(upbeat rock music)
- Yeah, okay, a little
bit nervous so we're good.
It's amazing to be here in
front of this group of people
and I wanted to cosign
on the last presentation
about open sourcing because open source
is actually the method that
brought me into the tech world.
Also the design world, I'm a designer,
a developer, I consider
myself a systems designer
so I think about how to bring
disparate pieces together,
whether it's in a cause of
creating a software or product
or organizing communities,
so systems designer,
it's nice of to be here and yeah,
open source, that's important,
I just wanted to cosign on that.
- [Woman] Do you mind
moving the mic this way?
'Cause we can't hear.
Technology!
- One, two, one two.
(audience laughing)
I promise you not to freestyle.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, like I mentioned, I'm a designer.
I've been doing this
work for about 15 years.
Although I might look
quite young and debonair,
(audience laughing)
I'm actually rather old
so I'm mature right,
and experienced and I value that
and although I've been doing this work
for a number of years so designing things,
being a creator, putting things together,
I've done that work in
various environments,
various industries but I've seen
some products over the years
and one of the products that I've noticed
that if I look around the
environment that I'm in,
I'm often the only one of my kind,
often the only black person.
Four years ago, I moved from Brooklyn
to Amsterdam with family and in Amsterdam
I found that I, often
only the black person,
often the only American in the room
and often the only black American man
in the entire postcode.
(audience laughing)
And it's just has had me thinking
a lot about what it
means to be the only one,
what it means to be the
only one in the space,
to feel alone, to be marginalized,
to be an outsider.
And that's what I want to talk about,
even with a little bit of a spin on it
because we often talk about these things
in a sort of offensive, negative space
and I want to flip that around
because being an outsider
actually has some power.
Last time I was in front
of an AlterConf group,
with that privilege, I was
talking about how to design
your environment to
suit your personal needs
so if you want to bring
your whole self to work,
here's some design
techniques to manage that
because most likely if you're an outsider,
if you're marginalized,
that space doesn't suit you
and in fact it's probably
designed for your failure.
But I'll talk a bit about that,
check that video out if you're interested.
But since then, that was last summer,
it was a nice hot day, I
was a bit sweaty there.
(audience laughs)
Since that talk, I've
really been digging into
this phenomenon, like people
being able to be an outsider
and go into a space where
they are marginalized,
but still perform, still
come to work, do your job,
and do it well, and I see this happening
all over the place.
I'm sure everyone in this
room is an example of that,
and as the industry has a
bit more of a conversation
about diversity and inclusion,
I'm hearing stories about
people who are loners,
who are outsiders, and
are still successful,
and I'm like this is amazing.
This is amazing, the
ability to be an outsider,
to be oppressed in some way,
but still carry on your work
and still do it excellently.
So I've been digging into that idea,
and it started with a question.
How can that be, how do people do this?
I think I have an answer.
I think the answer's empathy,
which is weird, a little bit,
because we often talk about empathy
in terms of you understanding someone else
for their benefit.
And now I'm saying that
empathy is what, let me,
I'll leave the conclusion
for a little bit later
and stay organized, I
was tempted to (mumbles)
(audience laughs)
I won't do that, won't do that.
So I wanna stay on track.
But the thing is, empathy, right?
Really interesting.
It didn't just come to
me that oh, empathy,
and oh, it's amazing that
people are doing this,
but I've been inspired by someone
who for the past five years has been
consistently inspiring me,
almost every day, actually.
It's my kid.
There he is in the corner.
This is my kid.
(audience laughs)
He's so cute.
(audience laughs)
It's weird, when I was making this,
I was like okay, these kids are all cute,
this is my kid, but when I
do this, he's even cuter.
(audience laughs)
This kid is really magical for me.
If you've been around young people,
of course they don't have these filters
that we adults have.
They really force you to be honest,
and I'm trying to be a parent that is
the tools of introspection and analysis
and honesty for my kid, I
want to be that example.
And so I'm always paying attention to him.
Now he's five.
We've been in the
Netherlands since he was one,
so he's fluent in Dutch.
His teacher recently told me
that when she hears him speak,
she cannot tell that he
has an accent at all.
That blew my mind.
The other day we were
sitting at the dinner table,
and we were just talking about,
we had some friends over,
we were talking about
identity, where we're from.
He told me, "I'm Dutch."
(audience laughs)
I could have told him no,
(audience laughs)
he could completely out-argue
me in Dutch, you know?
(audience laughs)
I don't speak Dutch, I
speak a few words of Dutch,
enough to know that I'm no good at it,
although I did try to learn.
Anyway, let me stay on track,
(audience laughs)
So, this kid, I've seen
him switching languages
like effortlessly, right.
