Post AYENvMCzMSt4KSGFQu by mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io
(DIR) More posts by mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io
(DIR) Post #AYAEJUT4WoxwiloTVg by mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io
2023-07-28T19:34:55Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Fantastic accomplishment!♥️👍🏿https://19thnews.org/2023/07/chanda-prescod-weinstein-physicist-tenure-rare-feat/And when she tried to join the Fediverse, she was greeted with a barrage of hate, sexism, racism, and anti-semitism that should have never been allowed to happen.So now no one on Fediverse gets to interact with her directly about her work on here. Our loss. 😢Which is why we'll make it so that this type of terrible welcome is unlikely to happen again. Allowing it to happen to her was a choice. We will make better ones.#BlackMastodon
(DIR) Post #AYBwc1dGYKoXvsBobQ by orionkidder@writing.exchange
2023-07-28T23:36:23Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mekkaokereke "Fewer than 20"!?I knew it would be a low number, but holy shit, that is shamefully low.
(DIR) Post #AYBwc2MHqwpKBVFlmC by mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io
2023-07-28T23:46:02Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@orionkidder Years ago I got destroyed by a friend who was VP of People Ops (HR) at Google. I was giving him grief for not hiring more Black CS PhDs.He said fair but... in that year, there was a grand total of 4 Black CS PhDs to graduate in the entire US. Four. And Google interviewed all of them. 2 passed. 2 did not pass. 1 declined the offer. 1 accepted. One.By the time you are done with your Masters degree, many Black students are over $100K in student loan debt. The PhD is not worth it.
(DIR) Post #AYBwc2yDZvAU5903to by mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io
2023-07-28T23:48:11Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@orionkidder The primary barrier to more Black PhDs is economic, not academic. And it's racism in academia, not race in academia.The same effect happens at Masters degrees and Bachelor's degrees as well, but the PhD cliff is the most extreme.Reforming US higher education tuition is an equity issue.
(DIR) Post #AYBwc3a9ItVdymkM1Q by orionkidder@writing.exchange
2023-07-28T23:58:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mekkaokereke That is *sobering*!I know economics alone cannot fix racism—I mean, obviously—but holy shit, could economics alleviate a LOT of barriers. The US's tuition rates seem to exist in order to keep people of colour out, and poor people in general (but I suspect I'm preaching to the choir).
(DIR) Post #AYBwc4CmzEPxucpDFY by mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io
2023-07-29T00:05:23Z
0 likes, 2 repeats
@orionkidder Not just "seem to exist"College used to be cheap. Then Roger Freeman (worked for Nixon and Reagan) said“We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college].”Reagan agreed. So they changed state college tuition structure to what it is today. And now here we are. 🤷🏿♂️https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/
(DIR) Post #AYBwc5H50lRbEDq9Zo by orionkidder@writing.exchange
2023-07-29T02:20:57Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@mekkaokereke Holy shit. There's so much more deliberate malice in these systems than I expect.Also, nine out of ten times, things in the US that "don't make sense" are because of racism. Over and over again, that country ties itself in knots to maintain racism. I'm still in a kind of disgusted awe at how deep it goes.Edit: I think it was the vanilla ice cream thing that broke my brain. The sheer pettiness of it.
(DIR) Post #AYBwc7d8FkGwXCAnE8 by Paxxi@hachyderm.io
2023-07-29T07:11:02Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@orionkidder @mekkaokereke it's a game of racism, Reagan or both
(DIR) Post #AYENvHITcdJ361n3nE by techghoul@weatherishappening.network
2023-07-28T20:21:46Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mekkaokereke hadn't seen this news, it rules!
(DIR) Post #AYENvI2upyS9Q3W9B2 by marjolica@social.linux.pizza
2023-07-28T21:25:42Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@techghoul @mekkaokereke great that she'e got tenure. Just wish it wasn't so difficult for black women to get parity. Can you tell us more about how it came about she had such a bad landing in the #fediverse?What needs to be done to ensure it never happens again?
(DIR) Post #AYENvIj6J8CHWtFpvk by mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io
2023-07-28T22:06:51Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@marjolica @techghoul Short-ish version:1) There's a list of really bad Mastodon instances that only exist to host CSAM and launch attacks on Black folk, brown folk, Jewish folk, women, LGBTQIA folk, and other marginalized groups. It's a full time job keeping up with new additions to that list.2) Some experienced admins do this work to block them, but most new admins don't. There are now 26K instances, most of which have new-ish admins that don't block this "worst of the worst" list.
(DIR) Post #AYENvMCzMSt4KSGFQu by mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io
2023-07-28T22:13:36Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@marjolica @techghoul 3) It should be extremely easy for any Mastodon admin to opt-in to automatically updating deny list that blocks these worst of the worst instances. Most Fediverse instances don't have an updated deny list of these instances. It's too much work.There are lots of folks working on this at the moment, and we're getting organized. I would bet that by the end of the year, the majority of Fediverse instances will be covered by a shared deny list.