people too much i want to keep as
much time for audience questions as we
can
so i'm just going to do a quick
introduction so welcome to everyone
of our attendees like feel free to keep
falling in and there is a chat so if you
have any questions
even i have to start just put that into
the chat and hopefully
even if i don't see it one of our other
organizers will
um this is our lovely poster which i'm
sure most of you already
have seen and let's see oh
so far so the first thing i'm just gonna
mention is a
shout out to our sponsor version one and
i'm not gonna read this off because
it'll feel very like awkward but version
one
this is not the first event of ours that
they've sponsored they've been really
great sponsors
and the sponsorship for this event
includes a book giveaway
so it's gonna be people picked at random
so you should hear after the event
it'll be a random choice out of the
attendees so if you've won you'll hear
from us afterwards
and one of our panelists is from version
one so i don't know if you want to
say a couple words or anything yeah
awesome so that yeah we like they've
been great every time that we've worked
with them we've done some embarrassing
events before and it's been
it's been really good and we really
appreciate them sponsoring this
especially
i feel like it's a bit weird to sponsor
online event people don't really know
how it works but it's done well so
thanks to version one
and then the only other thing is our
audience q a which i think is what a lot
of people are
looking forward to so um it's a website
called slide though so if you go to
sli dot do you put in the code there on
the
left hand side you will be able to um
submit your own questions during the
event so i as a moderator will
have another screen in front of me with
all the questions we'll try and get
through as many as we can there's
if i might have to summarize a couple up
into if they're similar enough just to
make sure we get through as many as
possible
and but yeah that's i think all the main
information
i'm going to stop sharing my screen
because otherwise i can't put the code
into
the chat for slido
so at this point um
uh it's time for introductions i will
say very briefly that my name is claire
i work for a company called carrick and
i will be the moderator so i'll be
reading
all the questions this evening and
anyone want to take us off from the
panel and start off with your
introductions
how do you go for it hi my name is andy
jarvis i
run founder of xemo marketing um a
marketing strategy consultancy
uh i've sort of met several other people
from um
from this event and the organizers
before and i'm pleased that they invited
me on
uh there's other people here with sort
of better tech experience um
than i have but it's uh it's an
important subject
uh you'll hear from my voice i'm not
from northern ireland i am
originally from bradford but i've been
here 10 years and have some
in particular experiences of of being
black in northern ireland that i think
will
hopefully add to the discussion and the
debate today so
please do ask as many questions as you
want there's very different experiences
backgrounds and opinions here and it'd
be good to hear from
everybody to you know understand what
questions you have to ask and hopefully
we can answer them from our particular
context
you see well i'll just play if you want
to arrest aaron do you want to go
next introduction absolutely uh so i'm
aaron kerry i'm a the tough engineer
rapid7 so
i started my career in tech about eight
years ago now
where i started as an expert research
intern i just sort of moved my way up to
lead software engineering
and i've been in belfast for five years
after they opened the belfast office
awesome thanks yeah honey next
sorry i didn't hear my name there um
hello everyone
my name is honey bell um i'm a technical
consultant with version one
and i've been in northern ireland for
the past 10 years
i moved from birmingham over here
i actually followed on chase the man to
come here
i joined my husband over um in belfast
and
we've loved it here another night and
everything so um yes
looking forward to this event so please
ask um your questions
and um we'll try and get the answers
um if not i would pass it on to somebody
else who's cleverer than me
thank you
hi everyone i'm zama i'm an engineering
manager in vioni
a small startup company we deal with
robotic solutions
for multiple industries
i moved here to northern ireland in 2012
and i was in england for 12 years and i
was born in south africa
and i called in a tiny town and i'm
looking
forward to this chat it's going to be
quite interesting and i'm looking
forward to the
questions that we're going to get and
hopefully we sort of create an insight
to uh black lives
in tech in northern ireland so looking
forward to it
awesome thank you and jennifer
yeah hi everyone my name is jennifer um
i'm a devops big data engineer at bdt
um i'm also a youtuber a blogger and a
speaker
um i run my own platform where i
also have a newsletter where i send out
monthly coding resources to help others
get into tech as
i did not i've got into tech without a
degree and learning to code so
um i try and use my platform to inspire
others um particularly those are
underrepresented in tech to consider
getting into tech
um i'm really looking forward to this
conversation um
it's not something that we i've
really had the opportunity to share and
i think that this would be really good
for
all of us and to kind of get an insight
into our experience
and get some understanding and hopefully
can be some knowledge that you can share
with other people as well
um but i'm excited to be here so thank
you for having me
awesome thanks everyone thanks again for
joining us and
being willing to do this problem um so
the first topic
we're gonna run through a couple topics
that we've had some brief discussion on
beforehand
so the first topic is around unconscious
bias
so we've talked a lot about this issue
such as being the only black person
in the office and
how people handle that especially in
northern ireland whether people are
willing to
talk about race at all so if anyone
wants to jump in with their opinion and
start from there or
i can ask a few more pointed questions
but feel free to just start talking if
you have anything to say
i i'll kick coffee if that's just with a
sort of a bit of an experience
point that i find um and i know
jennifer there's a lot of us move here
let's let's put it that way and i find
in other parts to the uk
uh in other parts of ireland even that
people are
much better and find it much easier to
talk about race i know i've had
conversations in uh with colleagues
i've been in receptions of some fairly
big companies in northern ireland where
the receptionist is ringing through to
the person i've gone to meet
who i've never met before and you can
hear them trying to describe me
and using every word possible but not
black you know he's the
tall fella green shirt big earphones
holding a microphone it's like
just say it's the black guy and there's
this um
reluctance almost and and i think it
comes from
a lack of exposure to people you know
northern ireland is
um he's not the most diverse country in
in
the world and you know that's various
reasons from the historical troubles and
things like that
and i think it's changing but a lack of
exposure to people
who didn't fit into that easy catholic
protestant division
makes it really difficult for people to
talk about so that to me
uh is part of the issue is that people
don't know how to have a discussion and
therefore default to just denying that a
problem exists and
you know we'll probably mention it
several times tonight that
currently there are more racist attacks
registered by the police in northern
ireland than there are sectarian attacks
which to me
you can argue about the figures all you
want and about reported or unreported
attacks i'm not even interested in
having the debate
what that tells me is that there is a
bigger problem with race in northern
ireland than anyone here is prepared
to accept you know oh we can't be racist
we don't have a black community well
that comment in itself has just you know
opened the door
problem you know there's just no
acceptance that the community here
exists
therefore you know i've had
conversations with people where they're
looking at me stood in the middle of
belfast going we don't have black
community here
you do i'm here i'm talking to you so
it's issues like that where there's an
erasure of
um black people from a discussion uh
an unwillingness or an unnaturalness in
having that discussion as well
which leads to problems of we can just
push it to the corner when things
live in the corners and live the shadows
nothing gets done about them
and i think events like this are really
important to bringing that on
bringing this issue into the spotlight
and i think
people ask what's george floyd got to do
with belfast what's george
floyd got to do in the northern ireland
um
this is what it has to started a
conversation it's lit up here underneath
this conversation
not just in belfast it's done in paris
in manchester in london
he's doing it across the world it's lit
conversations about race that is forcing
people to have them
and for that i think it's a good thing
i'll be quiet now and let somebody else
talk otherwise i'll be here all night
yeah i mean absolutely like i know when
i moved up when i moved over five years
ago like
quite shortly after just by coincidence
uh like we were putting on
unconscious supplies training so woman
richard grant came out to the belfast
office
and she was talking about rachel ra like
racial bias she was talking about bias
against women she was talking about all
different types of bias against
minorities in tech
and she was relating to people and um i
she spoke to me about one point and we
were talking about like racial bias
and so on she said oh that doesn't
