Category: Atlanta

AtlantaPoliticsSocial Justice

Vote absentee if you live in Georgia

on September 18, 2018

Want to make sure your vote counts in the Georgia November election? Casting an absentee ballot may be the way to go!

Federal judge Amy Totenberg (sister of Nina Totenberg if you are an NPR listener) ruled Monday that Georgia could go ahead using insecure paperless voting machines.

Although Judge Totenberg concurred with many cybersecurity experts that the voting machines pose a credible threat of alteration of ballot counts, she decided that the last minute switch would impose a burden on voters and a logistical challenge to the state’s election commission. If you’re not up on the current events, the head of the Georgia election commission is running for governor in a highly contested election and there have been some irregularities in his management (or lack thereof) of voting records. Hmm.

There have been charges of voter suppression, a 21st century step back from a hard won right to vote — ponder the 19th century Harper’s magazine image above celebrating the democratic participation of newly emancipated peoples post Civil War.

The main concern with electronic voting machines — especially the ones used in Georgia — is that they cannot be easily audited. The National Academy of Sciences in their report recommended in fact that “Voting machines that do not provide the capacity for independent auditing (e.g., machines that do not produce a voter-verifiable paper audit trail) should be removed from service as soon as possible.” This applies to the machines used in Georgia, and Judge Totenberg effectively ruled that this should be the last election in which such machines are use.  Further, a malicious and technically sophisticated insider could alter voting records — that is “hack” the election.

Now if you cast an absentee ballot, the paper copy is preserved. Voter advocate sites like vote.org can help you get your ballot in a matter of seconds. There is an online tool that the Georgia Secretary of State’s office provides. I am not whether the online tool provides the functions that the National Academy of Sciences recommends — tracking of absentee ballot delivery and receipt.

In any case, absentee is a good way to be very present in the democratic process in Georgia.

 

 

 

AtlantainclusionSocial Justice

Avondale Estates is having a backlash

on September 7, 2018

Martin Luther King feared fully expected that there would be a backlash as basic human rights for African Americans expanded. There were historic precedents for this such as the reversal of post-Civil War Reconstruction-era freedoms during the last decades of the 19th century and the rise of segregationist laws throughout the southern US during the 1950s. Ta-Nahesi Coates speaks eloquently on the last incarnation of this in his Atlantic piece The First White President.

I am witnessing the evolution of this fourth backlash wave play out where I live, just east of Atlanta. Yesterday, my family and I witnessed the incident which is the featured image of this post. A White police officer handcuffs, and humiliates a young Black man about 15 feet from us through the window of a shop were we frequently have a relaxed brunch. The shop, I should mention is owned by a Black woman, also a resident of Avondale Estates. I should have stood with my young Brother and recorded the incident — sadly I know that life will give me other opportunities. To witness is a powerful comfort and statement. The young man showed calm and grace, as many of us have learned to do in such situations (I’ve been there).

Avondale Estates, a little east of Atlanta until recently had de-facto housing segregation through special real estate covenants. The history of housing segregation in Georgia, and the Atlanta area is both fascinating and frightening. If you zoom in on the Avondale Estates area, you’ll notice interesting racial disparities. There’s more information in this 50-year look back at the fair housing act.

Avondale Estates and the small towns to it’s north and east have been notorious for the disproportionate amount of revenue garnered from African Americans being stopped for minor traffic violations.

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Georgia cities — especially Stone Mountain and Clarkston lead the nation in the fining of Black people

I wish we knew more, but like it’s voting transparency, information on racism in policing in Georgia is hard to come by.

Although one of my close friends (also African American) purchased a home in Avondale Estates in the ’90s, anecdotally (just from informal conversation), the number racialized policing and other incidents around exclusion have continued to grow.

I’ll detail one particular issue I’ve encountered. In Avondale, several times when walking while Black, my family and I have encountered on several occasions the question “Do you live around here?” Word of caution and advice for any (non-Black) person with the bad home training to ask this question. The 14th amendment of the Constitution of the United States is generally understood as guaranteeing access to the public roads to any US citizen, “green card” holder, or basically any human being regardless of what they look like. Dear White People, it’s not your militia/Klan duty to keep American or Avondale Estates or any other space in this country White. There’s my peculiar rant.

What can done? A few suggestions:

  • Check out the hash tag #StopRacialProfilingAvondaleEstatesGA
  • When you see these incidents going down, use your phone and record.
  • Start demanding accountability from your police officers, city and county representatives.
  • Talk to your children about race, about racial profiling, about racialized violence.

Let’s end the police state together.

