The Nerd Lens
You can’t always see clearly when looking through someone else’s glasses
My name is Deldelp Medina, and I’m a nerd. I’ve always loved books, gadgets, and science. When I was 8, I moved from Barranquilla, Colombia to San Francisco. I still remember the nervousness and excitement I felt because both my mother and I had no idea what San Francisco was like.
It was here where I became an avid student of the nerd arts. My neighbor worked for PC magazine and created one of the first chess games for computers. I went to Alvarado Elementary School where we had an after-school computer club, and while all the boys wanted to play computer games, I wanted to make them.
I was that kid in the library with a lot of books. I would get my free PC Magazines from my neighbor and pore over them. I wanted to know how the computers worked. As I perfected my English, became engaged in learning about America, and computers.
As a result, my role model became Steve Jobs. I would save clippings of articles about him from newspapers and magazines. I wanted to create things like Steve Jobs. I wanted to do everything like him, because most of the learnings and stories of the world were told to me from the perspective of people like him.
All this time, I never considered that the nerdy things I found exciting, comforting and differentiating was created mainly by and for White, Heterosexual, Cis Men.
This fact is often ignored. I was so excited to learn how to create inputs and outputs. I just wanted to continue to learn and explore. During all the hours I spent learning and tinkering, I absorbed the Nerd Lens.
As I grew, I discovered that the Nerd Lens gave superpowers to people like me. Few (or maybe none) of my friends, family and community really knew what I knew. I was special. I came to see how this quality allowed me to avoid the hazards of being Black or Brown in a mainly white dominant world. I see today how my family, friends and teachers found ways to protect and invest in my intelligence. Aunts would pay for classes and workshops, abuelas would send money that would be spent on comic books.
Looking at Success Through the Nerd Lens
At some point, people like me gain an understanding of how tech and tech products are created and valued. We read books about and by Steve, Mark, Jeff or Ben, and begin to put ourselves in their shoes. We become empowered with the knowledge and understanding of what we must do, and how we must act to find their level of success. Why wouldn’t we? We’re are just like them: nerdy, diligent, smart, and following in the experts’ footsteps. They had setbacks and they just kept on going until they created the world’s greatest tech companies.
We read books about and by Steve, Mark, Jeff or Ben, and begin to put ourselves in their shoes.
We want to create similar successes, and a big part of what can get us there is our ability to look through the Nerd Lens. We can emulate with swagger. We can build our own tech companies. We can talk front-end, back-end, KPIs, and we can quote the latest tech gurus. We hustle writing code, creating wireframes, designing, networking and going to meetings.
But what happens when we never really get to the successes we were expecting or deserve?
The predominant Silicon Valley narrative for the last 8 years has been that dude with a hoodie, who can grind his way to billions. He can create something in his dorm room with his bros then have his professors put him in touch with their investor friends. Hoodie firmly in place, this dude raises $1.5 to $2.5 million and hires 20 engineers. Two years later, they have a staff of 300 and $10 to $20 million in investment in the bank. Revenge of the Nerds, indeed. Hurrah for us Nerds!
The predominant Silicon Valley narrative for the last eight years has been that dude with a hoodie, who can grind his way to billions.
Nerds from all over the country now know that Silicon Valley is the place where they will be valued and compensated so that they are made into multi-millionaires and billionaires. Nerds flock to and succeed in Silicon Valley. Black and/or Latinx nerds also want to be part of the Silicon Valley narrative. We have all the tools, skills, degrees and hoodies.
Though it quickly becomes clear that wearing a hoodie might pose a particular kind of danger to some of us. There are no guarantees that the optics of the uniform will keep from endangering the lives of predominantly black men and trans folks.
Alas…same hoodie. Two different outcomes.
Black and/or Latinx nerds also want to be part of the Silicon Valley narrative. We have all the tools, skills, degrees and hoodies.
Still, we want in, and we know that the Nerd Lens can pay off big in the tech sector. When we are earning more in a year than the combined income of our parent(s), we suck it up. We follow the formulas, but we find walls, traps, and holes. It’s like a video game where you can never get close enough to win the prize.
Diversity and inclusion conversations have only gained steam in the last 3 years, helped in part by Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s ask to tech companies to release their staff demographics. This was bolstered by a new crop of organizations like Code2040, Black Girls Code, #Latism, Lesbians Who Code, Tech Inclusion and many others.
