So, funny story. Every cop's body cam is basically an AirTag. I did a talk at DEFCON explaining how you can detect and ID police body cams with your phone.
#BlackMastodon May be interested to hear that Aveta, the community organizer in black tech Twitter has launched a defederated Calckey instance that will be prioritize safety, privacy, and accessibility for minorities.
I’ve been working with her and others and while launched it is still invite only as we address T&S, accessibility issues and how to best grow the platform focused on users.
bipoc people can DM me for an invite, if you’re willing to help us with improving the onboarding experience give a shout as we have product people collecting data and they need volunteer.
Hey, an instance for black queer folk that needs a bit of exposure to get the word out about it. Please boost if you have friends who've felt alienated by the nazis you tend to find on other, unmentionable servers. https://blackqueer.life
Do you, or have you ever, used a graphical user interface? If you use #Windows, #macOS, or any version of #Linux with a window manager or desktop environment, you can thank Dr. Clarence "Skip" Ellis.
Dr. Ellis worked at Xerox PARC, the research organization that developed the modern GUI. Icons, windows, the mouse, Ethernet-based networking, laser printing - all of these (and more) came out of PARC. Dr. Ellis led the team that created Officetalk, the first program to use icons and the Internet. He got his start at 15 years old showing a local tech company how to reuse punch cards, which was a game-changer back in 1958.
Oh, and he was also the first black man to earn a PhD in Computer Science.
I think this is my first time being on the other side of a #TwitterMigration. It's pretty cool! For all the new folks here making an #introduction for those concerned about not being able to find POC, I strongly recommend starting by following hashtags and using those to follow people who use/are associated with them. I did that and found a really active, engaged, diverse, and vibrant Black community here. Use the following hashtags in particular:
There are other hashtags associated with other communities - our Indigenous siblings use #Indigenous and maybe #NDN, not sure. And every once in a while, someone will tweet a bunch of good accounts to follow. Personally, I could do with more #french#francais or #spanish#espanol content, but that's kind of on me.
In 1943, U.S. forces in Britain expected to export racial segregation. When white American Military Police (MPs) insisted a local pub segregate, the owner said he would. When MPs returned next day, they were met with “Blacks Only” signs & British barmaids telling white soldiers to wait their turn when they thiught they would be served before black soldiers. This set the stage for the epic Battle of Bamber Bridge.
And when she tried to join the Fediverse, she was greeted with a barrage of hate, sexism, racism, and anti-semitism that should have never been allowed to happen.
So now no one on Fediverse gets to interact with her directly about her work on here. Our loss. 😢
Which is why we'll make it so that this type of terrible welcome is unlikely to happen again. Allowing it to happen to her was a choice. We will make better ones.
One of my biggest concerns about switching over to Mastodon when I did, was losing the online Black community I developed on birb site, many of whom were very helpful to my continuing to thrive as I negotiated white supremacist spaces in my professional and personal life. I am very happy to find another such community here, and want to give a shout outs to SOME (wish I could tag everybody - the search function is pretty terrible here for some reason) of the people that keep me coming back to the Fediverse. Love you guys!
(Side note: the autofill "@" function for Mastodon really sucks - fully 85% of the time it autofills Neil Gaiman - so it took me a REALLY long time to populate this list. And I can't find the homie Jaden from Chicago)
Fellow Black people - I know that in light of the #jacksonville killing, some people booed the white suprem-, er, Intellectually Diverse™ governor DeSantis of Florida, given his vocal and political support of white nationalism. However, as a Black community, we have to remember that protesting violent white supremacy sometimes makes white people feel sad! And angry! And isn't that really a kind of racism in itself, if you think about it?
Anyway, I'm happy to draw your attention to this helpful book, collecting all the wisdom of white Controversial Thinkers® like DeSantis and all those other bitch-faces about the best way to protest against racism. Compromise!
In WW 2, millions of women, called "Rosies," supported the forces. Often overlooked are "Black Rosies," 600,000 Black women who joined various industries. Racism, sexism, & other obstacles hindered them. Despite these adversities, they made significant contributions to the war effort. Given the challenges, these remarkable women are some of the most significant figures of the 20th century. They have earned their place in history.
.....fuck it, imma just ask. Where are my fellow black folks? #blackmastodon#blackfolk I'm learning a bunch on here but the only time I see a face that looks like mine is when I search the hashtags above. And it's the same 3 people in the results. #pointmetowardsthecookout
Homeless people are people. Just give them homes. It's been proven to save public money. Just give them homes. It's been proven to reduce drug dependency and mental crises. Just give them homes. It literally ends homelessness. Just give them homes. NOT KILL THEM.
WP:
A prolonged strike “will potentially produce an absolute collapse of an entire industry,” said ... Barry Diller ...
“Then it needs to collapse,” tweeted TV writer David Simon in response. “If you can’t figure out how to pay your workers a full, living wage and share some profit while grossing billions, paying yourself hundreds of millions, and making wall street analysts happy with your numbers, your industry needs to be ... rubble.”
IMPORTANT: WE MUST FIND CARLEE RUSSELL. 🙏🏿 Another Black woman gone missing in America. Please spread the word on your social media by posting or reposting this or the image you see here. Spread the word on your podcast, too. Thank you.
Please call 205-401-3365 to provide police with any information on her whereabouts.
Reminder that it's really hard to get hired in October, November, and December. So if you've been job seeking and have gotten very little traction the past few months, know that it's not you. Don't give up hope!
Hiring teams have the fewest open roles left at year's end
It's tough to put interview schedules together because everyone is on vacation
Even with the interviews, it's tough to schedule the debrief + hiring committee + offer review
I, a Black woman, have had a marvelous experience on Mastodon because these mods don't play. For being a place-specific instance, SFBA has a very clearly expressed value system and it's reflected in the mods. They are proactive, even-handed, and respectful.
I'm a 59 year old African American woman. I've desegregated a town, a school system and many other spaces. When I discuss racism in this nation, I'm not going to ameliorate my speech for the comfort of anyone. I don't exist to comfort others about the reality of what I was born into - what we all live in together. If that's a problem for you, I suggest you embark on some self-reflection to determine what your actual role is within this system. #racism#politics#BlackMastodon #blackmastodon
As a parent of Black children I often find myself unconsciously forcing them to be smaller than they are when in public, to not be their full selves. Cos I know that if they play up, White society won't think "They're just kids being kids." Instead they'll think, "They're Black people being Black."
Every time I catch myself doing it I'm heartbroken.
To speakers of underrepresented languages: If your language isn't available in Mastodon's posting window and you'd like me to add it, please let me know.
Onesimus, a Boston enslaved man, saved hundreds of people from the horrors of smallpox in 1721. His contributions to science reverberate to this day b/c his knowledge led to what became the 1st vaccine-related study in America. Onesimus’s story illustrates the degree to which reputable men of science depended on the testimony & experience of Africans in dealing with a dreaded disease.
102 years ago, on June 15, 1921, Bessie Coleman achieved a significant milestone as the FIRST Black woman in history to earn a pilot's license, 2 years before Amelia Earhart. With great courage and determination, “Brave Bessie,” as she would later be called, pursued her own path, striving always to fulfill her mother's aspiration for her children to “amount to something.”