 changed this week so before I show you anything I'm just gonna talk to you for a minute I am I'm the kind of tree hugging dolphin loving person that comes from Canada I live here and I talk a lot of smack about Seattle because Canada's better and people don't really like that they're like why don't you go back to Canada then and you know if we all could would right would that's the point but my Canadian self really does care like I care about people I grew up in the 80s black don't crack and I can't tell and and there used to be like billboards you could drive along the highway in Vancouver and there'd be like a billboard that says like cooperation give it a try that's what growing up in Canada's like like you're in elementary school which we call primary school and you practice conflict resolution like in second grade so like if you're ever wondering why no one's bombing Canada it's because Canadian foreign policy is not to be an asshole it's working for Canada okay so that said last Friday not yesterday a week ago yesterday I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and I noticed that everyone's depressed have you noticed this okay it's bummed out times I call it hashtag no chill 2016 because we just don't have any more chill like at some point you get so upset from being constantly bombarded with negative messages that you just get raw and cranky you're like like a sleepy hungry five-year-old that needs a nap and you just don't want to deal you don't want to deal you do want to go play Pokemon go forever and just run away from life not everybody can do that and I'm a doer so I wanted to do something so I started a Facebook event page not even a group just an event an online event called reparations and before you freak out and lay a goose egg in your chair I I lost about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars getting liberal arts degrees so you can just feel sorry for me make a noise if you feel sorry for me mm-hmm I want more pity than that I want a hundred and twenty thousand dollars worth of pity like don't you think that degrees should be like priced differently like I went to Tufts University and like I paid as much as the international relations people paid for their degrees and my degrees in English literature that's kind of a rip-off okay so I know how to think critically I paid a lot for that so yeah if I was gonna be fighting for like I'm not saying there is any reason why we shouldn't be concentrating on serious apologies for huge egregious offenses like American slavery we most certainly should am I holding my breath for that to happen no this is what I was doing okay this is what the idea was it's a social experiment to empower people who have something to offer to connect with people who need something and I thought to myself there's a lot of stressed out people of color right now who could really use a 90-minute massage a stay at your lake house maybe some books on an Amazon gift card and should you be sitting in your house feeling wrought and mired in your stagnation of angst and anger and fear but want to do something because you think of yourself like I'm a good person I want to do something I don't want to just sit there and watch these atrocities and not do anything well maybe you could actually help an actual person in your actual community feel better so this is what the idea was behind reparations so you can go look at reparations dot me I'll pull it up yeah who knows the definition of reparation anybody that the word reparation not any movement not any policy like what is what does the word mean somebody shout it out to repair yeah it's not it's not America that's what dictionaries are for right like if you're curious you could always Google it like what does this word mean that I'm angry at I feel myself angry at this word reparations oh it means to like repair something that's broken yes I was noticing this look at that the site can't be reached you know that song sing along if you know the words yeah the way you torture me and get like the secrets out of me would be with slow internet or no internet you know like I want to go escape to a lake house and sit in the sun but what I really want to do is do that like with the internet my friend my friend the internet yeah oh sorry okay so this is what happened Friday evening the Facebook event page goes up Saturday Sunday people find out about it because I have a network I'm a community builder I use digital engagement to do a lot of my work I do lots of Canadian hippy stuff I connect people all over the globe with poems that help them to reimagine themselves as part of the human lineage that's my project red lineage calm I have a show up right now at vermilion gallery called remember me so if you want to see what that looks like in real life oh my god not on the internet you could go to vermilion gallery it's in Capitol Hill and take a look it's up till August 6th I have teas at midnight all over the world called Miko Kuro's midnight tea and we use time tea and technology to sort of manifest an idea of creativity together sort of like a a secular ritual to honor the creativity in human beings so like I'm saying like I'm not I'm not what you would consider a race warrior per se I'm really into people I I say that I say I'm a conceptual artist because my projects are about manifesting ideas I use people as my medium and everything available to me to manifest these things which always are co-created with others so my network which is a great network supported this idea reparations sort of a gift economy for our community and other communities and my network is already global so at launch it was a global idea it was a global concept by Monday it became clear I needed to put up a website so I did that which you cannot see but here's what what I know about everyone in the audience and I know you have a phone so why don't you look it up why don't you put www.reparations.me into your browser and look at it look we're being interactive we're all doing it together it's actually better this way why should I do all the work work okay so as you can see when you pull up the site people can submit offerings or requests and at first the requests actually the first thing that was made was an offering and the first people who started making offerings were actually people of color so really interesting to note that I set up this social experiment where in which people who identify as white can make offerings to people identify as people of color and the first thing that happens because I'm an interactive artist that works with other people as people do what they want to do so people of color made offerings I was thrilled to see this experiment take on a new shape beyond what I had imagined and I also think it says something about human