I Asked for a Sign to Deal with Silicon Valley Sexism/Racism Culture.

The morning of August 21, 2017 I prayed about how Silicon Valley taken a wonderful distributed information technology like the Internet and created racism/sexism around it, discriminating and excluding others in order to establish a white male privileged system. I asked for a sign to answer my prayers that day and waited. During the early afternoon, I saw the sign from the heavens where the moon passed directly in front of the sun. At that moment, I received the sign and realize what need to be done.
The message sent to me is African-American tech talent like me and the Afro-Tech do not have to bother fighting Silicon Valley racism/sexism but simply position ourselves in front of Silicon Valley sexist/racist propaganda to the critical mass. Seeing people on the news scream and celebrate the moon momentarily blocking out the sun encouraged me to see the Afro-Tech will also be celebrated when we stand up and stand out in the forefront.
Silicon Valley discriminates against blacks/women through funding, tech jobs and tech media. VCs do not reach out to black and women technologists in a genuine manner and look to prop up tokens or booth babes instead of the best diverse tech talent. Technology jobs tolerate harassment by creating programs like alcohol social hour drinking at the workplace or isolating the one or two minorities or women employees and women have to feel they need to show the semblance of “putting out” to the “tech bros” at the workplace to be accepted. Tech media actively promote faces of white males as the face of tech when China and India are so far ahead in 2017 in terms of innovation and advancement. PayTm and WeChat are transformative for billions of people, not ApplePay.
Here are the fundamentals of how the Afro-Tech will stand out. First, we will focus on value-driven patterns and principles, not math-driven patterns and principles. Silicon Valley and others use math-driven reasoning to rationalize hate, racism and sexism by throwing out percentages and monetary figures such as “only 10% of population” code words for African-Americans or “received $10 million in funding” to prematurely declare success. However, the real world critical mass is value-driven — what is the benefit and value — where the customer simply asks what’s in it for me?
Please go and read a true business publication by a corporation highlighting the value they deliver to the critical mass like Apple or Amazon and then compare to these garbage publications like Fast Company or Business Insider and observe how Fast Company, Forbes, Inc, Business Insider throw numbers around in a math-driven context — you will get turned off once you realize the math-driven game because the reality is you are a value-driven, purpose-driven person, you are not just a number nor think math-based.

Second, we will leverage our existing assets and what many people do not seem to realize or want to ignore is black communities in the United States of America sit on some of the best urban infrastructure ever designed in human history with nearby access to heavy transport such as airports and central rail depots and sea ports. In addition to the power plants to power high-density areas, many black urban communities sit on well-designed Victorian/Edwardian-Era street design and urban landscape where these places focused on quality of life, not designed accommodate a big box store or a cookie-cutter housing subdivision. The black community is sitting on some good stuff and I don’t blame others for trying to gentrify, there is no need to build what the black urban community already have.

This brings the most important part of all and the core argument I mentioned over and over that debunks Silicon Valley in the 21st century. There is absolutely nothing about Silicon Valley landscape or the people in that Bay Area region relevant to the 21st century urban expansion around the world or capable of accommodating true UX experience in high-density urban areas. I been around watching failure after failure coming out of Silicon Valley as they pretend they are innovating in tech magazine propaganda and I watch success after success of China building another major mega city and creating urban innovation and getting better and better with contactless transactions, sharing economy, mass transportation and more. Silicon Valley is not the place and anyone still talking up Silicon Valley in 2017 is just full of crap selling a story, not the real world.
The Afro-Tech does not have to work with Silicon Valley or deal with Silicon Valley people with a history and pattern of excluding us African-Americans and propping up tokens instead of genuinely work towards diversity. In reality, Silicon Valley has little of what is needed for any tech entrepreneur to move forward in the 21st century and Fourth Industrial Revolution. Real Industrial Revolutions happen where there are growth areas with tremendous opportunity to transform and these are mega cities and modernization cities and urban renewal areas around the world from Latin America to Asia to Africa and East Coast and Southeastern USA — that’s where the action is really at.
The Afro-Tech should not be asking Silicon Valley for anything as Silicon Valley already made sure we know they will exclude us blacks and harass women through their repeated patterns over and over. Instead, we need to stand up, stand out and leverage our own skills, background, experience and assets and contribute value-driven solutions with global partners and deliver results in the 21st century to create our own story and journey in the process.
