Walking Contradiction

Day 4: Racial Blindness

I’ve always hated the expression used by well-meaning white people: “I don’t see color”. They think that it means that they are open-minded, and treat everyone the same no matter their skin color. It’s a wonderful sentiment, isn’t it?

It’s also one that is only possible if your skin color doesn’t disadvantage you. For everyone else, they have to deal with the reality of being visibly different than those in power, and being treated differently (ok, worse) as a result.

Back in the late ’80s I had a friend who was black. He was in his early 30s, like me, had a young child, like me, and lived in a house he owned in northern NJ, like me. He was also very light-skinned, and dressed, well, like me. His appearance was the furthest thing from the “gangsta” style. We worked together, played tennis together, and got to know each other very well.

At work we were both on the evening shift. Since we lived near each other, we took the same route for the most part, and one particular evening I saw his car pulled over by a cop. The next day when I saw him, I started to give him shit about getting a speeding ticket, and he told me that he wasn’t speeding and didn’t get a ticket. I asked him why he got pulled over, and he told me that the cop wanted to know what he was doing driving through that part of town.

The look of confusion on my face must have been apparent, and he started to explain the problem of what we now call “driving while black”. This was the first that I had heard of such a thing, and told him that there had to be more to it than that. In those days I still hadn’t learned to listen when someone tells you of an experience that you can’t possibly fathom because you aren’t in that group that experiences discrimination. Fortunately, he was patient with me, explaining that this happens often enough that he knew how to respond in as non-threatening a manner as possible so as not to provoke the police, and that they always let him go.

Over the next few weeks we talked a lot about what it was like for him. Me, in my ignorance, assumed that since he was the least-threatening-looking person around, no one would harass him, but he had story after story about just that. One day we were hanging out at his house, and his wife asked him to run to a local department store to pick up something. When we got there, he told me to not stay with him, but stay close enough to watch the store security follow him. Once again, I thought he was exaggerating things, but I played along. He went to one side of department, and I went to a nearby aisle. I saw several people who I assumed were security, and they did seem to be looking at him and ignoring me. He then walked to the opposite side of the area, and sure enough, two of the security people moved with him to keep him in their sight. I walked around several areas, including crossing directly in front of them, and never got a second glance from them. But as my friend moved around, they followed.

From that day on, I always try to see color. Pretending that it doesn’t permeate our experience is only possible when you’re white and ignorant. The luxury to ignore race is what people mean when they speak of “privilege”.

Maybe some of you are feeling a bit defensive, thinking “I’m not racist!”, and I’m sure you aren’t, at least consciously. I wrote about unconscious bias before, and it is really important to be aware that it exists, no matter how kind and loving you try to be.

Don’t be blind to our differences! Instead, recognize them, celebrate them, and embrace them! And if you, like me, are lucky enough to have been born into privilege, don’t feel bad – it’s only a bad thing if you don’t use it to help those who weren’t as fortunate. We can’t overcome the racists of the world by turning a blind eye to these problems.

Day 3: Sheltering In Place

It’s been about 3 months since we began to limit our travel due to the pandemic, and while it’s been trying, I have to say that it hasn’t been as bad for me as it has for many others.

For one, I have been working from home for most of my career. I have a dedicated work area, and am completely used to the lack of everyday interaction with others (some might say that I prefer it!). Having been laid off from work due to the pandemic was tough, but I still spend much of my time at my keyboard, either working on projects that I’ve put off for lack of time, or for exploring new skills or tools, or ranting on Twitter. The one positive thing about the pandemic is that it makes it easy to keep a perspective: my wife and I, as well as our kids and their families, are healthy. I wouldn’t trade that for any job.

The change is harder for my wife, who works in the local school district. Before this, everything was done face-to-face at the office or various campuses around town. She and everyone else had to learn and adjust to the new ways of working remotely, which is stressful. She is also much more outgoing than I, and as wonderful as I may be 😜 , she does miss interacting with co-workers and family.

So many of the people I interact with, though, are much younger, and many have small children who need to be kept busy, which can be exhausting without being confined to home. I am grateful that our kids are all grown and out on their own!

We also have a house. It’s small, but still – I can’t imagine being confined to an apartment. I can go outside to the yard, tend to the garden, clean up fallen tree debris from last night’s storm, or just sit and watch the birds. That helps maintain sanity.

I’ve also gotten into baking, as many others have. I have developed a great sourdough starter, and really enjoy mastering that process. But that will be fodder for a different post.

So all in all, I think we have it pretty good overall. I can’t wait until the pandemic is over, but until then, we’ll manage.

Day 2: What is an Artist?

I consider myself an artist, as do many others. But that title is thrown about quite a bit, and its meaning has been diluted. So let’s look at it.

In my mind, the essence of being an artist is creating something that not only is original, but captures or excites the interest of others. Often someone who paints or draws is automatically called an “artist”, and their product is called “art”. But that’s way too low a bar to set for that title. And for the record, I can’t paint or draw with any skill level whatsoever, and admire those who can.

I am a photographer. I recognized my attraction to photography as a child, and began taking it seriously in college. I attended a photography school for two years, and learned all about portraiture, lighting, studio arrangements, different films (yes, it was all film then!), color, tone, and print media. While I was able to master those techniques, I wouldn’t say I created art. Well, maybe with a few exceptions, such as:

What I found I enjoyed the most was simply walking around and looking. Things would strike me as visually interesting, and I would use my photographic technique to record them in a way that made interesting images. For example, my photo school was about 6 miles from my home, and I used my bike to get there. Shortly into my first semester, though, someone cut the chain I had locked it with and stole my bike. I now had to walk a mile to a bus stop, take the bus to downtown, and then walk another mile to the school. As I was walking I would look around, and things would occasionally catch my eye. Since I was carrying my camera, I began to record them. At the end of the semester we had to produce a portfolio, and so I created one called Sidewalks – all of the images were taken of sidewalks I walked on my way to/from school.

