 All right folks. Well Is it still too late to say happy new year is it too late? No, okay unanimous happy new year. Welcome y'all to our first Birkman client center Tuesday luncheon series of 2017. We're so excited that all y'all could be here It's just a couple of housekeeping things As always, this is being live webcast So in the event that you have something that you don't just know that You're being recorded. Okay for posterity and it'll end up on YouTube. So be mindful of what you do or do not say that's one two on January 24th, we will be having a talk between Birkman client director Susan Crawford and the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Tom Wheeler Entitled US communications out across road that talk will be at 4 p.m And details of that are on our website cyber.harvard.edu slash events And so now at this point I will hand the mic over to Susan Menesh Birkman client center faculty associate. Thank y'all So I could just say Dr. Keshana Gray force of nature and then shut up But that that would pretty much sum her up But I think I'm expected to give you some details. So here come some details Keshana is a fellow at the Birkman client center as well as a Martin Luther King scholar and an assistant professor at MIT this academic year She is also a faculty visitor at the social media collective at Microsoft research here in Cambridge In her abundant spare time she likes to tour Boston with her partner and her children Her work broadly Intersex identity and digital media. She focuses particularly on deviance in gaming And works on video games and gaming culture her most most recent book race gender and deviance in Xbox live examines the The reality for women and people of color in what is after all one of the world's largest gaming communities Keshana has published very widely She founded the critical gaming lab at Eastern Kentucky University. She works with the equity in gaming initiative equity in gaming calm She is a featured blogger and podcaster with not your mama's gamer And She actively blogs on not one, but two personal websites She and her partner also collect Console games and In the not very distant future We all will join in her activities by Engaging in various activities at the adult gaming lounge. She plans to open which will be called high-scores It means exactly what you think it means exactly what you think it means and with that for the moment I Give you this authentic force of nature Kishana Gray. Thank you I also must tell you two things Please participate those of you who are not fortunate enough to be in the room and those of you who are using the hashtag up there on the board BKC Harvard and Also, Kishana says you are welcome to ask questions not only at the end You don't have to behave yourselves quietly and wait till the end, but you may also interrupt her during Just raise your hand. Absolutely. We cannot begin without acknowledging Mariel It's her birthday everybody. Please join me in singing. Happy birthday Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday, dear Mariel Happy birthday to you Thank you all for being here. Um I'll spend, you know some time, you know talking about I guess the the journey that has led me to create This framework this black digital feminist framework And it's also it's been influenced by a lot of things that are happening now my own experiences in gaming culture And it's it's an organic thing. It's a living thing. So it's constantly evolving, you know So please feel free to chime in share your thoughts comments Personal feelings and opinions about it Please be interactive because I really want it to be a framework that can best capture the digital practices And the physical practices of women of color and also other communities that are working for marginalized populations Okay So I've been at a crossroads both personally and intellectually Over-consuming the presidential campaign and election of Donald Trump Making sense of the hyper visibility of black death at the hands of the state Surviving the onslaught of violence in gaming communities Being broke and looking for a job I'm struggling to identify. What's the most appropriate thing to say really? in at this moment and I just constantly ask myself, you know, how did we get here and why? But where is here, you know, what is this moment that we're in is it all right? White domination is at the rise of white supremacy and toxic masculinity Is it post-gamergate or our post-racial reality? You know what matters most in this moment So as I was thinking about, you know, what I was gonna say in this space I found myself having more questions, you know, really than answers But I'll spend some time, you know, providing my own thoughts and really thinking about, you know The framework that is helping me make sense of a lot of things But I'm hoping we can engage this collectively as well But before we begin, let's take a trip, right? Let's imagine that we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Berkman client center, if you will, right? What are we recalling then, you know, from this moment right now? Is it success? You know, is it the end of, you know, online hate and harassment? Is it the dismantling of heteronormative white supremacists? Patriarchy, you know, you know, we can dream. Is it mobilization? Transformation? Post trauma or survivor narratives, you know, what all of these are some of these, you know What what will we be talking about in that moment? I was moved by There was an article the day after the election of Donald Trump that read Black women were the only ones who tried to save the world Last night was what it read initially My initial reaction was really to laugh and just tweet, right, you know, it's funny. That's hilarious So I did, I tweeted it And I got like a large backlash of comments and you know I ventured into the comment sections of other, you know, platforms that shared this and of course when you go to the comment section You know what you're in for, right? But I was overwhelmed by the response Of people who really didn't think that black women had the capacity to do anything except make babies and collect welfare checks, right? Now and I realized that the headline, you know, it simplifies, you know, a complex problem It simplifies a complex peep complex and diverse people, right? but it also highlights the hidden figures or hidden fences for some of y'all, right? Behind some of our most significant moments in history, right? Ida B. Wells Audrey Lorde Kimberly Crenshaw, Gloria Anzaldua, Sojourner Truth Sojourner Truth, you know, she strategically Struck a blow to whiteness and to masculinity and to the slave economy and also to, you know White women who would begin the dangerous trend of just privileging a singular form of of feminism and womanhood Ain't I a woman? And that small powerful phrase that Sojourner Truth articulated It was the beginnings of intersectionality What it means to be black and a woman and poor The powerful narrative would continue Through the movement for civil rights and women's rights and gay rights when women of color sometimes would be the only to articulate an intersectional stance that highlights the interlocking nature of oppression From Sojourner Truth To Combeheed, to Moya Bailey, you know we have constantly have to constantly remind the world of the lashes of neglect of