really apply here
like aaron doesn't have any problems
nobody in belfast has any problems
and they sort of like oh
aaron's fine like he's doing well he's
got a like a senior engineer position
like it must be okay
but i was definitely the first per like
first colleague that some people had
worked with or i was the only colleague
at the time um but you could just see
they were sort of like
until that was sort of brought up within
the training when i spoke up they didn't
realize
and so like i know a lot of other people
did realize because i had a conversation
with them in the past
but it was an eye opener for some people
um that didn't like mean any harm or
anything they
didn't realize that it was a problem
here too
yeah um i i think like just from what
andy was saying i agree um i
i was born and raised in london um i'm
first generation
british comedies black i don't know how
to explain it so many
so many levels to this um my family
moved over to the uk
from the democratic congo in central
africa
so for me moving over from london which
felt quite
safe in terms of because it's so diverse
i never really
had to think about racism um
but i will say that the conversation was
easier to have just like andy said it
was much easier to have
in london than it was here um the first
week that i actually
moved over someone um
called me an n-word now that wasn't
exactly the best introduction to my past
i was not ready for that
um but i was really shocked and
surprised
i that was the first time i'd ever had
someone say that
directly to me to my face and just
drive off you know it was kind of random
to me
um but i think that the conversation
needs to be had
and i think that unconscious bias as
well i think what it is is that
unconscious bias can can be something
that no one really
thinks is racism like for example you
might say
something that is racist but you don't
think it's racist but if someone tells
you that it's racist and then you deny
it it's racist then
well like if if i'm telling you that
what you've said is offensive
or offensive to me because i've become
my skin you have to understand
why that is i feel like there's also an
image of what racism is i feel like they
think of the extreme levels of racism
whether it be the kkk or something like
that
and they're like nah i'm not like that
i'm not part of that so i'm not racist
but
i think that there are some words or
maybe some
um judgments of of black people
that people may have that you don't
think could be
racism but i think it's important to
kind of differentiate
and and really look within yourself and
ask yourself have i ever
had a moment where i just want to
suddenly just touch my colleague's hair
because i've never worked for a black
person before or
have i you know asked about have i made
some judgments about the kind of food
that they eat i don't know
like just those little things it's it's
a big topic
um but i feel like questions
it starts with asking questions and
being open
to hearing from those questions also
and not disregarding someone else's
experience i've kind of gone on a
tangent a little bit from
from uncut as well and stuff but yeah i
think that's where i wanted to kind of
add to that
i don't know if honey or zama want to
add anything else
no as you and jennifer and andy said
about moving from a big city i lived in
manchester first
when i moved from south africa so went
to a school
um predominantly asian so race was
already
just an open topic no one never felt
that
there was an issue around race and then
when i moved to northern ireland i
actually went to a bar in
cumber and then this guy approached me i
don't know him
and he just comes up and says by the way
an asian guy has been to the spa
11 years ago saw your space here
didn't know how that relates to me being
there but it made me very uncomfortable
quickly because he pointed out that
oh you're a black person and the last
person we had here was asian
so already i it made me ten instead of
me just going there
and enjoying my time they had they tried
to maybe it was a comforting thing they
wanted to do they wanted to comfort me
tell me that i'm safe but it felt a
certain way and i think that's when
you when you talk about micro
expressions that's sort of something
that i sort of
indicate that is a microaggression
towards me you're
pinpointing me as different so
that's one of my experiences in northern
ireland which i found quite odd
um for me i would say um with regards to
unconscious bias would be
people whenever you're having a try to
have a conversation with
someone when i see someone and
who is white you would know exactly when
you're talking to that person
if that person is uncomfortable you
would know if that person is the one
that is
i'm so uncomfortable i can't stand you
or you would know
that person is like i really don't know
if i should say
you're black or if i should say
something else
you just know right away and but
coming from bram again over here
i didn't really it wasn't something that
i
noticed that much because normally
people from northern ireland came across
as really
friendly but it's when you start to have
one-to-one conversation with people that
you then this
then you that then you then start to
peek on things to say oh
okay i think i know the way this person
sees me
this person sees me as different and
that you work your way from there
i've had friends and one of the things
as well is that people here
some people i wouldn't generalize
everyone in northern ireland
don't think that racism is if they don't
think it exists
the fact that you're friendly to me
doesn't mean that someone else is
friendly to somebody else
so i've had loads of friends of people
who have been spat out
here in northern ireland and some people
who have had that experience i have not
had that experience
and then some people come across me to
say oh you're very nice and you're very
bubbly
and i'm like okay where is this heading
so basically saying that the next person
or the previous person that they spoke
to is not
this way so yes it's unconscious
and it's some people put it across as
being nice i'm going to say something
really nice but at the same time
you're saying something against about
people that are my color
so it is considered as an offensive
i think it's sorry just to add as well i
feel like i feel like the
the general consensus like they don't
know
in northern ireland the definition of
racism they don't know what that
means and i feel like that kind of does
go through in terms of
um the history as you say that it's now
starting to become more diverse you're
starting to see more black people more
people of color more different um people
of different um
religions and etc um i feel like
people have a definition in their head
of what it is and i think that
it goes down to education as well um
being willing to educate yourself on
what it means
um i think that also in terms of
surroundings like
it'll be good to kind of be open to
like like not just being open to
conversation
being open to criticism as well like if
i wanna if i feel that i've experienced
something
um that i believe has been racism
towards me
i wanna be comfortable enough to come
and just say look
i feel this type of way um it can
sometimes be a bit daunting
for me i've like there's been moments
i've experienced unconscious bias before
and i'm still in touch with that person
um
but i'm not gonna say that it wasn't in
the workplace but
it was someone like in the in the tech
industry let's say
like here in northern line and i'm still
in touch with that person but it's not
it's
it's whether they're the conversation
like can i approach that person and say
i feel like he said something really
wrong to me
and in some cases i've i've heard
stories where it's kind of perceived as
as a rejection i think that's what we
kind of fear as well
is i want to tell you why what you said
was wrong
but i want you to understand why what
you said was wrong
and be willing to receive that education
so that you know
for the next time i understand that you
know like you said but it's not the most
diverse
city in the world the most diverse
country
but be willing to hear when you have
done something wrong
even if you don't feel like you have i
think that's something i wanted to just
add in there as well sometimes
yeah and just bouncing off that one
jennifer like one of the questions that
anderson slider was
is someone asked well what advice would
you give to someone who's never had a
black friend before
um who wants to talk to you but doesn't
know what to say
um or like like or what you cannot say
to someone
like i would just say like just approach
them like a normal person you don't have
to think it was any differently
your approach does ask if you want to go
for a coffee talk tech
or if you have some other shared
interests that you know about even just
figure out what the shared interests are
because you're gonna have shared
interest there's there's not a huge deal
there's no
there's no script to it like in my
opinion i can understand it might feel
like a taboo subject to try and go up to
someone
or what i would say god to someone like
have like a
conversation with someone and just say
hey like
can i take you before coffee i just want
to have a conversation about something
there's no harm in that um
i like for example if someone wants to
approach me that way i'm more than happy
to just have a conversation and just
share
my experience but my experience is also
my experience
in the same sentence do not depend on
that person to completely educate you on
everything you also have a
responsibility to educate yourself
so when it comes to like um i'll go a
bit off like in terms of like learning
about the lgbtq plus
community i am not going to just go to
someone one of my friends that are
that that identifies as gay or not or
non-binary
and expect them to teach me every single
thing about the community i have a