Not only was the portfolio well-received, it was noticeably different than the others. Most of the others were what I would call “traditional” photographic subjects: sunsets, landscapes, weathered barns, pets, etc., but mine were anything but traditional. So not only did the portfolio receive a good grade, it was chosen to be displayed around the campus – my first exhibition!

This is when I began to understand my creative process: instead of creating a scene by arranging items, or posing people, or any other conscious construction of the subject in front of the camera, I would explore the world as it existed, and find beauty in what others don’t see. I take special pride in images that are unremarkable in themselves, but from which I can create an interesting image. As an example:

Back in 2011 I worked at Rackspace, and the headquarters was in a refurbished shopping mall, nicknamed “The Castle”. Near the main entrance two different-colored sidewalks come together. You can see it in the center of this Google Maps view.

Over a thousand people walked past this point every day. I happened to walk past it on my morning break, looked down, and was struck by what I saw. I didn’t have a camera with me… or did I? In my pocket was my iPhone 4, so I took this photo with my phone. I’ll save my thoughts on photography gear for another day, though…

This is why I consider myself an artist: thousands walked past that spot that day, but only I saw this bit of transient beauty, and was able to capture it in a way that others could enjoy. Being able to take photographs, or paint pictures, or play piano, or sculpt clay – those are examples of crafts. But when you are able to use your craft to create something that moves other people – well, then I consider you an artist.

Writing Again

Today marks 2 months since I was laid off from my job at DataRobot. It was part of a 25% reduction that was made in anticipation of the business slump from the COVID-19 pandemic, and having just been there for 6 months, I was one of the ones let go.

I have spent the last two months like most of you largely confined to my home, with only an occasional trip to the grocery store. Since I was home with all this newfound free time on my hands, I decided to work on a lot of projects that I’ve had to put off. Now that those are largely complete, I need to find a new outlet to occupy my time. So today I’m going to start on a program of writing every day; you’re reading the first entry.

Not to brag, but I’ve always been pretty good writer. The biggest problem that I have is perfectionism: I want to edit/rewrite until it can’t be tweaked any more. As an example, I was stuck for 10 minutes just coming up with a title for this post! I mentioned this tendency in the very first post of this blog: I was about to travel to Australia, and wanted to have a way to record my impressions. I had hardly ever traveled outside the US, so this was a really big deal for me.

I kept it up for a short while, but soon fell back into my old ways: starting a post, and then abandoning it because it didn’t feel good enough. When I joined IBM in 2014 as an OpenStack developer, part of my role was to be outspoken, and writing blog posts was one way to do that. So for a while I was posting fairly regularly. This time, though, it was the blowback from those posts that caused me to lose interest in writing. You see, the OpenStack developer hierarchy is designed to discourage change and alternate approaches, both of which were the frequent topics of my posts. It discouraged me because I was publicly criticized by many of the “core” developers, who seemed to take my ideas as threats to the way they were doing things. It was even more discouraging that I received at least as much private thanks and praise from others, all of whom were not comfortable expressing support publicly, less they lose political capital with the core developers. I have a post I started and never finished on this toxic atmosphere; maybe one of these days I’ll finish it as part of this new effort.

So I’m now going to reiterate my initial pledge: I will limit myself to a one edit rule: after the post is written, I’ll go over it once for typos, etc., and then publish it. I’m also setting a minimum of 30 minutes per day to write, and to publish it no matter how good I feel it is. There will be no set topic; one day it may be my thoughts on photographic composition, the next may be a tirade about the latest Trump atrocity. But I do hope that what I write is as interesting for you to read as it is for me to go through the process of writing.

Damned If You Do

The recent spate of canceled conferences, sporting events, etc., due to concerns about spreading infection of the coronavirus COVID-19 has made me think about what will happen if these efforts are successful.

Back in the late 1990s, people realized that a lot of software written in the mid-20th century had a problem: due to the expense of storage, programmers shortened the way years were stored, so that something like 1978 would be stored as 78, with the century assumed. This was fine, but as that software aged, and the coming change of century approached, it was realized that many critical software problems would go from December 31, 1999, to January 1, 1900. This was the Year 2000 problem, commonly abbreviated as Y2K.

Having recognized the issue, most software companies invested heavily in updating their software to use full 4-digit representations for the year. It was tedious work; I personally had to write a series of tests for my projects that verified that things would continue to work in the year 2000. But because the warning was heeded, by the time that January 1, 2000 came most software had been updated. As a result, all of the doomsday scenarios (such as planes dropping from the sky) had been avoided. Yes, there were some billing glitches that were missed, but because of the intense efforts to address this problem, there were no serious problems.

What was the public’s reaction to this? Did they laud the developers for successfully averting a potential problem? Of course not. Instead, they reacted with disdain: “I thought this was going to be the end of the world! Nothing happened!”.

And that’s the point: because the warnings were heeded, and action was taken, nothing catastrophic happened. It didn’t mean that the problem wasn’t real; it just meant that the tech community understood the problem, and addressed it head-on.

So I’m wondering what will happen if the common-sense steps we are taking now to avoid spreading this virus ends up that not that many people get sick or die: will the Fox News people start complaining that it was all a politically-inspired hoax? That the liberal media tried to make Trump look bad by crying wolf? It almost makes me think that if there is a terrible body count, people will be ridiculed for taking ineffective steps, but if there isn’t such a terrible outcome, the steps that were taken will be ridiculed as overreaction, or, even worse, a political stunt.

Damned if you do; damned if you dont.