Invisibility, exploitation, marginalization, misogynoir And because this cultural script is so common, these norms are assumed So when the hidden figures are made visible, our immediate questions are how did they overcome so much and break through so many barriers? Instead of asking why the barriers exist in the first place We spend our voyeuristic gaze peering into the lives of women of color as if watching a rat race knowing that they won't win and If and when they do it's extraordinary It's superhuman It's magical. I Instead turn the gaze away from the what and beyond the how and start exploring the why right? And history plays an important part in our current situation in our future directions So let's go back now to 1869 to the American Equal Rights Association convention Frederick Douglass argued that issues pertaining to race were more salient than gender Douglass felt that by incorporating black women into the Negro debate This would mean the this would reduce excuse me the chances of securing the ballot for black men He articulated and outlined the horrors of slavery of lynching slave codes plantation reality And he seemed to easily forget that women too were subject to these atrocious practices practices and more vulnerable to their effects But this trend to center men of colors experiences would continue to be articulated through Reconstruction through the different movements civil rights Chicano movement women's movement There's a current trends to focus singularly on black and brown debt black and brown men The unspoken rule to vow loyalty to a race pervades whiteness as well White womanhood has been created and it has been central in defining white masculinity We saw early articulations of white womanhood in need of protection made famous by the birth of a nation There was a clearly defined villain and a clearly defined hero And between those two characters was white womanhood a victim in both narratives This is one of the early early mediated articulations of the damsel in distress if you will and we continue seeing it played out Especially with the significant number of women who overwhelmingly, you know voted for trump But for many of us, you know, we've continued to state that we matter and that we should control our own bodies and our own narratives and our own agency self-definition That is the core of intersectionality So when thinking back to lashes against women for exerting their own agency, you know, it becomes clear That masculinity in whatever form has never really protected womanhood. It's merely protecting its own fragility its own interests And it's been using the defense of women to showcase brute power control and dominance And as we continue to center ourselves Now the backlash is real The repressive policies that are targeting women right now Um is one of the latest examples of that But why why do we have to constantly insert our own existences into spaces? Why are we not recognized Or acknowledged Why are we constantly forced into others definitions of us? I mean, I know the answer why, you know, but I'm certain, you know, that we're going to continue reminding you Um because we refuse to bear the lash in silence or or isolation The marginality that accompanies our outsider status often generates, you know, feelings of anxiety and frustration But it also generates some of our most innovative creativity And using black women's innovative innovative use of digital technologies via the hashtag Reappropriating imagery or what you would call memes facebook or gaming whatever example I'm going to, you know, use some of those examples to really highlight the unique uniqueness of black women's digital practices Um, let me go back to this slide right here. Women of color are often touted as poster children, you know, for the digital divide But we have historically utilized media and technology You know for our own means And we've also really mobilized some of the most marginal among us But this hacking, if you will, you know, is often viewed counter to what the originators intended And it's often downplayed as not innovative Or not creative Or somehow, you know, black women, they're playing around with it, you know They're not serious with these kinds of things or, you know, they're constantly failing and Some of the things that we do May be seen as failures, whereas our counterparts are often praised for the same things And so it's important to really explore this tax-heavy Um, especially for our ability to to breach the boundaries of what's normal of what's acceptable and what's been really defined for us So what do we call it? Hashtag feminism feminist futures Digital feminism techno feminism, you know, I think it's you know, those words are useful Um, but those conceptual frameworks, you know, they fail really to capture Um that the structural inequalities that really prevent access And really, um Highlight what women are able to do in the face of so much adversity, right? Um, because they're missing like that that acknowledgement of the role that identity also plays And how we refuse to part ways with any aspect of who we are We want to make sure that they're central and that they're present So we don't want to forego any aspect of ourselves when we enter a space I mean, I think that's one of the key things that some of our previous frameworks have failed to really consider Um, and it's also important that the analytical frameworks that that we have that they have the ability to deconstruct Structural inequalities and we don't want to just talk about them We want to figure out a way that we can liberate people and liberate folks from the confines of The lasting legacies of that oppression Um, so in my in my journey to really create this this framework black digital feminism um I I utilize the tenets of techno feminism of cyber feminism Um, and I also incorporate that with a critical race feminist perspective and thinking about what it actually looks like So the three um points that i've been working on and working through and with um are the social structural oppression of technology and virtual spaces Intersecting oppressions experience in virtual communities both virtual and physical communities and also the distinctness of The feminist community. I think those are some of the the three points that are the most important to talk about So thinking about the first, you know matters of institutional racism Damaging stereotypical images sexism classism. Those are routinely addressed by critical race feminist And in incorporating the inherent masculine bias in technology and the default whiteness of virtual spaces is important as well Um, coco Nakamura and rodman They argue that the internet is far from liberatory, but rather is a space that continues the cultural map of assumed whiteness Cole co pointed out that attempts to make race Ethnicity and other aspects of identity present are met with resistance from colorblind resistance Um from wanting to force certain bodies into the cultural norms that exist within these spaces And this assumed body excludes so many marginalized folks who are wanting to participate in these spaces, right? Oftentimes in the some of the research that I've done, you know They're marked their bodies are marked as deviant Because you're a woman in the space because you're a person of color in the space because you don't speak english within the space So