He has his friends over and speaking Dutch
and then they're doing something bad,
I say "Don't do that," and
he switches to English,
and like, this is amazing.
But this switching thing, I also recognize
from my own experience as a child.
(mumbles)
I've never known Dutch,
I don't know Dutch,
and I mostly speak only in
English for my entire life,
but I have been switching in my life,
as a child and as a grown person.
The switching that I've
been doing is based on
my environment.
So I went to school mostly with wealthy,
Asian and white students,
and I'm not wealthy
and I'm also not white or Asian,
and my socioeconomic and cultural reality
has always been very
different than the one
in which I've been placed.
But I always wanted to be
accepted and successful
in those spaces, also at home,
so I developed the ability
to switch back and forth,
and it's something that I
see happening in my child
and it's really amazing,
and I think that's to do with empathy.
Before I make the connection to empathy
I want to go into this
switching idea a little bit,
even take it to the level of
calling it code switching.
This is a technical conference,
I write code as well,
but I'm not talking about
that kind of code switching,
but this term code
switching has been sort of,
it's a term evolved from an older idea,
that was actually first
popularized in 1903
by a guy, an educator, philosopher, writer
name W.E.B. Du Bois.
That's not the child, the child is,
actually I think that's his child.
W.E.B. is on your left side there,
and he first called this phenomenon,
that I'm talking about as code switching,
he called it double consciousness.
Let me just read his description of it,
'cause it's really interesting.
So, he described it as,
"a peculiar sensation,
"this double consciousness", switching,
"this sense of always looking at oneself,
"through the eyes of others,
of measuring one's soul
"by the tape of a world that looks on
"in amused contempt and pity."
Interesting, so seeing yourself
through the eyes of others,
being able to navigate that space,
and choose who you are at the moment.
Pretty amazing.
Code switching is like
the same kind of double
conscious or even multiple
consciousness, right?
It allows us to have a different sense
of self identification
depending on our environment
and our audience, amazing.
This kind of thing makes
me think of this scenario.
Do you guys know about this?
(audience laughs)
What we're seeing is a picture of Obama,
I think this was a national
press, some government thing
where people go
(audience laughs)
And Obama was giving a talk and behind him
he had this character
who's name was Luther,
who represents his alter-ego,
his, I know I'm angry,
his anger translator.
(audience laughs)
Luther, this guy named Luther,
is Obama's anger translator,
and the premise of this
vid, is that Obama,
this presidential figure who
has to represent everybody,
who has to get the acceptance
of as many people as possible,
can't actually be himself.
He has to be someone else, constantly,
but on this occasion, in this comedy vid,
he had a representation of his self
that isn't always allowed to be present,
and Luther's angry, he's honest,
and he recognizes the imbalance of power
and injustice in the
world and he speaks it.
So for Obama, this ability to code switch,
to have double consciousness,
it has an advantage, it got him into
the presidency of the United States.
But the cultural changeability
is not always positive,
let's say it has some
negative consequences.
There's a writer named
Hanifa Barnes, pictured here,
who wrote a piece about code switching,
and I'll quote a small piece of it
'cause it's really pressing for me,
it's really meaningful,
and I think it proves my point there.
She says, quote, and she's
talking about being in
an academic environment, so
being at school or university,
having to talk with
instructors and administrators
in order to get her point across
and to get what she needed.
She said, "While I enjoy
the attention and effortless
"exchanges with teachers,
I was often conscious of
"how I sounded, what I said,
was I too white or too black,
"did I use the right word choice,
"was my subject verb agreement intact,
"and the down side," she says, was that,
"I walked away from
conversations doubting myself
"instead of engaging and
appreciating the exchange.
"I was so focused on speaking properly,
"that I disregarded the
importance of speaking my heart
"and being true to myself.
"I wanted to say what
others wanted to hear."
So you can code switch
knowing that there's something
others want to hear or a
way others want to hear you,
and look at all the work it takes.
Am I saying the right thing?
Do they understand me properly?
All this cognitive effort, and
it's a waste, it's a waste,
and it's a distraction.
You know who else said this.
Toni Morrison.
She said "Racism is distraction."
And I'm gonna read a piece
of this quote from her,
because she puts this
code switching and this
seeing yourself through
the gaze of others,
she puts it into the context of racism.
She says, "The very
serious function of racism
"is distraction.
"It keeps you from doing your work.
"It keeps you explaining
over and over again
"your reason for being.
"Somebody says you have no language,
"so you spend 20 years
proving that you do.
"Somebody says your head
isn't shaped properly,
"so you got a scientist
working on the fact that it is.
"Somebody says that you have no heart,
"so you dredge that up.