responsibility
to teach myself about that so
there's no harm like in in taking that
person aside and
having a conversation and being able to
but also accept that if they don't want
to then it's it's totally okay
um but yeah sorry sorry jennifer i think
that's it that's a key point i mean
typically you find people who are doing
zoom
meetups about this are okay to talk
about it and 99 times out of 100 i'll
sit and talk to people
who want to know and have that chat with
them but the thing you have to remember
is that not everybody does want to do
that so if somebody says no then then
just respect that and i think the other
thing as well is just um
it's really easy i'm in marketing right
so we generalize a lot it's how
marketing works
we try and put people in different camps
or tribes or groups or whatever to
to market towards them so we do that but
one thing that we say is
it's hard to to picture and say look
the black community isn't one thing so
people say oh there's a black community
in northern ireland so
having a chat with me and hearing what i
think and what i say and how these
things work
is brilliant but i don't speak for every
black person in northern ireland i can't
even speak for every black person in my
family
because if you ask me my brother and my
dad well you'd get three different
answers
and that's three people in one family so
there isn't such a thing as a black
community we don't you know i can't
speak for everybody i can tell you what
my opinion is and give you some
guide like you know what i think would
be guidance and helpful hints
and tips um but that you know whatever
you do
don't they say well andy said that's
okay you know it's context specific
it's just like you might swear in the
pub with your mates but you wouldn't
swear in church or you don't when you go
at your granny's house
it's just context specific you've got to
understand what it is so
yeah i just say think about that and um
i i just laughed
and i must apologize and if you were
telling a great story and i started
laughing in the middle of it which had
nothing to do with you
it was the question i saw in the chat
which is the um is it okay to ask where
are you from
no no where are you really from um i
mean you can ask that question if you
want till the cows come home but the
answer will always be bradford
you know i can't change that it's where
i was born it's on my birth certificate
i'll always be from bradford um but yeah
i think we've probably all been asked
that question 100 maybe even a thousand
times
i end up leading with that every time i
meet someone and
yes i was born in south africa but as
soon as someone says where are you from
i
lead with straight away originally from
south africa
because i know that it's gonna get to
that so i can't just say
self asked because i i know so it's best
for me to just get to the finish line
quicker than go around in circles to
find that out
i'm fine sorry honey you're going all
right
something as well one of the questions
that you get asked that i get asked
anyways whenever
someone is trying to have a conversation
with me the first thing is where are you
from
and i'm like okay then you know
and also as well you get this okay what
do you do
and sometimes you also get the fact that
people just assume that because you're
you're black you're you're a carer or
you work in health care or you're a
nurse
so you sometimes you actually see the
surprise in people's faces when you tell
them that
oh no that's not what i do i do
something totally different
so it's that some people are trying to
have the conversation but
the unconscious bias is already in for
some people it's already in your brain
so you already your brain is already
telling you what things to ask and it
just
goes straight out and you're like oh
okay i didn't really get to know this
person
honey can i can i ask you a question
about that does that happen in a
professional context
because you know there's a difference
between people meeting you
in a social setting and assuming you're
a carer not to say it's right
it's not but do you find that at work as
well where you're no i'm the senior lead
developer of
and they're like oh do you get that you
get the look you get the
oh kind of situation it's not like
someone would say okay automatically
care because definitely you can't be a
carer this is not a hospital
or a nursing home or something like that
but you get that look where
you walk in and maybe you're having
someone like
you you're having a meeting and then you
just walk into like pitching something
and then you get that look to say
oh okay so that girl i just passed and
lift actually works here
and you do you do you get that and
because of the fact that
i don't know about people who were i
wasn't awesome here but people
people who grew up here might have a
very different they might not know that
look but because you know we're coming
from because i'm originally from nigeria
and you have that look when you see
people and you know like okay this
person has already
sized me from head to toe to know what
i'm worth you have you know that look
so um i don't know if it's different for
um the black people who are born here if
they have because they have some sense
of
yes i am originally from here kind of
situation so yes
you are right gandhi it is yeah i mean
like
so i've one of my friends here too so
he's a mixed race but he's
he's one of the only black people he
knew growing up so he's he just
said he's had a sort of a warped sense
of like um community until he like grew
up
and started going to like when he
started like going straight into belfast
city center and then like seeing a more
diverse community within belfast
because he would have grown outside of
belfast so like
he said it was totally warped and he the
only black people he knew was family
we would visit maybe he wanted a
blessing or something
oh sorry jennifer were you going to say
something else
yeah i was just kind of ad like in terms
of what um andy asks
honey but um in terms of experiences or
getting a funny look and stuff
i think like i didn't i think i shared
this in um
like one of my first vlogs i i think
that um
i don't think that a lot of people where
um i worked were expecting someone
someone um to be black honestly um i did
sometimes get that
that look like when i went down to the
canteen it was like
she's new you know so i've had those
options
or those kind of experiences but i think
because i have a social media
platform i get more of the judgment on
social media where
it's like i've never seen a black person
be an engineer before that happens
you know like it's always kind of
blowing people's minds a little bit or
i do get the the racism or the judgment
and i think that even if you go on my
youtube channel
the first video i did there was a lot of
like
comments about you're not an engineer
you're just a web developer what are you
talking about
it was just like why why they kind of
want to put you down
like to what you actually are and i'm
like i just did a whole 18 minute video
telling you what i
am like we read the message you know um
but yeah i tend to experience that more
even now on social media the judgment is
like
how can you be black and be an engineer
those two don't correlate
um it's not something that they see but
it's
it is definitely here um
so in terms of the experience that um
honey has i've
it's more of a social media thing that i
i tend to experience it in
i was going to say something there
because uh
my first job was in cookstown so
most of the people i worked with had not
spoken to a black person
or worked with a black person so i felt
that a lot and
one of the guys in the workshop said to
me
but it's good that they hired you
because it's showing diversity in the
company
and i was like no they hired me because
i'm qualified to do the job
so i've got nothing to do but the
diversity
is because i'm qualified but that's
something that you would always get
if you change jobs or you move to a
different job
someone would always sort of put into
that diversity side of things or
that's why you were hired which then it
sort of
puts you down a little bit because it's
like hold on but i think i'm
pretty good at what i do so it's not
about the color of my skin
you don't go to cookstown or cumber
anymore though do you
you've learned how to stay away from
this
see my husband from cumbersome oh yeah
he should get divorced sorry if anyone's
listening from cumber or cook's town but
um yeah anyway quick move on somebody
i'm gonna be sneaky and use that
perfect diversion from zamasu move on to
our next topic um i will also say that
when the point of
um unconscious bias and things like
as a white girl i would say that the
biggest thing
like one of the biggest things we have
to do is like educate yourself you know
read the books read the vlogs everything
else don't wait until you meet your
black person and then like
i have all these questions because i've
never got a chance you know like you
need to do that work yourself
i just took one more thing in clay sorry
i'm i did a live podcast about
black lives matter from a marketing
perspective which is how i ended up here
and one of the questions a couple of
people asked was about is there someone
who does unconscious bias training
from a northern irish perspective
because a lot of the time when they
bring trainers in from england
they've lived or worked in london or
manchester or you know leicester
bradford
where you know the ethnic minority
population is just much much bigger and
they got to belfast and didn't quite
know how to localize the content but i
have details
of a couple of providers locally who do
that so if anybody does want that
give us a shout for your organization
obviously give us a shout and i can pass
on those details
awesome thank you yeah so unturned as
what based off of what stan was talking
about our next topic that we're talking
about is the