I don't use deviance to really talk about Some of the inequalities or the oppression the racism or sexism. I don't root that as deviant I root those folks who are who are violating this space who are intruders into this locker room If you will I hate using that I used to use a lot. I don't like using it now, but I'll use it for this You all know what I mean. Um, we are intruders into these spaces that have not been defined and created for us So the creation of something like black lives matter or say her name There are merely tools to reframe a narrative that has limited black and brown bodies to skewed framing and that that have Influenced public perceptions and made certain communities vulnerable, you know, really to state violence The conflicting constructions of blackness in particular only serve to reify who is And who is not eligible for full inclusion into humanity So when one utters black lives matter, you know, it may lead to controversy Leads to claims of reverse racism and it leads to the creation of all lives matter The second theme within this black digital feminist framework is that women must confront and work to dismantle the overarching and interlocking structure of domination in terms of race class gender ability and other forms of identity Because individuals experience oppression in different ways We must not create a one-size-fits-all approach In understanding what oppression is So the construction of a hashtag that reads Solidarity is for white women is largely rooted in the failure of white feminism to adequately address the realities of women of color But it's red as black women being angry black women being bullies Black women engaging in toxic forms of feminism Mickey Kendall, she's the creator of hashtag solidarity is for white women And she created it in response to a rant by self-proclaimed male feminist Hugo Schweitzer where he stated He'd been particularly awful to women of color And so she highlighted it and the outlast was swift and it was severe But the case is also significant because it it reveals the relationships that white women have um, that white Excuse me white men have have had and how it's affected and impacted women's communities Or as Nancy Henley describes it's the everyday social relationships that glued together the social Super structure and it's hard to broach that it's hard to really break that That structure As Jesse Daniels articulates the dominance of white women as architects and defenders of a framework of exclusive feminism has yet to be interrogated by mainstream feminism But women of color have historically challenged universal feminism and they currently employ social media to continue this practice Now while the backlash to Mickey kindle and others who supported that hashtag was was severe The outpouring of serious and satirical tweets associated with was empowering You know to a lot of the individuals the women of color and the allies who used it and who wanted to highlight That trend in mainstream feminism And black digital feminism also encourages a privileging of women's perspectives and ways of knowing Because our identities generate a particular knowledge about the world from our standpoint And valuing these perspectives is the only way to liberate women from the confines of hegemonic notions Deeming these identities unworthy And therein lies the power of hashtag not your asian sidekick or hashtag. This is 2016 Asian women in particular resisting The the label of token or refusing to be anyone's model These digital practices are rooted in the radical asian womanist tradition that they control their own identities Resist patriarchy and highlight discrimination in the public sphere on the street in the classroom in the lab And although all women share common struggle examining intersecting realities The the distinctness of their lived experiences must be addressed Now women may share sexual oppression But it's not clear how this can unite all women whose work and life expectancy and family life are also structured by the hierarchies of racism Ethnicity colonialism or nationalism And it's also why a lot of women of color still hesitate to adopt the identity of feminists Instead preferring the word womanist or just being who they are Power differences between women are so great that even the similar struggle against men are different And women struggle with technologies indirectly a struggle with masculinity the patriarchy and male privilege And cyber feminists their inability to incorporate that structural nature of inequality results in a limited vision of liberation As fessel recognized women cannot stand together against oppression if we stand in different power relations to one another Black digital feminism also addresses the distinct nature of how women utilize digital technologies Hashtag not your sassy friend Hashtag not your mascot Hashtag yami kansei Hashtag not your mommy Hashtag you mad though Women have used social media for activism and change as well as to advance critical feminism and womanism The internet has propelled activism and empowerment in that many individuals can take action on singular issues And the the tenants of black digital feminism can never detach from the personal Or from the structural or from the communal And it can never detach from the political And that sets black digital feminism apart from techno and cyber feminism The key isn't how marginalized women communicate and how their internet usage is a continuation of their offline selves And it's important to note that these technologies aren't creating anything They're merely providing a different outlet Internet technologies, mobile tech, social media They they are all important and that they represent for women of color And other marginalized groups lacking resources the path to participate These groups have never been voiceless Those in power just haven't been listening And these digital um affordances and these digital technology only amplify their voices And maybe in fact because of black digital feminism's Simultaneous engagement with the digital and with the physical That the master's tools might finally be able to dismantle the master's house That's all that I have you all thank you all You're welcome So I'd like to take the Moderator's privilege and ask a first question, which is to bring you back kishana to where you started Yeah Now it is 2017 and now we are on the brink of something different Uh We under break all right Should we think differently about how to behave online? as Black women as women as Across and within all of our different identities We need to one of the biggest things that I think we need to do is really start thinking collectively Identify the commonalities the things that can connect us all right Um Because just one movement one force isn't going to do it You know an isolated march in one city and an isolated march in another city that's not going to do enough Right, so I think we really need to figure out a way to bring communities together to really figure out um What is that common struggle against structural oppression right? um But there's a there's a long road ahead of us right you know And I I think whenever I look at the breakdown of the numbers and seeing who voted You know for trump You know I get I get heartbroken every time you know whenever I see overwhelmingly, you know black women sacrificed