Up until then, folks really clung to the notion of Silicon Valley as a meritocracy. But you can’t hide from the numbers, or the way that lived experiences of Black and/or Latinx folks have been historically dismissed.
Politics of Respectability
Black and/or Latinx folks are spoon fed the politics of respectability from a very young age. Many of us are told when you dress “right”, behave “properly” and have a “proper” accent, you too will be acceptable. Blend in so much that you bleed out your color, class, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender and any other parts of your otherness. The message is clear: learn to be respectable if you want access to privilege and opportunities. White and Male are the data points you have, so that’s where you need to be, right?
The message is clear: learn to be respectable if you want access to privilege and opportunities.
I learned in high school and college how not be profiled by any authority figure as a potential threat. At times, my nerdy appearance kept me safe. With my dorky ways, I could be labeled as exceptional. So, I held on even more tightly to the Nerd Lens, as did my family, who saw me as an investment in a better future for them and all of us.
Government has always failed us.
Black folks have been legislated and policed by the United States government since July 4th, 1776. Black bodies, along with work, intellect, romance, family ties and futures have been scrutinized and commercialized to profit White people. Latinx folks have also had their bodies and futures legislated and policed, though not in the same ways or with the same history. Often the overlap that our communities have is how the systems created in the name of law and order are used to restrict our abilities to move about in the world. Our Afro-Latinx families navigate both worlds, taking on all of the burdens.
As a result, it is natural for us to be distrustful of government. Why would we want to be a part of a system that doesn’t care about our safety?
I am often asked: “How do we get more Black or Latinx folks to be entrepreneurial?”
The answer I consistently give is: “Black and/or Latinx folks are and have always been entrepreneurial. We have jobs, side-hustles, and side-side hustles. We give out two, three business cards that represent all of our endeavors. We are smart, hardworking, and we are hungry to get ahead and find opportunities to grow.”
Black and/or Latinx folks are and have always been entrepreneurial. We have jobs, side-hustles, and side-side hustles.
We are engaged in entrepreneurial ventures that are not often recognized by established economic indicators. Often, we have not incorporated. Sometimes our ventures haven’t (yet) been validated by the law. We are frequently hampered by a survival mindset.
Corporate law in the last 50 years has become obtuse and expensive for founders with little-to-no financial resources. As a result, we miss out on how creating a business scaffolding through the government can help us succeed. But can you blame us? Historically, law and policy has been purposely and systematically changed to cripple our creation of capital.
Some of us decide that we must incorporate, pay taxes, and seek investor support. Yet, that too has a price we have to pay.
We are too often dismissed, discounted and disengaged.
Dismissed: our genius must be proven time and time again.
Discounted: our companies and our earnings are given lower values when we serve our own communities. Or, our companies are assumed to only serve our communities.
Disengaged: our relationships with gatekeepers are contingent on our ability to project nerd before race, ethnicity, gender, and/or sexuality.
The pressures weigh on us heavily as some of us have the “reverse friends and family funnel”. We are constantly forced to question our competencies. And sometimes the pressures of a roadmap created by others feels insurmountable.
It is time for a new narrative.
If you are Black and/or Latinx, we don’t need you to be the next Zuckerberg. Our communities do not need one billionaire while the rest of us can barely earn minimum wage.
A national demographic shift is happening. So, how are we going to take advantage of the changes that we know are coming, regardless of how the political wind blows?
We need tech founders of color to have companies that scale and create real value. We need companies that are worth at least seven figures year-over-year.
We need to create great solutions to our problems and serve our communities. We need to hire each other with jobs that pay well because we’re building companies with solid customer bases.
We need the ability to make tech in our own way. We need the freedom to take off the Nerd Lens.
Deldelp Medina is a Latina technologist. She currently works in the Bay Area as a leader in the movement to diversify technology founders and workers to represent the U.S. changing demographics. In 2011, Medina co-founded Avion Ventures, the only Latina-focused accelerator for mobile platforms in the U.S.
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Learn more tactics for launching a startup as a Black or Latino/a entrepreneur with modest resources at Black & Brown Founders Project Philadelphia on October 9th & 10th! Check out: https://blackandbrownfounders.com.