workplace so specifically progression
and promotion
um and diversity inclusion within the
workplace all those sorts of things
whether
um all that diversity inclusion work and
whether it contributes towards
um promotions and whether it's
recognized all those sorts of topics so
um and also visibility role models
things like that which has come up
already so
yeah anyone wanna
yeah um i can start with that um i
do do a lot of um diversity and
inclusion
work i tend to focus it outside of of
work
rather than within but i do try my best
to kind of balance both
um i think what i found i would say that
before
um the black lives matter protests
before the death of of george floyd
i did find that a lot of the
conversations
in terms of dni was just conversations
and there wasn't really a lot of action
behind those conversations
um and i'll say as well from like from
perspectives i was talking to
many um black people that are working in
tech whether it be in england
um or different parts of the uk um
they've always like in the beginning
before i got into tech i was
told do not join diversity and inclusion
don't
do it i was always told don't do that
and i was like why because it's just
it's always just conversation but
there's never action behind the
conversation
and i think like now with after the
death of george floyd
now i'm seeing the action and
i i don't know like i i i i don't know
that it made me want to add
anyone that i want to add into this in
terms of black lives matter and
marketing
but i found that like a lot of companies
suddenly
had something that they wanted to do
everyone was doing something it was just
like whoa
whoa whoa like twitter's doing something
google's doing something
facebook's um released this whole new
plan it's just like
why did we get to this point um
the trauma of seeing someone being
murdered triggered
action um but i would like to
have i would have wished to have seen
this type of
passion um in terms of seeing action
um within these companies and focusing
on inclusion as well
um within the workplace i would love to
see that before
um because i didn't see it as often as i
would have liked to have seen it
um also in terms of going off sorry guys
also in terms of focusing on the
inclusion side of things as well
i do feel like we tend to kind of blur
between
the two um they focus on diversity let's
hire somebody black
let's hire let's have someone that
represents black people as the
head of diverse team inclusion let's
make a new role for them here let's do
that
but then the environment does not
cater to them so why have
because i find that for me personally
from people that i've spoken to
i'm only going from my experience with
people that i've also spoken to
and things that i've seen is that a lot
of people will come into tech that are
black
and then they will leave a company
because for in most cases
they don't feel like they can be their
full
selves they can bring their full selves
into the workplace and that's because
the environment isn't inclusive and i
think that
hopefully from from the conversation
that we also focus we don't forget about
inclusion
we talk about diversity a lot but the
inclusion side of things
it's just it's just not it's just not
there and then we have to
bring that to the forefront in my
opinion
i think just briefly to answer your
question there's um
i'd refer to it as handbrake capitalism
at the minute which is driven by social
media where companies
uh plowing along on a strategy to do a
and then something happens
which blows up on social media they pull
the handbrake and go off to do d
and then come this way and that way and
and i think george floyd's murder
was one of those moments now there's
part of me that says why does it take
such a horrific event for it to happen
and there's another part of me that says
well every every great change starts
with a catalyst moment
and if this is the catalyst moment stop
complaining and just embrace the fact
that change is happening and go with it
so
um i could probably just have that
philosophical debate with myself over a
long time but i i think
what you see is the social media
handbrake happening a lot and
uh it's kind of just that the
culmination of a number of things over a
number of times and and i think the slow
brutality of it um you know american
police have a history of shooting black
people
and i i think there's an instant an
instinctive thing about that
and it's always passed off as or he was
running or she was stood or she would
you know and it just feels like it was
that's what law enforcement do in
america they shoot people
but this was just a slow calc it felt
like a slow calculated murder
kneeling on someone telling you they're
dying until they died
it was just the most brutal thing and i
think coronavirus
people locked down people out of jobs
there was a culmination of factors that
just
blew it up into the mainstream and i
yeah and i think that you know it's
happened so so let's try it and get on
there
i i think to answer point again about
what companies do and
is it uh what are they doing and is it
just
starting the discussion and where did
they go next rather than just having the
conversation i
i'm not naming names but i heard the
story of a company in northern ireland
uh who i was told by their graphic
designer
that they asked to replace some black
people in some designs that they'd sent
forward to them
uh with white people because they said
it wasn't reflective of their market and
i was told
i was asked what my opinion was on this
and i i promised i won't say
um i won't say fuck on this broadcast so
i won't tell you exactly what i said
but it was um it it wasn't something
you'd say in front of your children
i went and had a look at this company's
social media and what did i find on
blackout tuesday
black square that sort of shit really
really irritates me it's like oh well
we feel we have to do this because
everybody else is doing it but when
actually
when the rubber hits the road we don't
want to get involved in this because
or it doesn't suit our brand or or it's
not really what we're about and these
are all just other terms for
um if you ask me they're all just other
terms but we're a little bit racist but
we don't want to be seen to do that so
we'll put a black square up on blackout
tuesday
so i think from from that perspective
there's a lot of work to do and a long
way still to go
um i did say i'd be quiet on this
question because i don't you know with
you guys working tech um much more than
i do so i i am then there's a question
there as well about
you know do you think that it's affected
your career journey and i don't feel i
run my own business so it's probably
difficult for me to speak about that so
i will shut up and i'll let you
you'll not talk about career journeys
indeed you think it's impacted you
there's someone like on the back of the
queer one like i know a lot of
black people who are business owners
ceos founders
or like high up positions of businesses
because they move
to that point so that like in some
places they've sort of hit the ceiling
they have had to take a step to a
different position and places are happy
to hire them because they have the sort
of
skill the rapport they have the
portfolio to prove that hey i'm skilled
and i can do
this but sometimes you won't see the
sort of internal movements
and so i i would definitely say like
i've been lucky enough like one of the
one of the questions was um would it be
harder for me uh personally
not myself but like i have seen other
people affected by that and have to move
to different companies laterally before
they can go upwards
i'm just gonna add to that as well um
with regards to
um progression internally now i am
really
happy as erin said they're like um with
for myself
i see that with mike with the company
and with version one
i am able to progress based on my
abilities and i'm being encouraged
but when it comes to um now i am the
only black person in
the belfast office so it's just me
but i am surrounded by a lot of people
from other ethnic backgrounds as well
but when it comes to um and one of them
one of the things jennifer said as well
is having people who are
so they they give they work and at the
same time if they're not happy or
they don't feel included they leave that
company
and you know for example whenever you
move from one company to the other it's
it's very hard for you to progress
it's very hard for you to get to where
you want to because you're moving from
one place to the other
that's why i would say it for for most
people or for some people it would be
hard
and also as well with regards to
internal um progression
one of the things i just wanted to chip
in is that you have people who are
like for example in in in my in my
company i
i i don't take alcohol and when we go
for night talks
i don't need to tell anyone in the whole
of my in the whole of our office they
know what to order for me they know i
don't take alcohol that makes me feel
included as tiny as that is that makes
me feel like i belong
um but some people it might be that some
people don't have that experience
um in terms of support um i have had a
lot of um
different friends and different
experiences where for example
in the matter of whenever whenever you
want to know if your company supports
you or not is when you hit when you're
in crisis
that would be one of the things i would
say and
i had a friend who had an issue in a
technical comp in a
tech company as well and the friend had
to be
suspended for investigations to go on
and
uh while they were investigating this
person
heard nothing from their manager not
even to check upon them
to say how are you doing are you still
alive nothing
um the whole team no one contacted this
person to say
i heard this is going on how you how are
you keeping now it's in
everything is being investigated so it's
not saying that this person is cutesy or
not guilty