You know to say you know, okay. We'll forget the super predator shit Stuff. Sorry. I'm sorry stuff that you said and forget that you know We realize what's at stake and we'll sacrifice those things Um and not seeing that sacrifice. It was disappointing from like a lot of other groups and not saying you know Men of color overwhelmingly support that as well You know, so I think that's one of the one of the biggest struggles Because we're still self interested. We're still just thinking about ourselves and we have to really think about who are we collectively You know, who do we see ourselves as you know, where do we want to be? You know, so I think that's that's the saddest part. I'm still figuring that out though, you know If anybody has answers for that, of course, this this group has a lot of answers I'll tell you that you can see the email threads. There's a lot of answers for a lot of stuff But we have to figure out, you know, how we can how we can turn that into action, you know Let me just follow up and and push you a little further. Does it mean using hashtags differently? For example, I think, um This culture is just one One of many things that we can do, right? So there's power in it So I think I think a lot of the the the creators of black lives matter for you know There's nothing new in what they were doing, you know, that wasn't different from, you know, 10 years ago or 15 years ago and highlighting, you know that Violence at the hands of the state, right? I think it just gave us a different platform And I think so tapping into that and realizing the power that the hashtag has that a lot of these different, you know Digital tools have we have to tap into that but we can't forget, you know The physical on the ground kind of mobilization as well actually connecting with people, you know Because we can't just always assume that everybody's wired either and that everybody has access to those kind of things And how and even you know, some people don't doesn't even think that that matters So we have to figure out a way to reach people and go to people where they are also There are a lot of folks here that do those kinds of things as well So there's a model that exists for that, you know, it's not brand new stuff that we have to create or we'll have to make up Like doing right questions. Yes Hi, thank you This has been a very good talk. I have one question and maybe it's not About the body of your work itself But it's I want to pick your brain about something that we here at the Bergman center care about Which is the network neutrality and Do you think that net neutrality played a role in enabling black digital feminism and Do we need to look at it from the feminist perspective? Sure. Sure So just so I'm clear on what you're asking you're thinking about how Net neutrality So that that the technology doesn't do anything. It's the people who use Use it, right? Is that what you're saying? Maybe Making the Like every content and every packet that travels around the internet It waits the same So it doesn't discriminate And I think Net neutrality is at risk Like in the following months and I want to see if Like what we are losing besides net neutrality itself can be The expression of these movements and all that so yeah, it's it's Yeah Sure, um, I'm not I'm not sure that I know because I'm not sure that I'm clear on really what you're saying Do you have an answer? I want you to like expand on what you're saying because it sounds like I bet you have an answer I'm sure you probably have like a response to that because I'm not I'm not sure Well, I think that I mean I think net neutrality was key to enable for instance black lives matter Because it was thanks to net neutrality that That governments couldn't oppress the language and I think that's that in itself. It's in danger and maybe If we don't keep net neutrality or we Might lose like the these movements and I wanted to see if This was like a they like a perceived danger inside these movements I got you. Um I think what's I think what's important is that we recognize that you know technology has the creators bias It's there And so I think whenever I hear and maybe I'm misunderstanding, you know the term net neutrality But whenever I think you know when people say that you know tech is neutral, you know, it can't be racist It's not masculine. It's not that right So when I think about the creation of a lot of these spaces the creation of a lot of these things And seeing the absence of a lot of bodies And seeing the absence of diversity seeing the absence of the like some of the inclusive spaces, right? So I think that's important that we focus on that because I think you know a lot of folks, you know Want to claim you know that you know, it's it's all a matter of the user and what a user does with the space, right? So but I think it's it's really important that we highlight The inheritance and I think that's a lot of the framework that I use, you know from one of these scholars who say, you know It's it's created with the bias of Of the person who who implemented it rather or not, you know, they're intentional with it or that they mean to do it, right? Um, so I think it's it's something very innovative to when people can can still break through and still Get access to those spaces and still make it and still use that technology You know for their own means appropriating it for whatever that they need to So maybe that's that maybe that's kind of what you're getting at that even though it is, you know Kind of like neutral. We're still able to do what we want and what we need with those kinds of things So maybe that's maybe that's what you're saying. I don't know. So my bad for from misunderstanding. Yeah, mary mary Thank you. Thank you for your inspiration this morning. I needed that Um, so this might be a follow-up to paulos question. Oh, I'm mary gray. I'm a fellow at the berkman client center And at microsoft research and my question is thinking about the work you've done on xbox and the pleasure that women can draw from Spaces that we otherwise would just write off as You know as misogynistic and racism. Why would you be there? And so maybe to some of what you're saying the places where we Both take pleasure and action in commercial spaces Do you have How are you thinking about the importance of occupying those spaces and also generating other spaces that are not Necessarily at risk when we think about what's at risk with With putting any sort of use limits on on certain commercial spaces and and having net neutrality Regulate who's able to actually access and and put content online. So how do you think about creating our own spaces occupying commercial spaces? Absolutely. I often get asked, you know, I've been a lifelong gamer, right? And so I often get asked, you know, how can you continue to play? You know where there aren't characters that look like me when there aren't developers that look like me when there aren't You know, it's not a community. You know that that really looks like me, right? um, and so I think that um I I started this this trend in this practice of highlighting the folks who are there because I think um Um We've always been there. We just haven't been acknowledged, right? And I think it goes into that as those marketing practices of who they're catering to of who who their assumed audience is Um, so for instance, you