generosity and about how we are and that it's always easier to offer something than to ask for something do you like to ask for help do you like that feeling when you have to call your friend and ask can you borrow a hundred dollars to make your rent I don't think anybody actually enjoys that I think it's much better when you get to be the person on the other side of that phone call who actually has that hundred dollars to spare where you could like help your friend out right especially if you can trust they're gonna pay you back or at least they thank you maybe you don't even need to be paid back maybe you're just happy that you could help so this is the concept and you can see you can scroll through the offerings you can scroll through the request they're they're tagged you can see what people what people need and what I saw was immediately that I had responded to a feeling that was that was happening I had responded to an actual need the need for many people who identify as white in America right now to feel like they're doing something to offset all this negativity I don't know how many videos of police brutality you need to see before you begin to ask yourself what's really going on here and if that's all if that's where you are if that's the point where you are and you haven't done anything else do know that you you haven't helped anything at all like so you discover that things are really terrible for a lot of people that may not be like you what are you gonna do about it if you were telling your friend let's say you've got your friend Mary and your friend Bob you're telling Mary that last night when Bob walked you home he assaulted you and Mary says that didn't happen to you and then you show Mary a video and Mary's like it looks like you were trying to seduce him at what point is Mary still your friend like when do you feel like Mary may not actually be your friend anymore right so there's a lot of people of color who are like why is it that I have been telling Mary Becky with the good hair for a very long time now that Bob did something bad to me and Mary just is like she cannot wrap her mind around that it has to be my fault like that leaves you with some pretty icky feelings how can we do something about it well if you're not that person if you're not the person that would sit there and say like I don't believe you if you are the type of person who would advocate and go confront Bob and be like what the hell is going on Bob like I need you to know right now that I'm not cool with that lots of people are too afraid to do that like lots of people wouldn't confront Bob they would just silently judge him but Bob goes out and assaults more people when you do that by the way so all I'm saying is that the idea behind this was actually a gift right I wanted people who want to do something to have a platform that was easy it's easiest text messaging someone or in which they could do it so this is how you use reparations stop me you think about what do you have to offer for all of us there isn't a single person in this room who cannot offer somebody something else it doesn't really actually matter what color you are how old you are what you do for a job none of that actually matters in fact all of us just as a thought experiment take a moment to think about that because that's what validates you as a person is what you have to give that's what makes you generous actually is what you have to offer other people not what you need what you can give and here's what a lot of people of color need right now catharsis they need to be able to safely vent and be heard about what's happening and believed you know they need the opposite of that Darth Mary I don't believe you it's your fault because that's really traumatizing catharsis is actually free if you didn't know it's something you can offer somebody at any point in time you just make the time people of color also need a break some self-care just like you would need some self-care if you had just found out that your friend Mary isn't your friend maybe you need a good book to read maybe you need to play a video game and like what's wrong with that what's wrong with asking for that I don't think there's anything wrong with that I think it's brave to have that kind of trust to believe that people might even help you honestly people of color and need you to realize that you can leverage your privilege what does that mean leveraging your privilege means when I go to buy a car I'm probably gonna get ripped off for a variety of reasons I look young female I'm a person of color but if you take your brilliant beautiful unbesmerged white maleness with me when I go to buy a car you don't have to know about buying cars actually you just stand there and maybe ask a question every now and then I'm gonna get a better deal on my car take it to the laboratory test that thing out bank loans business loans vouch for me on a job referral watch me get the job you know offer me a job offer me an internship offer to mentor me that's leveraging your privilege that's how it works you can also do one of the simplest things everyone can do if you have a job you can do this even if you don't have a job you can do this somebody gives you the opportunity to speak and you give that opportunity to somebody else because it's gonna come right back to you this is how it goes I'm up here on a stage everybody's listening to me right now I've got the position of authority I'm gonna take this position of authority and I'm gonna offer it to somebody who I think needs a moment to share so would anybody in the odd audience like to share anything I don't really care what you're sharing would you like a moment of everyone's attention to listen to you if you would raise your hand and you can nominate people because people sometimes don't necessarily want to put themselves up but they need they need to say something we don't have all day come on yeah Ellie come here you've won just kidding you can stay there yes give Ellie some love you are all like sighing right now like it wasn't you this is like this is it I I'm Ellie and things in my life have been kind of hard right now on all sorts of levels so it's it's been a difficult time for me so I may not be the most delightful outgoing person at this conference and if I'm playing Pokemon go a lot it's because I totally need that break and but I'm glad that everybody knows about Pokemon go now and I don't have to explain it to other people anymore because it's really weird I'm like trying to explain why I'm really into cute anime characters anyways what I'm working on right now I used to be a full-time product designer and I decided that working in tech wasn't it was really damaging my mental health I became a senior product designer and I became the lead of teams and I was