there was no support whatsoever and this
is a big company here in northern
ireland i'm not going to call names
and it's it at the end of the day it
turned out that
the situation that person was no longer
guilty and the company was like oh
you can come back to to work now and the
person was like no
i'm not going back there because that
way you that's just that's the way you
know if
this company if this if if you're just a
number
if you're just a number to like for them
to like take so that that that support
needs to be for most companies is one
thing i think
needs to be drummed in especially for
middle management level
um you might not the people on the top
might not
really notice things but the people who
are at the local level
are the ones who would be able to help
people move up the ladder
so just imagine someone who is a manager
for example and that person has
i don't want to say that that person is
a racist for example
now no one comes to your face to say oh
yeah i'm a racist no
you're not going to hear that but if
that person's a racist do you think any
black person would be
with progress would go up the ladder no
because it's only gonna be
people who are similar to them so it's
just i would feel for
progression and um anything that's
internal it's for people to
be unconscious i'm sorry for people to
be conscious
about things around them and know when
things are wrong
educate themselves as jennifer has said
but also when things are not happening
the way that they should
no one's stopping you from raising the
red flag to say i don't think this is
right
so that's the reason why i say like most
people most most people in
most black people in companies would
just
if they don't like it they don't feel
included they don't feel that they
belong
they move on but it's harder for them to
progress because of the fact that
they're moving from one company to the
other to get to that level
yeah i i agree with that for sure um
i think like there was a point i wanted
to make and i totally forgot what it was
this always happens to me
gosh adhd such a nightmare um
i think like just to kind of go off a
little bit because
in terms of wanting to like feel a sense
of belonging and moving on from other
places
like i think some don't have a question
in the um the slido
um something about um potential
employers
and whether i look at um like yeah when
looking at potential employers are you
more likely to consider a company that
has black people in senior technical
positions or on interview panels
um i
working in tech this is the first time
i've ever worked in tech um
but bt is the first company i've ever
worked for that gave me an opportunity
um i didn't think about how important
blackness was in the workplace until
after i got here
and realized oh my gosh like i'm the
only one
and even though in london i've had like
some jobs that i am the only person
whether it be doing internships and
stuff
i've never lasted long in those places i
always end up leaving or going somewhere
else and things like that but
um having an environment that reflects
modern society is incredibly important
um but having if it doesn't reflect
modern society in terms of if it's
not culturally diverse there's not a lot
of black people there's not a lot of
asian people etc
you you want to be comfortable coming
into work you want to wake up in the
morning and be like
i can't wait to get to work today i'm
looking forward to seeing everyone on my
zoom call and
you know seeing how their weekends are
um you
it can when you when you're in an
environment where
you are the only one it can have those
kind of effects you
like it can have effects like you know
in terms of feeling
anxiety or not being able to get out of
bed in the morning it can affect you
um i definitely had those memories for
myself when i
first moved here where i did not want to
get out of bed
that i literally took leave for a good
week
10 days with my manager i'm like i can't
i can't come into work
like it was just an emotional toll
that being the only one and not being
able to
communicate or even have someone trying
to understand that i think that was a
real challenge that had a mental impact
on me
that i had to just take a step back and
i think that that's
part of the reason why um education is
important
um just like i don't know if it was um
or honey had said this maybe i'm wrong
but
don't just wait for there to be a black
person
in your workplace for you to educate
yourselves on them
um we do see that we we know they're
present you know that we're present
so why not take the time to just learn
and understand and have a conversation
um leaving a as well in terms of
the black lives matter movement when
that was happening
i didn't hear from anybody you know um
and i think i think what it was is that
no one knew how to have that
conversation with me which i
i understand i mean how do you bring
that up like you know
it's a hard topic to bring up but i had
to
find and kind of get in touch with any
of my black colleagues i had connected
with
um but most of them were all none of
them were based in belfast they were all
based in
in england or leeds or et cetera and i
had to message them on skype and say are
you okay
they're like yeah are you okay and it's
like we're so i'm so tired
of this if you're tired and um i think
like
it would have been i think for me when
it came to triggering a conversation
it had to be sending an
email to everybody else
with resources for them to feel
comfortable enough to come to me and say
how are you finding all of this um but i
think
like god forbid like this there's a
there's next time but
when there is something that needs to be
discussed especially when it comes to
race
have the conversation you know um don't
be afraid to ask
how are you and i can understand this as
someone as
i'm black your white agent you may not
understand what i'm feeling
but just the courtesy to just ask are
you okay
is such a powerful question to ask
somebody whether you understand what
they're feeling or not
but listen to them hear what they're
feeling and hear what they're
experiencing um but yeah that's
something that i just wanted to
yeah how about absolutely like listening
to that like just like
having that sort of like being able to
open that question like are you okay
like i know myself whenever the sort of
beyond movement was happening and
everything
i actually did have like leadership come
and talk to me like in a regular one to
ones maybe
but they we had a regular one-on-one
meeting like aaron look like
i know it's a maybe like a thing and
people might be awkward to say but i'm
just gonna ask are you okay like
outright
and then i asked that question and like
i'm very happy that leadership on like
on my team like technical leadership and
everything are able to have that
conversation with me
and just sort of make me feel included
like the fact that i'm able to look up
to my leadership
and know maybe like maybe there's a
white man in my leadership and like
knowing okay he's going to advocate for
me because i know that he is open to
talk about these questions i have these
difficult conversations
so he knows that if i need to take time
off because i have family in america
who's maybe
close enough to the riots and things
like that he like i know that i'm going
to be supported there and it's not going
to affect me negatively
so it's half that support
um i think there was a question someone
asked there about recruitment so i'm
just going to jump into that
i'm just going to jump into that using
my own experience
um with regards to um when you're
applying for a job now i don't know
about
everyone else but i think uh whenever
you're looking for a job it's one of the
hottest
um as a black person it's one of the
one of the hardest processes because of
the fact that
that's when you remember that you're
black because
um for me i had to um
i couldn't wait to get rid of my maiden
name because of the fact that i felt my
meeting was too hard
and um getting married i was like oh yes
this name is
so you wouldn't know that this person's
black asian or whatever
it's just there so it's it's one of the
things where
applying for jobs i would you i felt
that i got a better
chance by just putting in my name
without my surname
and it's a good thing i've got such a
unique name so people don't
would wouldn't really know and then you
get the calls from the
so for some of their recruitment
agencies or even the ones from the
company hr and they're trying to figure
out you know when
you're on the call but they're trying to
figure out if this person is
white you you get that on the call
and then you get the oh so did you when
did you move
and you're just trying to ask and get to
that final question
where where are you originally from so
uh it was one of from my own experience
i have had applied for jobs where i had
to take out my surname
i've had a lot of friends do that as
well and where they've had to
even um change their names to
english something names and um
taking up their cultural name and things
like that so it is
i would say it's it's finally looking
for a job it's
it's hard for everyone but i think for
black people it is a little bit harder
especially going through that cv
screening process because you don't know
i i just support that with evidence um
there's study after study after study
done i think it was first done in the
50s
in america um but it's been done in the
uk
since the 60s i think it's the earliest
one i've read about and
was done again about a year ago where
they sent
cvs with exactly the same information on
the only thing they changed was the name
uh no it wasn't just about black people
yeah and i think i can't remember the
exact numbers it was like eight times
more you got called to interview with
just a bog standard british sounding
name
as opposed to having something that
sounded a little bit more ethnic
and every time they do the study you get
