Shireen Mitchell: "You Can't Stop the Girl" Part 2 of 2

Stayin' Alive in Tech

During part one of our conversation with Shireen Mitchell, you heard what it was like for a young Black girl from the projects of New York to get into computers, gaming, and coding during the 1980s. Shireen recounted her time attending an HBCU and her career experiences in Washington D.C. that gave her eye-opening looks into the issues minority women were (and still are) facing within the tech realm. If you missed part one, please make sure to give that one a listen first.

In part two with Shireen, she tells us about founding Stop Online Violence Against Women, and we have a candid talk about the constant slew of threats, harassment, and sexism women of color face in online spaces—and how social media platforms tend to have it backward in their approach to policing abuse directed at minorities.

Very fitting for right now, we also discuss what it really means when conversations about racism and sexism are labeled as “getting political”—and how this has led social media platforms to enact special protections for politicians that typically don’t extend to ordinary citizens.

Towards the end, you’ll hear Shireen’s thoughts on the problems with hiring practices regarding diversity and inclusivity and why so many still can’t seem to find the right approach. You’ll also hear her views on what true allyship looks like in practice and some closing thoughts on voter suppression and the weaponized disinformation. Don’t miss this episode!

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Stop Online Violence Against Women - A nonprofit that addresses inadequate laws and policies that lack protections for women, in particular women of color
• An explainer on Donglegate, widely viewed as the precursor to Gamergate
• Gamergate—An online harassment campaign that centered on issues of sexism and anti-progressivism in video game culture
• ​​Kansas Cop Fired After Threatening 5-Year-Old Girl On Facebook—Huffington Post
• Twitter Blocks 'Uncle Tim' From Trends After Racist Phrase Goes Viral in Response to Tim Scott's Speech—Newsweek
• The Central Park Five (referred to in the episode by Shireen as the “Exonerated Five”)—Five black and Latino youths wrongly convicted of assaulting a NY woman in 1989
• Amadou Diallo—The unarmed 23-year-old Guinean immigrant killed by plainclothes NY policemen in 1999 after reaching for his ID
• Stop Digital Voter Suppression—Shireen’s grassroots reporting movement that supplements existing data collection efforts with real-life experiences
• The First Amendment—(at Shireen’s request—we could all use a brushing up from time to time)
• SOVAW Reports—Shireen’s reports on Russian disinformation targeting black voters
• Russian Influence Operation - Targeted specifically Black users across social media in 2016