know, just the Pew Research Center just revealed that, you know Half of gamers are actually women and that's shocked people There was no shock to us when we knew that we've always been in those spaces, right? And even with console gamers, you know, the over um the overwhelming population of console gamers are are black and brown um, uh Men um, and so I think that we really have to focus on Who is actually in the spaces and going to find them and going to seek them out? And so that's where, you know, a lot of my dissertation work, you know, kind of resided in I'm like, okay Well, I know I'm in this space, but I'm not I know. I'm not the only one Um, so let me go and find the communities. Let me go and find those women Let me go and find the women of color and say hey What's been your experience? And then when we realize, you know, it's these these shared commonalities these shared stories of isolation of exclusion Of not being catered to of not being seen as valid or valuable in these spaces and as gamers But we stayed there, right? You know, there was something that was still drawing us there into those spaces Um, so I think um that you know, I just had a had a conversation earlier Where you know, we were we were sharing, you know a conversation of like, you know, it doesn't take that much work It's just a few extra steps. And so when we think about, you know, diversifying like an applicant pool like to make me no more Um, uh diversity like in and developers, you know apps or or tech Um, you just have to you know, a lot of folks I think we have this dangerous trend of just casting a wide net and hope that they get there But no, let's go be targeted. Let's go and go to those, you know, black girls code, you know Let's go to those spaces. Let's go to the schools that they're at Let's go to the howards engineering program and see are they there So I think we just have to do a few of those extra steps, you know, to make sure that we're Um, locating them as opposed to just casting a wide net and hoping that they that they magically, you know, enter into those spaces But I think focusing on really historically knowing that it's always been Folks that look like me in those spaces has kept me there and I always try to think how can I, you know, make the spaces better Um, and how can I, you know, also have like, um, I guess like this kind of top top approach where they're like, you know Being inclusive of us as well and marketing and characters and I think so last year I think that's where people somebody's going to call, you know, 2016 like the year of the black gamer if you were, you know We had mafia three, you know, there was, you know, a really interesting engagement of with battlefield one with the harlem hell fighters Um, and there was also um watch stocks two, you know featured a black hacker, you know in the bay area Um, so and those these were I guess some of the it was it was a push, you know from, you know, these from um From these marginalized gamers if you will to say, hey, we want, um, we want characters to look like us Even the success of oscar so white, for instance, if anybody watched the, you know, the golden globes You know, you can see some of that that resistance is paying off in meaningful ways, you know So I think it's I think there's just a value of, you know, not giving up of Of pushing those spaces because I know I know the trend is like, you know, the table's not meant for us So we need to create our own tables, right and that's important too But we also we we need to make sure that we put the burden on them to say, hey, you still need to recognize that We're not we're not going anywhere. You know, we're we're still here. Um, so yeah, maybe that hopefully that answer your question Yes, mario First thank you for the best birthday celebration I have had in a long time This is super illuminating and really inspiring and something that I really admire about your work is how you navigate between like Really high-level feminist theory, but how you have like this bunch of observation and an ethnographic work that you've done And I just wanted to know like if you could tell us a bit about the story behind that how how your Observations and your work sort of online really shaped Like your path in feminist theory. Yeah, absolutely. Um So it begins with the behemoth of the dissertation um I was moved whenever I learned about, you know, ethnography Um, I I thought that was just the most beautiful thing That anybody could have ever created of actually being immersed into a culture and a community Um of letting them tell their own stories Um, but and it was it was the point after that when it was time to Document all that stuff and transcribe all that stuff that I realized why we still feel sometimes that ethnography is very exploitative and voyeuristic, right? So it was during the transcription phase where um, I was urged to Probably wrongly, I don't know where they learned it to correct the the the speech Correct the black vernacular clean up the spanglish Reduce the use of ebonics and slang So it would would be more Academic user friendly, right? I said, hey, I'm not here. I ain't do that Their language and their ways of knowing their ways of being and seeing the world must be left intact, right? So I ensured to keep every Instead of changing that I refuse to make it that Them is still dim, you know So I wanted to do that and then people were saying that I was going to run the risk of exploiting and you know kind of Kind of appropriating like they were they were saying all these things. I was like, but we must begin To try to make sure that we keep those things intact So we aren't seen as as exploitative and just coming in and coming out and another thing that Was has been really important to me is making sure that The narrators in my research, I don't call them research participants or subject. They're they're narrators um and also Making sure that if they aren't on board if you will with the way that I have made sense of Their experiences or their realities the way that I interpret the data, you know, if you will Um, they're a part of the process. So I I go back to them. I said, you know what I I I did a chapter If you have time, do you mind reading this to make sure that you know You're the the meanings behind what you said and what you did, you know are intact Now that took that takes a lot of work, right? I ran the risk even of missing deadlines, you know um And even with my research like in Ferguson I still haven't mass produced all the the data that that I collected Because I hadn't left the space better than what it was, right? So I want to make sure, you know, I'm in constant contact You know, I want to make sure that, you know, the things that the the folks are Are doing there that the reforms are happening. I want I I feel bad Publishing this stuff and pad my own cv and getting success for myself if their conditions are still the same And so I think that's what's key with with feminist research, you know, making sure that you are staying true to that the Liberatorian transformatory practices that we say that we're doing, right? But again, I run the risk of not being able to secure tenure of not really having all the the pups that I need But I think that, you know, that's something that I agreed that I was going to do and I'll make sure to continue to do that