the same results back so yeah
it's um i could post a link to an
article
uh once i work out how to do it that's
got some background to that and i'll
stick it in the chat now
it was with my name my name already
shortened by zana so my full name is
zamasu pegasi which i would never put in
any
cv because i know that they wouldn't be
able to pronounce it
but for me i don't have the experience
of
the cv thing because my name is zama and
my
my actual maiden name is lugayeni so
i've never changed it on any cv
so i can't say that i've got experience
when it comes to recruitment in that
side of things but i'm i'm completely
shocked that
that happened so it could have happened
to me without me even
knowing that it was happening that way
but that's something that's quite
interesting and
i saw someone saying about blind
applications so no names on tv
that that could be something that would
be good to to look into
i think with the blind um application
it's one thing to get your cv
um noticed and it's another thing to
actually go for the face-to-face
interview
i've had a um i've had an experience
where
um i had this lovely chat with you know
when you go for telephone interviews
talk about the whole technical bits it
was a technical interview we had it over
the phone
and then afterwards i was meant to go
over to the office to have a
face-to-face interview
had a face-to-face interview with this
lovely lady
and she was so sweet and everything went
really well
i was able to impress her and she loved
it but the only stage was to then speak
to
the people who i would be working with
so she says okay we need to go to
and then you know when you enter the
office first of all you get that vibe
where everyone's staring at you it's
okay to stare
i know i'm beautiful it is okay to stare
but
then you don't get the looks where it's
like where did this won't fall from
and then it was that way where when i in
the interview panel
i left in tears not i didn't break down
there
but when i went when i got into the car
i just started to cry
it was as if you could see the disgust
it wasn't here in belfast it wasn't in
northern ireland but you could see
you could see the disgust in their faces
like and
the the lady that had already aced
said she was like oh there's no problem
all you need to do is just answer this
corporate questions and things
like that she was shocked at the end of
the day she ended up trying to defend me
and i was like there is no way i can
work for this company so
it's it's one thing to go through the
whole blind application i know some
companies do
that but it's another thing i think it's
something that everyone just
people especially people in leadership
needs to educate themselves
because from my perspective that manager
she was all happy with me i was already
calculating how much i was gonna bargain
for salary and stuff
and then i met the big guys and it was
like the three of them i would never
forget their faces
and it was like where did this one fall
from
and it was it wasn't it wasn't good it
wasn't a good experience so
i don't know if it's a good that would
help you get your cv
to the to the company but it's actually
you now working in that company and
feeling that you're even if i was
offered a job in that company i wouldn't
go because i don't i wouldn't feel as if
i belonged
or it's one thing about being diverse so
we've gotten through the door with
diversity
but would i feel like i'm included would
i just would they just be one where i
would just
strive and then at the end of the day i
would just end up leaving
so i think that that kind of tips into
one of the questions that i saw in
slidell and i'm not just sending text
messages i am reading the questions
when i'm looking away but somebody asked
about um
how do you draw the difference between
teachable moments
and calling out outright racism
and that almost seems like something
that happened there where
there's a real difficulty in that in
trying to work out
what you should do when these things
happen because sometimes some of the
things that
that racist action is just so pernicious
or just so
subtle sometimes like you know i i saw
everybody nodding when you were saying
about
um the person on the other end of the
phone trying to work out if you were
black or not
and it's one of those things that it's
hard to describe to somebody who's never
had it happen to them
but you everyone who's had it happen to
them just knows it's there
and and you can't you know if you called
that out every time it happened
hey you'd be known as a troublemaker be
you'd just be faced with this no that's
not what i was doing you know this
defensive reaction
and then the onus is on you to then
prove that it did happen
which is really really really difficult
to do so so difficult you probably can't
do it
and then it's like well well you're just
a lying trouble cause and it just comes
back around on you so
i i don't have an answer between you
know
what is a teachable moment where you can
go look actually that's probably not the
right thing to be saying or doing here
and when you should just dig your heels
in and go i'm sorry this just isn't
happening anymore um again it's probably
an individual thing isn't it but
i don't know how i'd have handled that
being in that situation walking in for
an interview thinking this is the job
that i want
what are my salary expectations and then
being made to feel not welcome there
um you know sometimes you feel like damn
it i'm going to go for that job but i'm
going to make them feel awkward because
i'm just going to sit there every day
and prove a point
but other times she's like life's just
so short right
you know i i just want to be happy i
want to work in a place where i wanted
it and just do the thing i don't have to
fight
for everything all the time it's 20 20.
we should be past this
so i i don't know the answer i don't
know if anyone else has the answer
yeah i mean it's definitely a big thing
for me as well like people always ask
like
like why don't you just have a
conversation maybe they would listen
like
it is great in an ideal world everything
would be a teachable moment and i'd be
able to explain to that person who did
like a subtle racist thing like oh well
maybe you don't want to do it that way
because this is how it might be
perceived and it's possibly offensive
for these reasons or this is the history
behind it
and like in some cases i've done that
over here and it's enough oh well you're
american that's only a problem in
america
like it's absolutely not because you you
just proved it right now
now you're like gaslighting me and just
making me shush
because you don't think it's a problem
here
so i wish everything was a teachable
moment and i do try as much as i can but
like fighting every day over it isn't
worth it
i am if no one else has followed that
they wanted to make on that i'm gonna
use that to fall into our next point so
we sort of covered recruitment and
things like that
and so the next topic was uh
around like creating a better future so
people coming into the industry or
younger kids
and things like role models or what
roles tech can play in this even
so yeah if anyone wants to talk
i'm aware i've been talking quite a lot
but as i mentioned
i'm going to have to run away before the
end of the panel so i'll say this before
i go if that's okay and
i i think i wouldn't want anyone
listening to me to think that
i don't like northern ireland and i
don't like living here i love it right
and
there is this sort of semi well it's not
saying it's a racist response here when
you complain about things in a new place
and you get oh we'll just bugger off
back then like that's not you know
i want the place to be better but and i
think there is a bright future for
northern ireland and i think
it's a slow process you know change
happens slowly but it also happens
because people make that change happen
and there's a question in slido about
what what do we think or what are we
doing about the extraction of africa's
resources
and there's a few other questions and
things like that and i'm looking at
going well
you know what that that's not within my
sphere of influence my sphere of
influence is
um i'm a marketer based in northern
ireland
that works with a lot of fairly high
profile businesses in northern ireland
i'm a member of the institute of
directors
and i talk to a lot of senior people i
am using my platform
i have to keep this discussion going and
to keep it relevant
and to talk to people at the top of
organizations in the middle of
organizations bottom of organizations
that there's a race problem in northern
ireland
and we can fix it now and make this
place better for the future
and we can ignore it now and it'll still
be a problem in 20 years time
and i i have a daughter growing up here
and she loves the place
and i want this to be an open and
inclusive society not just
racism to go away i want sectarianism to
go away
but these are sort of multi-year issues
and multi-year conflicts that are taking
time to go about so
it is the hope for the future yes how do
we get there
we all do what we can and use our
platforms as often as we can
to keep the discussion going but also to
keep the actions going
and where you know we're working on
something with the institute of
directors which is about
trying to create something that
businesses can sign up with
um i don't know what that is yet we're
still miles away from having anything
ready
but there's a great future and you know
we just need to keep this discussion
going because
it won't change overnight but we have to
set the direction of travel because if
we don't
we won't change anything and it'll still
be the same and we'll still have
police giving out tickets the black
lives matter protests but not the week
after when people are defending statues
will still have these issues of people
being assumed to be the cleaner when
they're there as a software engineer and