getting paid a good amount of money basically to have people gas like me all the time and it wasn't really worth it and I was like you know what what can I do with the money that I have earned in order to give back to the community and to do things that I want to do which is basically to uplift other people and make sure that under represented people have a chance to thrive so one of the things well what I did I quit my job I started an LLC that's a benefit corporation because I actually I wanted to make it a nonprofit but the lawyer was like it's actually more work and more expensive if you want to be a nonprofit when you're doing everything by yourself so instead you should be a benefit certified LLC so that's what I'm doing and I'm launching a new event called effect and it is part conference and part group volunteering and I was like I don't want to just do a conference for anything I want to do a conference that talks about social change and it's about the work the culture and the design in the systemic sense of social change what it takes to try to create a difference in the world and it doesn't have to be saving the entire world but to make a difference in your small corner on the issues that you care about let's come together and talk about what it means to be doing that work what it takes emotionally physically and financially and see if we can help each other out and it's called effect and it will be October 7th and 8th in Portland and it's a community event so I want people to come and connect with each other and then I want us all to do group volunteering because a way to directly do something is to go out to the local nonprofits that are already working because I feel like in tech a lot of times we think that we should go and reinvent the wheel we have better ways of doing stuff and I'm like no you know there have been organizations working on these issues for for so long before you even were born before you learned about these things that you cared about so and they are not getting the support they deserve so the least we could do is figure out how to help them for half an afternoon thank you so that's what I've been working on and the idea was something that I was like I'm really excited about this I'm super jazzed and I actually proposed this as a talk for this conference but I understand that it's kind of a downer but basically what I'm finding is that even though people are really enthused about the idea it is really really hard to get any traction people are like who are you why are you doing this I'm like yeah I'm making no money from this I'm not even paying myself because I think it's more important for me to take my money and pay my speakers a tiny little stipend in addition to travel and lodging because I want them to be able I want people to be who are doing the work to be able to go on stage and be highlighted and be compensated for their time and energy and that's what I've been doing and it's been really hard because I look like I'm super I think I do a good job of looking like I have it together so people assume that I have it together and I don't need any help in this event is going great and it's not going great at all like I'm like nobody wants to come to my thing where all I want to do is help other people do their thing better and so I'm failing that's what it feels like right now to me like I'm totally failing I'm not doing this thing well and I could lose a ton of personal money because when you launch a thing for the first time you have to put your own finances into it because sponsors are like well you didn't show us anything that we can possibly get out of this and we're already there's so many like diversity and inclusion things out there and like what do you mean by social change does this really get us more engineers and like social justice is like nice but like it's more like a thing a nice to have and you're like I don't even know how to talk to you so that's just been the thing I've been struggling with and that's my rambling about trying to make a difference in the world and not necessarily succeeding what can we do to help you you can tell people about this event I've I've been too depressed to continue telling people and have them laugh in my face because that that's kind of a donor when people are like it sucks or if they don't believe in you but it's called effect I actually do think it's awesome underneath all this layers of depression or so my therapist tells me go to therapy by the way that's how you can help yourself if you can afford it and people have sliding scales anyways the if you can't there's lots being offered on reparations dot me effect is spelled a ff ect and the website is a ff ect c o n f dot com there is and it's also effect com and weirdly enough as part of an organizing effect my friends events and mine have congealed into all being around October in Portland and so now rather than just doing one conference also now in charge of a week-long festival called resolution fest which is all about getting the groups together and highlighting the groups that are trying to resolve to make the future of tech better and so that's res fest pdx.com r s f e s t pdx.com and what you can do is check it out you don't have to go because it's it's kind of ridiculous to ask people to show up to a place and put finances into it but I think you should check it out see if there's any groups that are interesting to you and if you even if you can't go or you don't want to go tell someone that you think might be interested and you know maybe offer me a hug if you're a hugger I could use a hug and also ignore me if I'm crying oh thank you oh my god it worked it's working okay so this is like a metaphor for my last week okay that did not go how I expected at all do I regret it no this is my experience so I didn't get to Monday so Monday I make this website Monday the stranger puts out an article Tuesday the television stations show up Wednesday's NPR Thursday I can't remember what happened on Thursday oh the times in the weekly and by Friday info wars started trolling me yeah the white supremacists sent out their minions to attack me for trying to set up an easy way to give the hugs the people need because they're tired because they've been doing the good work that's what I just heard you know depression is real when you're tired and you're worn out and you don't feel validated because you have good ideas that are helping people but everybody would rather look at some ridiculousness you know that takes a toll on you and that was like basically my creative existence too up until when suddenly for whatever reason my project was discovered right and you know now I've got people in Zambia saying good job and I've got people in Australia saying fuck you half-breed nigger bitch you should