this fugitive pedagogy where you’re talking about what you really need to talk about, when the administrators aren’t looking and to think that he’s situating this, like historically, and this is like within your current career. So the fact that we’re still using these pedagogical methods to really get our, what the kids need to know to them is just so–
Shana V. White: I mean, I think it’s to this,
Stephanie: be true to this.
Shana V. White: Yeah. And I think it’s the other thing that’s just as we’ve all said, like the K- 16 system is literally a dehumanizing factory. That’s all that it is.
Natalie: Mm-hmm.
Shana V. White: And so two years ago, like literally they all got mad at me at the school– I worked at a predominantly Latinx school– but the kids, they were telling me that they had family members that were getting like swept up with ICE raids, cause we had a whole bunch of ICE raids in Atlanta. And so I was like, We’re not teaching this. I said, We’re talking about how to protect your family. I’m gonna get literature. I said, I don’t know all the like ins and outs, but I’m gonna get whatever information I can and this is what we’re gonna do so you can give this to your family and caregivers, et cetera. And they were mad at me and I was just kinda like, "Why are you mad at me for protecting the kids’ wellbeing, but also like actually thinking of them as human-beings?" "It’s not a standard." Okay, great. No, them being alive is a standard as far as I’m concerned. Them having caregivers in their household is a standard as far as I’m concerned. And so it was one of those things where it was just like, I couldn’t believe like some of the backlash I was getting, not only from other teachers but like the administration because like I took time outta my class to say, "Hey, I said I found some resources online. Like I actually went to Twitter and asked people for resources" because they were really bad in the area that I was teaching in. And I was like, How can I help my like community cuz my kids are scared? And I said, I can’t teach CS– any subject– I can’t teach math, English, whatever, when I have kids coming into the classroom that are scared because either somebody in their family has been taken or they’re afraid their family is going to be taken. How in the world am I supposed to be like, "Oh, you know what, we’re just gonna ignore that, and we’re gonna make sure we teach you about polynomials." Like how, like asinine is that. And so I’m just sitting there, I’m like, because the system dehumanizes, they think that that’s normal behavior, that we just continue to go on as status quo. Like it’s no big deal. We don’t care about these kids’ feelings and the fact that they’re actual human beings. And so I think that also is a way to resist is to sit there and say, No, I’m not doing that. Like in the sense of I’m actually gonna care about my kids as human beings rather than meet this arbitrarily instructional calendar that’s BS– that doesn’t even matter if I make it because there is no standardized test for computer science or whatever subject I’m teaching. So…
Nicki Washington: I think there would be also more room for people in the Black community and other communities of color, particularly minoritized communities to refuse things if those who were in dominant positions in computer science would also follow suit. And I look at who you choose to work with. So we’ve been, and I’ve been contacted like, "Oh, you should reach out to this person. You should talk to that person". Yeah, not gonna happen. "You should talk to this org. Did you talk to this foundation?" Not gonna happen. And here’s why. And I think that if more white people especially took that stance, more predominantly white institutions took that best stance, when they looked at who they were bringing in for speakers, putting on their boards, putting, taking money from, pushing their students to send to their organizations, then we would see a much better situation. But again, when things don’t impact you, if it’s not broken for me, why am I worried about fixing it? Cause it works. It’s not broken, it’s broken for y’all, but it works as intended for me.
Stephanie: Oof it’s all so deep.
Nicki Washington: It’s a mess.
Shana V. White: Yeah.
Nicki Washington: CS education is a mess. We say all that to say .
Stephanie: We say all that to say, it gets messy. But [Natalie: oh!] Even in the mess, like we want to remind ourselves of our whys and what we are up to. Forget what they’re up to. What are we up to? And like why and who do we resist for? And so we wanted to ask what are some of your dreams for the future? And what could you see as doing radically different with CS?
Natalie: And this is our final question. We know… we are sadly out of time, so feel free if you don’t have time to answer this, we respect your time. But yeah, we would love to hear from you again: what are your dreams and what could you see as doing radically different?
Shana V. White: I guess I’ll go first. I have a couple really big things that I wanna do, couple that are in the works. But I wanna bring a lot of the scholarship that Dr. Washington, Dr. Benjamin, Dr. Noble, Dr. Gebru do and bring it down to k12. And so offering, for example, it’s in the works is, a young adult version of race after technology. Dr. Benjamin has given us blessing and we’re working with publishers right now, to hopefully start that project next year because a lot of times I would bring stuff from her book into my classroom to set the context and I would have to translate it so it was understandable for a sixth grader because Dr. Benjamin is beyond brilliant, but also they wanted to understand and I was like, "Okay, we can’t read the book as is. Let me find excerpts that I can bring and scaffold the reading level down to where you can understand what it’s saying." So a lot of the scholarship, I would love to make more accessible to K-12, not only teachers, but students. So they can like literally not only hear people that are at the present time doing the scholarship now in the tech space and disrupting white supremacy, but also have people to look up to. I know a lot of times people say if you, you can’t be– you can’t be it if you can’t see it or something. And I know like Kimberly Bryant say, Yeah, you can. That’s what disruptors do. And so that’s like my claim is saying, Hey, I’m gonna make sure that they find, that they see it. Like I’m gonna find whoever it is. If it’s a guest speaker, if it’s whoever. I think also just bringing in people that are in like the tech ethics space. Tawana Petty is like phenomenal up in Detroit. And I had her be a guest speaker for some of my students in class that are in a cyber security class. And they were like, We didn’t know Black people like, cared about this. They only see white people. And so I guess that one of my dreams is that all of this great work that’s happening at the higher ed and like research levels makes it down to K 12 cause I think there’s just such a big disconnect there. And we’re not the ugly step children, but K12 is least on the radar and we usually are the most harmed as far as like data privacy, students’ records, surveillance, all those types of things. The other two things that I want to do, and I’m really excited about this one, is, J. Khadijah Abdurahman and Dr. Andre Brock and Dr. Sepehr Vakil. We’re gonna work on creating some sort of student fellowship for kids that want to mitigate the harms of tech in their communities, and basically give them the power, license, et cetera, and make it a whole little program. So I’m really excited about that, just because I always care about students, and them being heard. And so the Kapor Center has money, so why not redistribute? And so that’s what I try to do. And then just the last one is I think that there needs to be a little bit more work done with pre-service teachers. We can’t change right now, the fact that most of the teaching force is white, but we can change the mindsets of the white teaching force coming in. And a lot of times white people, when they come into the teaching force, they get thrown in Black and brown schools, are Teach for America, all that kind of nonsense. And they bring some of their toxic, harmful beliefs with them. So to get into teacher pre-service programs, helping them understand what culturally responsive, culturally relevant teaching is, but also doing it for CS because CS kids, Black and brown kids are not gonna come into CS classes if the teachers are racist or they’re not welcomed. And so teaching some of those teachers at the K-12 level to be more welcoming of historically marginalized students is something else that’s kinda on the horizon, that I want to work on is helping pre-service teachers better understand what they can do better.