"Somebody says you have no
kingdom, so you dredge that up.
"None of this is necessary," she says,
"There will always be one more thing."
So this code switching thing,
it's amazing, indeed it is,
but it comes from an imbalance.
What I say is that the need to code switch
in order to be accepted, comes
out of cultural differences
and societal imbalances
of power and privilege.
I think that's obvious.
What I want to talk about
more specifically is,
the ability to code switch.
The ability to code switch comes from
a powerful sense of empathy.
Empathy, you hear this
word, it's really popular,
and side note, I did some research,
this word empathy became
popular, according to the book,
(audience laughs)
It became popular in 2008, which is also
the year of the financial crisis,
and I charted it out.
I didn't include the chart in my slides,
because I'm trying to stay focused,
but there is a strange correlation between
the popularity of the term empathy
and the financial crisis of 2008.
Maybe that's the next talk,
or come talk to me afterwards,
I have some conspiracy theories.
(audience laughs)
But let's talk about
empathy in more detail,
because it's a confusing notion, actually.
It's quite similar to other
words like sympathy and apathy.
But there's a difference.
I think the difference
between sympathy and empathy
for example, is the potential of action.
It's a little ambiguous.
Having empathy means being able to observe
external events that other
people are experiencing
and to relate to that experience,
to connect to it on an internal level,
because of your own lived experience.
Sympathy is different.
Sympathy is simply
recognizing the experience
someone else is going through,
understanding the terms that
might be used to describe it.
Still a little ambiguous,
but I found an illustration
that really makes it clear.
So this is an illustration
by a person named
Tom Morgan-Jones, and I
think he does a great job
of actually demonstrating the differences
between these three terms.
Apathy is obvious, right.
Apathy is when you just don't give a damn.
Empathy and sympathy are
much more closely related,
but what you can see in
this illustration is that
someone who's sympathetic,
who has sympathy,
they understand what's going on,
they can point to it,
but they can't really
do anything about it.
People who offer you sympathy
are listening to you indeed,
but can they offer you solace or advice or
anything constructive, not typically.
Those who can, they're practicing empathy.
So in this illustration we see someone
recognizing the situation of someone else
and actually constructively
assisting them.
To me the difference
between empathy and sympathy
is the possibility of action.
What action can be taken?
Empathy is capacity to turn observations
into meaningful actions, is
the thing I'm pointing to.
And I'm not alone, actually.
Empathy is a huge topic,
and its potential for action
has been seized on by for example,
products of the digital products industry.
So I did a quick search
for books that talk about
empathy and design,
books that talk about
empathy and products,
the product that's where I work,
I build software and design software,
so this is my school.
And I just looked, I dove
into it a little bit.
Who's talking about empathy
in product development?
Everybody. (laughs)
Everybody is.
It's a big thing.
And I get it.
So I want to connect empathy, you know,
which we talked about in
terms of code switching,
context switching, all right?
You can do that because you
have this sense of empathy,
and people recognize
how powerful empathy is
in a commercial business sense as well.
So what I'm gonna do right now is help us
who are marginalized, who have
experienced being outsiders,
who are forced to have empathy,
let's leverage that, let's
recognize how powerful
that makes us, in this particular case,
in terms of building digital
products and being in tech.
Let's point to our advantage of empathy
as something powerful.
Now it's not only me that recognizes,
only me and these authors of these books
(audience laughs)
but within design and
development I have found
a number of people who I really admire,
that also recognize the power of empathy.
I'll just take you through
a few of them real quick.
Julie Zhuo, who is a
design leader at Facebook.
She famously wrote a
few years ago, she said,
"The best designers and product
thinkers know people, right.
"They understand what
motivates and what delights
"and what intrigues.
"They have strong theories about why,
"and they know this because
they've been watching
"and studying people, including themselves
"for a long time."
That's empathy, right, studying
people, studying yourself.
Jonathan Pimento, who is a product manager
and designer at Adobe, he's
working on XP product right now.
He agrees, he was recently
in a user defenders podcast,
so if you're into UX design,
by the way, it's a great one.
He said in an interview, having
empathy with the customer
is like one of the things
that critical for success.
He also said being able
to relate to the problem
is critical for success,
being able to summarize,
empathize and vocalize what the customer,
or person is experiencing,
critical for success.
Also, Saracen Dunn, who is an
award-winning web developer.
She works for organizations
and individuals
all around the world.
She recently tweeted, she said,
"Being a good developer
doesn't mean only having
"the technical skills
for it, but empathy is
"one of the essential
skills one must have."
So I trust these people.
She's also a strong
advocate for accessibility
in web design particularly.
There's another person who I respect.
This person, their name is Jules Walter.