we'll still have issues of tech
not you know not recognizing black women
technic not recognizing people using
ai and things because it's just trained
on such a weird data set
but there is a future for it and a real
positive one as well
well i love the other um panelists
jumping again second but just
since you're leaving and you just want
to say thanks again for
taking part this evening and and
stepping up for the panel
thank you for having me it's been a
pleasure
i'm just gonna go on that with regards
to the um
create a better future now on a good
note one of the things like when i first
um
one of my first job here in northern
ireland
i i was i was
i was budding someone and the person was
learning from me
and it it's it was a situation where i
had to speak to
one of the clients and the person was
listening on what
our conversation and the client was
really really
nasty is one of the things where he was
like i don't know
go back to where you're from and he was
like you're just sitting taking all the
money
from this country and things like that
and i didn't expect that especially when
someone else was listening
so after that i acted as it because
sometimes when you
when you face some certain situations
you just put that behind you and just
continue but at the same time i knew it
was going to go home and think about it
but i didn't want it to affect me at
work
but this person who was listening on to
the conversation just
couldn't understand the reason why i
still sat there
and he dashed off and he went over to
some of the managers over there
and he was so beautiful there were like
five ladies they were chatting amongst
themselves and this guy walked over and
said
this and this and this has happened and
he was like let me have it they were all
trying to like rush to
rush to their phone so like it was it
was beautiful because
they were all trying to it wasn't a
matter of who's going to go first
oh this is an awkward one no they all
wanted to deal with that
issue and deal with it thoroughly that
client's account was closed because of
that
and i went home and i i i felt proud
to be modern island really really proud
so
that's one of the one of the good things
um in terms of um the new job creating a
a better future for our kids
as young as our children are like i've
got two boys
and i would never we've never talked
about
race it's one of the things that we just
don't talk about it's like
just leave your life the way you want to
live your life and that's it but i was
forced to have the race conversation
with my seven-year-old
as of that time when we um
my car was there was something wrong
with my car so we had to take the bus
and coming home he was expecting um
so i've got two boys so i was sitting
with one of my son the youngest
and then he sat on his own and then he
kept asking me mommy when is someone
going to come sit next to me
and i said no just sit there and it's
going to be a pack but it's five o'clock
so definitely someone would come sit
next to you
and it was very strange that i didn't
think much about this like i always give
people the benefit of the doubt
i didn't think much about this at all
and the boss was packed
but his it was the only one that aside
from the one
my youngest was that it was just his it
was empty so in my head i was like and
he kept asking in my head i was like oh
these people are being very considerate
because of the fact that it's a young
boy things like that was just going
through my head
and then he came over he just said to me
mommy no one's
no one's sitting next to me is it
because i'm brown no
he doesn't say black he believes he's
brown so is it because i'm brown
and i i was stunned i was shocked
and i didn't know how to process the
whole thing and
it was so it's it's
it's something i think it's already
going into it's already
sleeping into the next generation and i
believe it's
the elia will start to curtail this the
banner for us
because if a seven-year-old already
knows that there's a difference
between someone who is white and someone
who is brown
then there is an issue so i i know zuma
um works with um kids i think it's one
of the things companies
should try to invest in especially if
you've got a diverse com
you've got a diverse company it's
something that i believe that our kids
should be able to see us to say okay
first of all
they are black people who you can look
up to as role models
there are people who look like you so if
companies can
create visibility i'm not saying that
okay yeah just
grab all the black people and say okay
let's go for a school trip no but
try to support the young generation
especially
not especially but people from ethnic
minorities as well
i'll jump on there yes um honey that was
right so i work with korea already so i
go into
high schools so it's girls age 17
i'm not 16 and above so this is quite
good because
it's also highlighting that there are
black people in tech
and then on top of it there's women in
tech as well
so it's quite rewarding to actually do
that because
i know for a fact that it's harder for
you to do something that
you don't see anyone else doing so it's
easy to do something
that you see people there they're doing
it you know that it's possible
because that's what happens usually you
you know the more visibility we have as
not just women but also black women
is going to be tremendous when it comes
to the younger generation
going into tech and being comfortable
with the fact of
even doing tech so it being it in their
sphere of stuff that they want to do in
life so
i think if we need to work with
companies the companies we're in to make
sure that we are visible
not just as women but as well as black
people
so that more people join those companies
and join those type of industries so
i think that's the best way forward
because i do have my nieces
one of my nieces actually said to me
what do i say to people that i keep on
wanting to touch my hair
and i was shocked that that that happens
at that age now but it's a hard one
because
it's also other parents that need to say
it's not right for you to be going into
someone's personal space
and touching someone's hair so i don't
i don't know what we can do on that part
but i think it needs to start from home
and the conversations you have within
your family
and i think that's how it's gonna help
people be comfortable
and recognize the black community in
northern ireland
yeah and i think just another thing as
well is like i think one thing we
haven't talked about yet but i like i i
realized we spoke about initially
whenever we all got together and met
it's like
i like i'm half scottish so like i grew
up being by like
biracial and like i like i just didn't
realize racism could be a thing
until like like there was a car driving
past and
they shouted at my mom not my dad they
shot at my mom who's scottish and white
they shouted at her saying that she was
a n-word lover um
and it was like just it was just
shocking because i like i'd heard the
word before and i'd read it in books and
like i understood the historical context
the fact that someone called my mom this
and she was white really confused me
um and like it definitely starts in the
home and there's like there's definitely
biracial relationships
people like dating other races and
things like that
so there's like loads of white allies
that are out there that are dating
somebody of a different race
um and those are they're also one of our
like biggest supporters for
undergraduate senate people
and like i think we usually keep in mind
that like
there like whenever we have that they're
obviously educating within their own
home as well
and sort of educating kids sooner like
oh yeah a relationship can look like
anything it doesn't have to be
two people the same color or anything
like that it's something that like is
it's definitely less common that i've
noticed in northern ireland i could see
people younger towards my age dating uh
different races but the community before
maybe didn't support it as much
awesome thank you and we've got a couple
of minutes left
so if everyone's up here i'm gonna
there's a couple questions in
and so luckily i've covered a lot of the
questions in the slide already but i'll
see if there's a couple that we haven't
covered and then
leave enough time for everyone to have a
chance at a final statement
that sounds good so let's see
and a quick one hope like
potentially is someone's written and
asking about
if there are made up is there a meetup
group in belfast that you know of that's
by and for black people inside um
in belfast and do you know what if there
is one and if not would you consider
starting one
um i'll say for me i have no idea
i don't think there is um not that i've
been brought to my attention anyway i
don't know about anybody else but
um for me i
everyone that i've connected with has
always been on social media
and i'm just tweeting them and um the
only company
organization that i found they're based
in the uk called uk black tech
um they're the only ones i'm familiar
with i don't think they've ever held
a meet-up in northern ireland at all
um but i'm not familiar with any but um
i don't know if anyone else has
any idea about any
no i don't know any i don't yeah
i haven't seen anything but i'll keep a
lookout
yeah i mean i i've definitely noticed
that women's hack makers and women who
code definitely have
like you see a lot of women of color in
the panels and things like that
but you don't i haven't seen like sort
of like underrepresented minorities
besides
sort of like focus on women in belfast
um so
like i think that definitely is
something interesting um but just keep
some
good supporting each other within these
communities that we already have
um i guess like being that like a lot of
us are still working from home
um so i know that like sometimes like uk
black tech
there's coding black females they do
virtual events i know it's probably not