 

AtlantaBooksinclusionMigrationWriting

Gayatri interviews Yuyi Morales at Decatur Book Festival

on September 1, 2018

My partner Dr Gayatri Sethi is interviewing celebrated writer and illustrator Yuyi Morales today at the Decatur Book Festival today, Saturday, September 1 from 1:00 to 1:30. They’ll be discussing Morales’ new book Dreamers.

Isn’t it time you talked to your children about what is going on at the border? Dreamers talks about Morales’s own 1994 journey from Xalapa, Mexico to the US. with her child. It is such a beautifully illustrated book, and a profound story with so many layers.

If you’re in looking to add a highlight to your long weekend, please come through!

AtlantaDistributed WorkinclusionSocial JusticeTechnology

Distributed Inclusion at WordCamp Atlanta

on April 16, 2018

 

The Atlanta WordCamp is an annual gathering for people that use and develop WordPress sites. Although it is put on by and for the Atlanta WordPress community, I met people from all over.

I gave a talk there Sunday (4/15/18) on the state of inclusion in distributed companies. Since WordPress is maintained by a distributed company (Automattic, by employer) and an open source community, the subject is of great relevance.

Let me know what you think. There are more unanswered (and unasked) questions than answers.

Mind filling out this survey if you work at a distributed company or work remotely?

The discussion was lively and thought provoking. A few takeaways:

  • It’s important to be explicit about the excluded groups in your company. Only through getting the discussion going can progress be made.
  • Many people are still concerned about revealing their race/ethnicity/physical ability (even on EEOC questions at end of hiring applications).
  • How do we deal with the bias in reaching out to more diverse populations.
  • How do excluded groups even know where to look for positions, when even job search has build in exclusivity.
  • How can independent consultants and free-lancers be advocates in this space?
  • Is the Internet really the equalizer we think it is?
  • How do we start?

I was delighted by the inclusiveness evident in the conference organizers and attendees. One of the many beautiful things about Atlanta.

Please comment and add your questions!

AtlantaData ScienceVisualization

Call (and email and chat) early and often!

on February 11, 2018

If you’re in sales, it pays to call (and email, and chat) early and often. This intuitive insight comes from a recent study, “Research on 200 Million Sales Interactions Cracks the Code on Cadences” published by Atlanta startup SalesLoft. This data was shared with me by Butler Raines, SalesLoft’s Head of Product — a dear friend, beautiful human being, and a new-school bitter southerner.

I found the piece illuminating, not only for the nicely presented graphs of customer/sales interactions, but also for the exposition on sales terminology (I learned what a cadence is).

 

Does SalesLoft have other insights they’d like to share? Many data scientists would like to know!

AtlantaHistory

Bridges

on September 22, 2016

Six years ago, I was trying to get a proposal off and my wife hooked me up with a few days of retreat time at a place called Banning Mills. It’s about an hour and half from Atlanta, but in many ways, rural Georgia has always seemed a world away.

Both of my grandfathers left small towns in the southeast — Covington, GA and Salem, AL — under a phenomenon I’ll just call “Klan duress”. Veiled and not-so veiled threats from powerful White men led them both to migrate to Atlanta before the 1920’s. So I acknowledge that I still have some biases to overcome.

Nevertheless, I was impressed by the beauty of the surrounding area. It claims a famous zip-line

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and nearby there are exquisite views of the Chattahoochee that are priceless for their serenity

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The image that remains with me to this day is a placard that I saw on entering the resort’s  main building to check in. It is of a Black man, a very distinguished gentleman, taken in the 1850’s/60’s. I was shocked by it’s very existence — that in Carrol County there was Black who then and to this day occupies a position of honor.

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The gentleman was Horace King, an Oberlin-educated architect. He built many bridges throughout the southeast, in fact a bridge connecting Alabama and Georgia. Before the war broke out he had purchased his freedom using monies from his bridge building efforts with his owner John Godwin. He is responsible for this innovative fantastic staircase in the Alabama State Capital, was conscripted into building ships and defenses for the Confederacy, and was an active figure in the rebuilding of Alabama after the Civil War.

It was no small feat. According to the census data ( the visualizations developed by the Census Department during the pre-Tableau 1860’s is in itself a feat of imagination and an exemplar of good data design ), more than 40% of Georgia was enslaved at the time.

cwslave

Though the “invisibility” of the my African slave ancestors is acknowledged, the census data paints a picture of a similarly un-empowered White population getting by on subsistence farming.

The image I left Banning Mills with was of Mr King standing with the White, Black, and Native American bridge builders near a completed project. I’ve probably imagined that image — so far I’ve not been able to locate it despite generous help from Banning Mill’s owner and founder Donna King. But I believe the impact of his life captures that impression: that he created bridges in his lifetime and today that allow us to escape the received and limited narratives that constrain our ability to connect, to see, and to grow.

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