They have a couple of
degrees from MIT and Harvard,
so they're really smart,
working at Slack right now
in their growth department I think.
But this person also mentioned empathy
in a recent piece of writing.
But he connected it to this
issue of diversity in tech.
He says, "Although there has
been more and more discussion
"about the lack of diversity in tech,
"I believe there is still
a startling empathy gap,
"as most people don't realize
the sheer amount of energy
"minorities expend trying to belong."
This takes us back to the
dangers of code switching
and having empathy so much that you live
through the gaze of others.
He's pointing it out.
I get it.
There's an empathy gap in the industry,
although minorities and
outliers are using empathy
to try and present
themselves and be accepted.
There's a gap, there's a problem.
He says, "The ideal solution
we still need to have
"companies that are diverse,
so that no one feels
"out of place and everyone gets by."
I don't know if that's the only
solution or that it's ideal,
but I think he's on the right track.
Diversity is really important,
and I've experienced that on the teams
and in the organizations and
in the spaces that I work in.
And think about it this way.
If we know that the ability
to empathize with individuals
is based on lived
experience, also diverse TV.
How many solutions would a diverse team
bring to the table?
Okay, this now, this bunch
I failed to represent
(audience laughs)
Personally I love Deep Space Nine,
(audience laughs)
you know what I mean,
but that's a whole other presentation.
(audience laughs)
This crew I can only good.
You have aliens, okay,
of different genders,
different ages, you have
an android in there.
Now, maybe we'll get
the android on our team
before we'll get alien.
(audience laughs).
The androids are coming.
But I think it's really
amazing to have this
as a goal, right?
Diversity's important
because it brings together
empathetic individuals, it brings together
multiple kinds of lived experiences which,
let's make it real capitalist right now,
which allows you to build better products,
because you're serving more
people and making more money.
The reason I'm bringing this up is because
I think we need to celebrate
our marginalization.
It doesn't sound right,
it doesn't sound right
to say we should celebrate
something that is a problem.
But what I'm trying to say
is that out of those problems
come attributes that others don't have,
so attributes that give us advantages,
that I don't see us making up,
I don't see us promoting the fact
that we have these
abilities that you can't get
through a book, you can't hire a company,
well you can hire a company to
come teach your team empathy,
but it's not going to work.
They're gonna teach you sympathy.
Empathy has to be earned,
it can't be learned.
Trademark, copyright.
(audience laughs)
So I really believe
empathy is a superpower.
(man speaks indistinctly)
Empathy is a superpower.
I didn't hear what you said, sorry.
- [Man] Got it on camera,
- Oh, okay.
- Copyright.
- I'll send you my lawyer's email.
(audience laughs)
So empathy is a superpower, right,
and people who are marginalized
and on the outskirts
of majority influence have
empathy in copious amounts.
We need to celebrate that.
We need to leverage it.
And I've found someone
who expresses this idea
way more eloquently than I ever could.
I found this in TED talks from a woman,
her name is Jamila
Lyiscott, I think that's how
you pronounce her name.
So look her up, well...
On TED talks, she does this whole essay
where she's talking about
how she basically speaks
three kinds of English.
She has heritage from the
Caribbean, so she speaks patois,
she's from Rockaway so
she speaks hood street,
and she's educated so she speaks English,
and she is also trying
to turn this around,
you know, people might
say, oh you don't speak
proper English and that's a problem.
She's trying to turn it around.
She speaks three kinds of English,
and she's celebrating that,
and I just want to quote
a little bit from her piece.
I can't, I mean she
spits, like, it's a thing,
you need to watch it,
but, what she says is,
"Let there be no confusion.
"Let there be no hesitation.
"This is not a promotion of ignorance.
"This is a linguistic celebration.
"That's why I put tri-lingual
on my last job application."
And that last line got
me when I first saw it,
I was like, yes, you know,
job application, okay,
you're vying for someone's attention,
saying hey, invest in
me, I have the skills.
Look at the code I write,
look at my you know,
I went to this institution or
that institution, that's fine.
You should promote those things as well.
But don't leave out the fact that you have
empathetic superpowers because of your
marginalized existence.
This is my point.
You need to big that up,
because we are all superheroes,
and I'm suggesting that we
use our lived experience
as a tremendous asset.
We're not asking for permission anymore.
We're saying, look, we have
something you can't get
in any other way.
So it's valuable, right?
Genuine empathy has to be earned.
If you're surviving,
you've been marginalized,
and if you're in a position to do so,
I'm trying to push us all to highlight
our empathetic superpowers,
so that we can connect to others,
to relate to others, to
the experience of others,
and take the next best step forward,
regardless of what that is in your context
or in your situation.
That's what I came to say.
(audience applauds)