going to feel the same i'm not really
sure people
are starting to have like meet-ups in
belfast at the moment but
um um i'll put some links to uk
blacktech's meetup group
and also to coding black females in case
you do
want to go to an event and connect and
network with others
um and if you're on twitter um there's
the hashtag blacktech
twitter um and that's also another
hashtag where
a lot of the black community in tech
from all over the world
use that hashtag and connect with one
another so it might be a good way for
you to
network with people while we're all kind
of
working from home and trying to avoid
you know the virus
awesome thank you and we have someone
from our
chat that's hoping to ask a question
and so i'm going to i think i can let
the person speak in
temporary and they can ask the question
out loud so shaquel do you want to if i
press this button
do you want to
oh it seems to kick them out and then
i'll write them back in
so did you want to ask your question
we can see you're nice to go
okay so i'm gonna kill something sorry
and i'm i'm alone tripping
like probably most of you in there right
now
and what i'm gonna say to you what the
problem is is we take
the money as a currency before trust
first and this is the problem
right i had the issue with bayesian
stock itec right
where i bought sales training into that
establishment
right and they kept calling me the wild
card the wild card
but if 10 young students walked through
that door they just made 100k because of
me
right this is this is where i'm at guys
right
because the moment you take the money is
the moment
they've got control of you you see they
not everyone can pay you in the currency
of recognition
and it's the most trump card you can
play
so i think more or less
this is the entrepreneur mindset and it
needs to be ingrained
in us more that we we the reason why we
started businesses was to solve problems
right so in saying that you know
this is where i think we should we
should go
um in in my mind
regarding systemic racism or
or anything of the sort um
i i understand and i really do
appreciate what you guys are doing
you're coming together
to make this happen but
you know you've got to be willing to
kick the door down
like i think while he was a perfect
example to show us
what really happens behind closed doors
yeah when someone says something that's
wrong their whole career can be shut
down
yeah but it's not the same when it's on
the other shoe though right
when people want to call us the n-word
or anything of the sort
it gets brushed under the carpet or it
was an accident
or as a joke because our friends you
understand so
i think there's you know i think
that's that's what i've realized as you
know
my journey in in this entrepreneur life
and i think some of you have probably
seen some of my statuses on linkedin as
well
and thinking what's this guy doing but
the most thing i want you guys to
understand is professional
people who use the word professional are
people you need to watch out for
and the reason why is because people
value people and you need to be yourself
the whole way forward
so that means people are putting on two
faces right
i'm the same through the whole process
linkedin is just another platform like
facebook to me
and you know this is where you know
i'm the one that's the risk taker i will
save my mind you know and i won't let
anyone
control me so that's why i say to you my
currency is not money it's trust first
i think trust first is definitely like a
it is an interesting thing
it's just sort of authenticity like you
know it's like certain like
it is definitely important have like
inclusion and sort of have a safe
environment
and sort of be able to be your authentic
self and not to worry about
something getting brushed under um
oh sorry that was my battery
back to being uh an attendee and
temporarily kicks you and then brings
you back i seen that you uh you posted
the
black tech twitter and like i remember
uh whenever that hashtag came out i was
like straight on it and like it
definitely made me feel included
because like i'd worked for with black
people in the past and like whenever i
worked in the austin office but whenever
i moved to belfast i felt alone for a
while before we started getting other
people into the office
so like i think it is really a it is a
good way to connect and so
social network and market yourself like
your authentic self out there
i'm sorry for that that's probably very
light since i'm typing with my
microphone
um so we thought about five minutes left
so
just in the interest of not taking up
all of your evenings um
do people want to go around to give like
a closing final statement or any other
points that you wanted to raise that we
haven't
reached in the evening um
i don't i wouldn't say that i have like
like anything like that i haven't said
before i think that
um i just encourage everyone to
um just edit yourselves and learn
from others um if you
are comfortable in asking someone you
know to
speak with you about their experience um
there's no harm in asking the question
also be prepared for rejection also
everyone's experience of blackness is
different i think even that question
that came up about
um what we're doing in africa about the
massive extraction etc
you're already assuming that everyone
here is african like
they may not identify themselves with
africa and even though you know you can
go back in history et cetera
but then i some people might identify
themselves as caribbean as jamaican as
as trinidadian right as
there's so much more to blackness than
just thinking
africa that in itself is something that
you know you'll need to pray about i
don't know what to tell you
um but yeah just take the time to
educate yourself and
this is also another step you know being
a part of this event
and taking the time out of the evenings
where you could have been
you know cooking your meals on netflix
and chill
like doing whatever you're doing but
you've taken the time to come here and
hear
our experiences and take this experience
with you
to your families to your friends to your
workplaces
um but also one thing i'll say is
be vocal when you see something that is
wrong
especially like if you feel as a white
person
as an asian person if you see something
that is wrong if you're seeing
an imbalance if you're seeing some
injustice within the workplace towards
someone
that is black if someone that you know a
colleague of yours has said something
that you know
is wrong correct them and educate them
and let them understand no
that was wrong for you to say um our
liveship is important
you know when we say black lives matter
we're not just saying we want to be
above everybody we we're just saying
that we're here and
we want you to see us too and we want
you to acknowledge us
too and our experience and our pain and
our
um our experiences is real
you know and we just want you to just
understand that that's it
so just stand with us and stand beside
us
and support us and uplift us that's
that's what i would say
i would say that same thing as what
jennifer just said
that it's all about conversation it's
all about using your platform correctly
um neighborhood community just having
that conversation that open conversation
and honestly
and there's something i wanted to say so
and
someone in my neighborhood said on one
of my walks
it was a sunny day and they said oh i'm
nearly your color
i didn't react i just
kept on walking and then a few weeks
later he actually approached me and said
i'm really sorry about that i think that
that was wrong of me to say that
and that began a conversation as simple
as that
he noticed that that made me feel
uncomfortable and then we opened up a
conversation and we spoke
so i think it's as easy as that and it's
the same around a
dinner table if someone brings up that
conversation don't swear away from it
just
have it and because you don't know who
you're educating
through your past so me not laughing and
brushing it off
and him seeing me visibly uncomfortable
that allowed us to have a conversation
at the end of it
so i think that's something we need to
be aware of and and
just continue communicating like this
and using good platforms
and talking about stuff at work and just
open up and thank you for having me
claire
i would just um say thank you for
everyone and um
with regards to anything that
we're learned or anything that we can
take from this is all about
educating yourself um doing your own
personal
homework and knowing your rights
and also as well if you're any in if
you're in any form where you feel that
you're privileged to use that
privilege to help others achieve what
you have
as well and also speak up when you see
something's wrong when you see
something's not right
and also educate other people so your
family
your relatives your your kids your
cousins
set a good platform for them as well and
uh
yes that's all i have to say thank you
so much everyone have a good evening
what's up we just just like doubled that
as well like thanks so much everybody
for joining like it is
like a good first step like my biggest
thing is like don't be a bystander like
you wouldn't let someone bully your kid
or your brother or sister or anybody in
your family
like don't let people bully someone of
color or so on that's a woman or
something that's any type of minority
like you have the power to stand to take
whatever platform you have because you
might be more privileged
than the next person so take that take
that power and just stand up for
everybody else
thank you everybody for joining
thank you yeah as uh on behalf of myself
behalf of women techmakers it's been
a really awesome panel like i really
appreciate you all giving up your
evening to
do this panel and educate all of us and
it's definitely been a great experience
for me
thank you so much for having us it's
doing great
thanks everyone thank you next time
peace