practice, right? I also and I know I'm sorry. I want to make sure we get other questions, but let me I want to um make this last point Um, I'm criticized often my book was criticized in academia for not being I guess profound enough or brilliant enough, right because I use simple language. I wasn't talking above anybody, right? And I wanted to make sure that Anybody who picked up that book could understand exactly what I was saying from beginning to end I didn't want them to get lost in the academic jargon or you know, that lingo that we often Um surround ourselves around, right? I wanted to make sure that that community that allowed me into their space understood every word about them Because that's who it was about, right? It was about them But I run the risk of not having my work featured in, you know, university presses if I'm not articulate enough, you know But that's all right. That's okay Because I've still had success. Should I'm at MIT? I'm at Harvard. I'm at Microsoft. I'm doing good So the template is working, you know, so I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, you know Yeah, my bad other questions. I'm sorry. I think there was a hand. Yeah, there's some hands over here Thank you. My name is grace. Um, I have two Comments for questions. The first one is that there's been A big debate about, um the people who lead the movement or um There's been that whole big debate that, uh, for example, if I am Not black. I really cannot have the full I don't have the full black experience and therefore I am not, um Best suited to To lead the movement in the fight for, you know, those rights um Then on the other hand, there's always the question of, uh, for example in feminism If we want to advance the rights of women, we have to remember that these women exist in a society and We have to as fast as possible, um, move With the whole of that society with us And so, um, I wonder how you view these things and how you get, um A sort of balance if there's any balance and and how, um, this, um Appears in your work. Sure. Um I I think it's it's it's it's important, you know, you know, what you're saying, um I think I've kind of stopped caring about Hurting people's feelings if you will um Because if they're dedicated and devoted to the work that needs to be done They check their feelings at the door, you know, they check the fragility at the door, you know um And I think that's, you know, I think you're you're kind of alluding to the kind of like that ally building and You know allies being in in some of these spaces um There is work for them Tons of work for them um, I don't think that uh allies anybody who signs up to be an ally wants to be a central part Of you know, a group that's not theirs, you know, their their movement, right? Um, they don't mind doing some of the behind the scenes work. They don't mind going to their own spaces um, and and um Making sure that those spaces are aware of what the movements are, right? So I don't think that it's something that we need to um Because to me it kind of goes into like like this this tone policing where we have to be nice enough So everybody's feelings are okay, right? You know how, you know, they're urging us to go away from this, you know Why I learned a few weeks ago go away from this call out culture and say, oh no, you're just being so mean So I think there's too much work to be done to really have to address all of all of that Um, and if it's like I said, if it's a real ally that's dedicated to the work They'll understand and they'll already come into the space equipped with exactly what they know that they need to do They will have already addressed their own spaces. They'll check their own friends on facebook That's talking crazy and reckless, you know, they'll do those things already So I don't think that, you know, we really don't have the time to make sure that everybody feels okay You know in a space because it's some serious work that we we we need to do Um, and again, of course that that's probably not the most, you know PC you're diplomatic, you know response if you will, but you know, we don't we don't have time for that anymore Like whenever I was looking at all the things that trump is Doing right now and he's not even the fucking president yet and everything, you know, it's heartbreaking You know, so we have so much work that we have to do first off to make sure that women are protected Make sure that, you know, our children take some of our most vulnerable populations So we need to do whatever we need to do, you know, check our own privilege at the door and just get do the work So these groups don't have to you know I don't know if that was an answer or not Meryl, okay, uh, I don't have a lot more time left and it's a big question So you can just answer like one slice of it as you want Um has to do with I guess the applications of black digital feminism to the legal field both the law and legality with the Understanding that intersectionality like as it was theorized started in law journals and you know Women of color being pushed out of this the center of Of law and at the same time not a part of never been a part of our supreme court in this country And so both like whether it's technology policy or uh police, you know Uh reform of of of Imprisonment whatever the sort of ways that you see black Digital feminism in like one or two like takeaway ways And it's application to legality illegality in the legal system. Absolutely I think the first thing that needs to happen is recognizing the the scholarship that's there that exists on it So i'm thinking about that, you know, the plethora of information that's come out, especially from critical race theory Um highlighting, you know, especially like with the criminal justice reforms highlighting the oppression highlighting the disparities Highlighting um those kinds of things, you know, it exists already I think it's a matter of if it's going to be implemented, you know by those and put into actual practice Um because I I think, you know, we've spent a lot of time, you know researching and we know these things already You know, we know this um, so i'm not sure how else other than to continue to push continue to just write You know the people who are making the policy in whatever field, you know, continuing to do those kinds of things Um, but I don't have an actual answer of how they can translate into actual meaningful policy Um and especially especially right right now, you know, we we have, you know The the the template of what happens when repressive policies are implemented. We know what's happening We know what's gonna come um and to to push back against that mayor I don't know I don't know how to do that if you have an answer. I'd love to hear it I don't know Systems of power with with people who haven't been a part of the system, but the system itself Is, you know inculcated in harm and so that that And then putting those bodies into that space now because they're already vulnerable populations And having to be subject, you know, to these the masculine culture having to be subject, you know To the culture that is in response to your identity, you know, if you're a woman of color if you're queer, you know So I don't I don't I don't know how you withstand that and still survive and stay intact You know, it's it's tough and we know that in academia academia is the same as