A KUFI, A KIMONO AND A COFFEE:

create, build, and explore, is built in and hard wired. We’ve never had to think about it, and that will never change.

With the pandemic brought a myriad of abrupt shifts in societal function. Suddenly an entire family, working and learning remotely, needed to contend with each other's roles on the front lines as they were reduced to being excusable “background noise.” We all heard the audible battle between spouses vying for sound real estate. And workplace dynamics shifted where the discussion of fears and feelings were normalized, to some of our male counterpart’s chagrin. We became intimately familiar with each other's resting faces as Zoom Fatigue dawned. The well-labeled side effect of the daily “performances,” after hours of being on camera with coworkers, was just another in a long list of new conditions. Introverts were gently nudged out of their comfort zone, while extroverts made up reasons to meet, and the overworked resented them both for it. The result, we had little choice but to increase our trust in a time where there was much to suspect. It’s ironic that the trust it takes to be oneself in front of coworkers, people we see everyday, seems to top our stressor list. Yet, somehow in that era of no makeup, dressed from the waist up, “one second while get my coffee cup,” and “meet my pup,” an equalized and diverse workforce organically emerged.

BY EBONY KENNEY

Most of us enjoyed being freed from the corporate structure we’d been indoctrinated into. For us, this shift brought transparency and the rules of the old ways dissolved. Today, if feel like disruption, I wear a kufi, and a kimono while I sip my coffee on a Zoom call. But, I can remember just a few years back the tech field being abuzz with the idea of disruption. This disruption should be an idea so simple that it would change an industry by its very presence. Somehow though, post pandemic, post quarantining, post remote work, post Trump, post Black Lives Matter — or in the time of it — the idea of awaiting disruption seems slightly ridiculous. For example, we feel almost desensitized to the mass shootings, which averaged 650 per year for 2020-22 compared to a then record of 417 in 2019, according to a report from CNN. It begs the question, are we bored with disruption, like the second day of a toddlers new toy?

Meanwhile, the biggest disruption, so to speak, is that of the growing demand for justice that we all seem ready to approach and work on. Old regimes of systemic racism are being called out and forced to either reorganize underground or reconcile with their past. Some might correctly assess that depending on the economic position of the accused, an emotional bail-out is available. However, nationwide and global alignment of efforts continue to prove there’s a benefit to finding bias, identifying marginalization and calling out oppression. That such efforts make lived experiences real, for better or for worse. Just now, are organizations focusing on representation with a rise of women of color (WOC) in corporate environments, and even more so in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).* In 2018, women made up 28% of STEM workers, with WOC only making up 5%. Today, we make up 33% of the STEM workforce. With new graduates flooding the field, intent on being the change they wish to see in the world, they are met with those who have established roots in spaces that previously had no representation. In many ways, as a WOC, just being in those rooms, at that time, and maybe still today, was a disruption. Now, it might be more common to have an African American product owner or engineer, Indian developer, Hispanic scrum master or Asian behavioral scientist. No doubt, she would be a peerless brave individual who is or has found her authentic, or at least acceptable, voice amidst a sea of codeswitch techniques she’d perfected over the years. If your presence alone wasn’t a disruption, showing up as your hair coiffed, bold, brightly colored, East-