hang yourself from a tree about 2,000 times before like seven o'clock in the morning every day so what I'm trying to understand is where it is all this come from where is all this hatred coming from and why is it being directed at me like of all things that you could take time out of your day to fight against right well I was prepared for the trolls who's heard of men kissing men nobody I hadn't heard of it either a couple people I hadn't heard of it either but last week I discovered men kissing men and you know what they did the people who organized men kissing men they monetized their trolling so every time they got trolled a dollar was raised they got their network to like I actually I think they matched the troll dollars like some organization some organization like pledged I believe but I took the concept because it's a great idea and I started the troll fund so I had people offer to be troll slayers at a dollar per trolling post and within two days had raised four thousand dollars which all goes to satisfy requests being made thank you but trolls are they're tenacious aren't they they're tenacious so they're trolling as hard as they can they're trolling so hard I had to start a Facebook event called shrine of ass hats do look it up shrine of ass hats is just a gallery of some of the trolling I have received so yeah if you need a trigger warning fuck your trigger warning I didn't get a trigger warning okay it just came to my inbox telling me exactly how I could kill myself with which rope the the many horrible things I could do to myself and my family because I had the audacity to think you know what maybe good people need to be connected with the people who could appreciate their goodness so let's let's see if we can peek over to shrine of ass hats real quick there's there's a lot of ass hat out there what do we think it'll be we think it'll be like events shrine of I'm guessing I think this is wrong that's not gonna work how can I get there can I get there this way troll fun troll flares we love trolls this doesn't have been updated since yesterday but yeah isn't this great I had fun with that yeah eight one seven four eight you can practically remember that yeah page isn't available I have to log in and you know what because I was instantly super trolled and super hacked now my passwords to everything are so ridiculous like I have to make my own internet to store them on like I have to do all kinds of intense Hillary Clinton stuff to try to keep my respect back because you know sometimes you got to do what you got to do honestly and I had to do some things to get my password safe yeah oh just kidding okay don't you see what it's like when we do things together it's like watching figure skating you know you guys are like holding your breath like I've got to hope she gets this damn URL this is painful to watch okay I'm listening that is the only time in the world you're ever gonna have this experience okay like no one is ever gonna make you do that ever again in your life listen to like each number of the URL but like give yourself credit we did that that was practically performance art like I I would claim that performance art actually like just put people in a room and read out URLs one letter at a time just make them go through that like and it's about how America doesn't have any patience yeah but we did it okay so here it is the shrine of ass hats there's not many people in it right now so what I need you to do is I need you to join this and I need you to invite everybody you know especially people who maybe don't self-identify as fragile but are fragile because here's the thing with evil horrible racist gun toting people who want to kill people and often do is there out there like it's a real problem and like there's a difference between being theoretically traumatized and being actually traumatized because your life is actually in danger and I think step one is to expose yourself to the reality that exists like yes it's gonna be uncomfortable that's that's how you know you're learning it's not comfortable okay I can't see it after all that after all that but it's kind of like intrigue and buildup I feel like it's like in a world where trolls are exposed yeah that's what I'm doing I'm publicly shaming trolls I'm also counting them so that I can get the donations needed to offset the cost of the requests that are being made which as you can see from reparations not me are not that ridiculous but sometimes are very serious because people need serious things one of the first people to submit a request was a guy named Keto and he is looking for I'm scrolling down a service dog okay he's a veteran he needs a service dog if you are a person who's against veterans getting their service dogs okay that's you be do you for the rest of us you put $5 on this guy getting a service dog maybe you'll have that nice fuzzy feeling that you get that you do get when you help somebody you believe deserves help so maybe that will help offset some of the negative feelings you may be having like I may be having where you just maybe are about ready to give up on humanity don't give up don't give up and I would just like to leave you with an idea that I would like to see happen and I would hope that you would reach out to me if you can help me make this happen I would like therapy to be a website that looks that says navigatable as Craigslist and it's easy to and that's ugly I mean aesthetically God bless Craigslist and it's a little way but like you know bless its heart but what I mean is just like that easy to use where you can search by location for basically a white woman security force white women witnessing listen to this willing white women in your local area can be called by bat signal to witness for you just witness witness for you digitally or in real life there needs to be an app I need to be able to send out my white woman security force bat signal and have hot white women show up and just stand there like I wish you would troll her I wish you would you know beat her with it I wish you would taste her in front of me I look like your mom I need white women of all kinds every kind of white woman needs to stand between me and the person trying to kill me that's what really needs to happen so whoever can build that do it circle back let me know how it goes because that needs to happen I'm a little busy right now getting internationally threatened okay so I would I would do it myself you know I would so thank you check out reparations dot me think about these things I wanted to have a conversation with you guys I'm out of time but that's what I wanted to do the organizers will vote for me so have a conversation with me however you can you can find me they can connect you and I'll linger after this talk thank you guys appreciate you