well You know, somebody just talked about, you know, we always get every year, you know There's there's the research that says oh women's evaluations are always terrible. We know this already Now when his academia gonna change to say, okay, well, we aren't gonna put as much weight on these evaluations No, that that's not changing. That's not happening. Um, so I put it like a little addendum if you will You know my evaluations. Okay, just so you know, this is these evaluations are filtered through my black female body So, you know, but it doesn't it doesn't I don't know I don't know Do we have time for other questions? Yeah, my bad. Yeah, there's some Hi Um, when you were talking I thought about a couple of women, right? Um, leslie jones and what happened to her And michelle obama Yeah, and you know the way in which she is sort of picking up a leadership role Um, and you know, I sort of went back to Long time ago and I was thinking about you know, I am spartacus, right and the way we use hashtags now So, you know, I am michelle and does that do good things or does it do bad things? I mean, what what what will we get from something like that? Sure. Sure. I think um I think it's a matter, I guess of how you measure, you know, if it's doing if what it's what it's doing when it's out there, right? Um, I really focus on really on those marginalized folks who see these different hashtags and see themselves and You know, it's like that that level of empowerment Um, that that they have of being proud of, you know, you know, for instance, you know, michelle obama A black woman like in in that in the position. Well, that may not translate into much on a in the aggregate You know, I think there's some power with that, you know, especially in these in these localized communities You know, so I think there's there's real value in that and especially like, um I'm not aware of the I am spartacus hashtag. I don't I don't know this one. I don't know what that is. What was that? Okay, okay A million years ago, right? Kirk Douglas was spartacus in a movie, right? And it was about a slave uprising and you know, they were trying to pick him out and punish him, right? And so, you know, spartacus stand up and everybody became I am spartacus You know, very like the hashtags, right where you join into a movement And make your declaration And so, you know, and one of the things I'm wondering about is, you know, I know this is I I mean black women's voices now Are incredibly powerful In lots of places and my question really is I think in part How can we, you know, white women who may not have done the right thing when we were voting as a as a, you know Community, you know total community because we didn't perceive ourselves as community How can how can we be supportive of this? And, you know, not be bystanders not be passive, you know, not accept those roles like Birth of a nation but really, you know, be as powerful in our voices as as many of the black women who are out there now You gotta go get your people You gotta go and get the white women that went and voted and I really think it's important, you know As we were talking about how we start with within our own communities, right? Because I think a question that I would have is if you were to like come into a space, you know, we're You know black and brown women are organizing or doing something I would be like well, what was your response to the white women in your family that voted for Trump? You know, what have you done to like transform the spaces that you come from? What have you done to like change like your family? What have you done to transform like the classroom that you teach in? So I want to ask those kinds of things, you know before you come into a space You know where we're trying to transform like on a larger level because those small those intimate kind of spaces That's where a lot of that some of that that really changed that the effective change, you know Kind of really happens, you know And so I think a lot of times, you know, we just kind of ignore. Oh, well, that's that's just how uncle is Y'all know he raises y'all know granny don't like gay folks, you know I have to make sure that i'm you know critically addressing, you know My own family that owns my own circle because I can't really do anything out out in the world If I can't even transform my most intimate spaces, you know So even if we can't change them just making sure that the conversations are had as opposed to just ignoring them Well, I can't do anything with them, but I'm gonna go do something over here I think we have to you know, and that's even like kind of like your practice ground If you will, you know, kind of like that ground zero kind of thing like I know I'm gonna make her any matter Thanksgiving, but I'm gonna have to say because I know she's gonna say something That's so homophobic, you know how to make sure to say, you know, I'm saying So I think that that is important that we think about what have we done in our our own Private spaces first before we begin to kind of make that that big change that that would be my my initial Or something before we even get to work, you know to reform other other things like that You know So kashana one of the things I really appreciate about your work is how you always Harken back to a rich pedigree of black feminist theory I'm bringing in people like Ida B. Wells, but um a conversation I was having with a few of my colleagues was about this underlying disparity That's kind of forming about the current political moment and the contemporary and how distinct it is and that Um, we're dealing with a set of problems that are particularly transnational They're it's it's very different from the politics of Ida B. Wells and so There's a necessity to create new visions for what we want for our future and not in the sense where people try to pressure Black Lives Matters to have a kind of a means ends Um agenda, but more in the sense of what is the future that we're fighting for and so my question is What does the virtual and the digital do to contribute to that future vision vision? And how can we incorporate those spaces? Yeah, absolutely. I think I think it's important that We acknowledge, um What's the same? You know, um, so in you know in the era that Ida B. Wells, you know was speaking whenever she was talking about You know like lynching practices and things like that Um a lot of black feminists would say that not much has changed You know so they would liken you know the death of mike brown and you know the death of you know Austin sterling the all these deaths still within that same frame of lynching, right? Um, so you know kind of like this there's nothing new under the sun kind of thing Or it's just kind of like a a different, you know, what's what's that one saying? So we said something about the same shit different day something like that Yes, man. Yeah, yes, um So I think it's important that we recognize the things that we've always addressed Because those are saying you know the the structural inequalities the institutional inequalities Some of the language is still the same. It's kind of like just like different iterations of what's happening, right? And I think that digital tools are just giving us like the means to kind of address it differently Because again, you know something like black lives matter is no different than you