Nicki Washington: That’s a lot.
Shana V. White: I know .
Nicki Washington: No, it’s great. I thought about, Race After Technology– Did y’all watch, the reboot of the Proud Family?
Natalie: Yes!
Nicki Washington: So you saw when Maya, Maya was reading Race After Technology. I thought that was so cute.
Natalie: Wait, what? She was reading Race After Technology?
Nicki Washington: Yeah. It was like the first book when she’s introduced, the first book that, and then in like her locker, she had John Lewis’s book and The Fire Next Time it was,
Natalie: Yeah!
Nicki Washington: Go back to when they first introduced her. She’s walking around with Race After Technology. I would say my dream is that eventually I would have to find something else to do with my scholarship because all of these problems would be solved, right? But at a lower level, I would say, That this space of computer science and computer science education from the K12 to the higher ed level is basically inverted so that the people who are now considered the experts, the leaders, the change agents are all of those people who look like us on this call. And that everyone else is choosing to listen to us instead of trying to find ways to figure out how we’re wrong. I would like to see that, especially at the, HBCUs and tribal colleges, because there’s a lot of amazing work that is happening there, specifically with students that, goes overlooked, gets dismissed because it’s not quote– and I’m thinking back to what y’all put in your paper, right?– "A good school", Right? Good is translated to white. I would like to also see where the overwhelming community, especially faculty who are at all of these institutions, start prioritizing the merging of computer science with the social sciences and the humanities. Not to the point that we’re talking about, AI and the harm that is done there with surveillance technology, but the harms that’s happening in the classroom. And bringing in and working with faculty across those different departments to understand how we are creating harmful spaces just navigating these institutions. Because they have the expertise, they have the language and the context that often most of us know, but we may not have the exact verbiage to talk about it. And prioritizing them as experts, which means that there has to be a shift up away from quantitative. And more qualitative, right? This idea that everything can be solved with technology and also that there’s no problem, in our spaces and in our classrooms, it’s an issue of people just pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. That’s what I would like to see. I’d like to see every single student who graduates from college being required to understand how they’re impacting their environments and how that translates to the technologies that they’re gonna develop, and then the companies that they’re gonna go into. Cause we’re doing a terrible job at that right now and if we started to do more of all of those things, then I think we’d actually see a shift in representation, but also just experiences.
Stephanie: Wow. It’s been an amazing hour and a half or so talking with you all. So thankful for sharing space.
Natalie: Yeah. Seriously.
Nicki Washington: Felt like 30 minutes.
Natalie: Thank y’all so much. Again, just–
Nicki Washington: Thank you!
Natalie: I’m bowing down.
Stephanie: So we just spent time interrogating resisting institutions such as jobs and anti-Blackness. As well, we looked at the tools we might take up for resisting them. I will definitely be thinking about my rest more and look forward to more convos on refusal.
Natalie: Yes! Such a generative conversation! And they even gave us a shout out, eeep!
Nicki Washington: Shout out to y’all. This is amazing. A special shout out to the Papaya Project. Y’all are awesome. I said that before, behind closed doors and in front, but I want to, since this is your podcast, Thank you, y’all are actually, there’s a level of good jealousy because it’s like, I wish I could be doing what they did when I was their age. So to see it happening is yes! Finally. Thank you. So thank you for doing that and for standing in solidarity, even when you all were in extremely precarious situations yourselves.
Natalie: It feels so good to know our Papaya efforts have been meaningful. And honestly all of it is really thanks to Shana, to Nicki, and others who’ve opened this pathway for us. It’s really inspiring to see what’s happening in this space of resistance and refusal as well as what’s to come.
Briana: Agreed! I know I’ve gotten a ton of amazing food for thought out of this conversation. We hope everyone listening will also marinate on these ideas and that you’ve got more than a few morsels to take with you.
Natalie: If you’d like to contribute to an episode’s follow up, please feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to feature art, poetry, think pieces, and other forms of media inspired by the conversations from our podcast.
Victoria: Thank you so much for joining us, and we’ll see you next time! Remember to follow us on Twitter @recipes4resist and sign up for episode updates on our website: recipes4resistance.github.io.
Briana: Thanks everybody
Victoria: Bye
Briana: Bye