know, what was happening, you know You know behind like rodney king for instance And the conversations with body cams was the same conversation we had with dash cams, you know So what's like, you know the technology, you know might be changing some of the conversations But the basic premise, you know is still there And so as opposed to you know, what future are we fighting for? Yeah, I guess I haven't really like like articulate that what kind of future do do do we do we want to have, you know one like a Utopia, you know one where You know people have you know agency and control like over their own bodies one where you know We've dismantled all these different structures of oppression, you know Yes, yes to all that, you know, I don't know how you know We go from this moment of you know black digital feminism, you know to like to get there I just know that the conversations need to continue to to be had And then that there's like really serious engagement that we're dismantling, you know Like a lot of these barriers that that exist and we start within our own ivory tower if you will, you know How can we as academics, you know do better transform spaces, you know the lack of diversity in some of us We can do small things like going to doorchester and finding young people that are there, you know Going and making sure that they have access to these different campuses, you know of harvard and mit Small things that that that we can do, you know, I think I don't want the conversation to get too big You know you presented, you know a big question I don't know I don't have an answer for that But I think we got to make sure that we keep the the conversations small and digestible enough that we can Consume and that we feel like we can still you know effect change around that, you know So I never want the conversation to get too big because it could be overwhelming Where we could say well, we can't change nothing anyway, you know, we can't we can start within our own spaces And it just go from go from there Say for instance I'm a man that attends a talk on black digital feminism And I'm quiet and don't ask any questions, but I would like to learn more about the topic Where do I go where's some resources I can go to just dig in on my own? Yeah, absolutely. Well, how about by the end of the afternoon you can go to my website and there will be a plethora Of information that you can get so w w w that kishana gray dot com It's not there yet, but I'll make sure that I upload different kinds of resources because there are a lot of folks that are doing a lot of Really like amazing things. It's even in our own, you know community, you know Even with within our own, you know, burkin clad community. We're really doing some really innovative things Yeah, and I love the hashtag, you know Becca that you started where people are talking about the different things that they've Been engaged in it's beautiful. It's really amazing You know, I'm so humbled every time that I see, you know, the amazingness of the space But let's make sure that we tap into, you know, these these folks and that they're they're because we have A great and hopefully I'm not sure how many people are affiliated with burkman client But there's really a community of folks that are really wanting to do work For free. I'm just thinking about, you know, just last week when we were talking about, you know, really like Transforming spaces you got people that really want to work And so we have to make sure that we I connect into that I tap into that and make sure that they were doing all that So, yeah, it'll be there. Oh, I was like at the end of the day. I'll get it up a little bit Do we have one more question before I ask mine? Anybody else? So to tie together a number of the of the themes of your Tremendous talk and the and the q&a that has followed it You write about the importance of Claiming identity Online in other words early on of course people Celebrated the fact that online you could pretend To be anybody you didn't have to be revealed As a dog or a woman or a black woman Now you can in in some more circumstances and spaces online Be identified And you can in fact be identified in a Defiant and somewhat provocative way like with hashtags that may offend people in other groups That are Potential allies or natural allies How do you balance especially now The importance the the important task of of of claiming identity and Establishing solidarity with your smaller group And on the other hand Bonding together with Allies that are not in that smaller group, but that are in a Larger one and should that this is a little bit like the question I started with Do you need to shift that balance in any way at the moment or are there particular circumstances in which You would advise Emphasizing one over the other Sure. Um, I don't think I I I have not yet figured out how to create that balance Where the different spaces I'm a part of are communicating and talking with one another, right? Um, so I'm still So a lot of the spaces that I'm a part of are still independent of one another, right? Even with you know, some of the some of the things that you know, I've done You know with with black lives matter some of the things that I've done Especially with the women who oppose gamergate These are still distinct communities, right? And I think it was at that moment of august 2014, you know, with the With the death of mike brown with the rise of gamergate that I realized The impossible nature of really existing in these two different worlds They collapsed for me. They weren't that different. They weren't that distinct So I think in that I think in that moment That was the time that I I realized that I had to have a conversation With both of those groups to show the that commonality of the oppression, right? Um, and that was kind of what I did with I think, you know, I had a I hope I'll plug some work here and the diversifying barbie immortal combat book You know, I talk about, you know, that tension between, you know Women within that gaming community of how they said, you know, the moment right now is to fight against gamergate He had another group of women that said, you know, no, that's not really important right now You know, you're not dying in the street, you know, it's black lives matter You know, so I think it's really having those kinds of conversations to show. Well, you know, these these aren't opposing Fights You know, they're not so distinctly different that we can't tackle them both at the same time I wasn't successful in that group of, you know, figuring that out. I wasn't Successful, but you know, I still worked, you know with both Um, but I think it just got me thinking about more. How do we bridge that? How do we create that balance so we can see and I think that's one of the questions, you know That that that big question that I haven't yet figured out Is how to bring them all together, you know, so they can just Kind of coexist and that's how we have to do that building to really resist some of the stuff I'm figuring it out. So as soon as I figured out, which I know So stay tuned and keep track of that website and the multiple magnificent Ways in which kashana does tell us what she has figured out She's something of a fountain of answers, even though she might try to deny it. So thank you so much Thank you all for coming. Thank you so much