00;00;00;07 - 00;00;16;18 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: Today, half of women in the tech industry are likely to leave their positions by the age of 35. But the 1970s was even more challenging to work in the field as a woman, and especially for a woman of color. But one organization is working to change those stats. I'm Kelsey Timmerman. 00;00;16;18 - 00;00;27;06 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And I'm J.R. Jamison. Today on the Facing Project: race, tech, and the fight for equity. [Theme music] 00;00;27;08 - 00;00;32;06 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: J.R., I have no idea how we are doing what we are doing right now. 00;00;32;08 - 00;00;34;21 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Like, what do you mean, recording the show or what? 00;00;34;22 - 00;00;42;03 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: So, like, I'm sitting here in my pajamas in the basement with an electric blanket on my lap, and there you are on my screen... 00;00;42;03 - 00;00;42;13 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Beautiful as ever. 00;00;42;13 - 00;00;58;21 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: And we are talking... [laughs] And we're recording this for, like, for others to listen to later. And then our producer Sean does his thing and that recording gets sent out through airwaves, bits and bytes or whatever travels into radios, smartphones and computers. 00;00;58;22 - 00;01;10;20 Kelsey Timmerman And I think we all, like, totally take this for granted. I have a better understanding of planetary physics, which isn't that great, then I do of, like, what happens when I hit a question mark on my keyboard. 00;01;10;22 - 00;01;30;26 J.R. Jamison Jamison: I have no idea what planetary physics even is. I mean, all of this is magic to me. I studied cultural geography, creative writing, and education administration. So basically I'm worthless when it comes to anything tech related. I once had an IT person actually come to my office to check out my computer because it didn't have sound. I had no idea what was going on. 00;01;31;02 - 00;01;34;14 J.R. Jamison Only for them to tell me that the speakers weren’t plugged in. 00;01;34;14 - 00;01;34;23 J.R. Jamison Timmerman: I believe that. 00;01;34;23 - 00;01;54;27 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And so now this was- right? This was this was back in the day when everything was pretty much like just desktop computers. But I'll never forget the look, right, that I got. And I just shrugged my shoulders and tucked my tail between my legs. But for the record, I still struggle with figuring out how to connect everything, even in a laptop world. 00;01;54;27 - 00;02;03;12 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: I know this all too well, and that's why I'm the self-appointed chief technical officer of the Facing Project. 00;02;03;14 - 00;02;20;01 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And if folks actually knew you, that's pretty scary. When I watch you in action, you're mostly guessing at this stuff while pretending you know what you're doing. But in all honesty, you always do figure it out. But still, we have no idea the technology that goes behind all of this. 00;02;20;02 - 00;02;41;02 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: I don't know if it's pronounced silicon or silicone, I don't know. You know, there's motherboards, there's transistors by the billions, CPUs drive memory. The other day, my daughter asked what a floppy disk was, and I told her it's like a record in the computer. Write stuff on it so you can see it later. And then she asked me like, “What's a record?” 00;02;41;05 - 00;02;52;28 Kelsey Timmerman Eventually I did some math, which is scary enough on its own, right? And discovered that it would take 256 million floppy disks to equal the memory on my phone. 00;02;53;04 - 00;02;53;14 Kelsey Timmerman Jamison: Wow. 00;02;53;15 - 00;03;04;13 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: And so I don't know what happens; electrons doing something to recreate your face on the screen right now. It's amazing. We even recorded an episode once when I was in Brazil. 00;03;04;16 - 00;03;33;10 Kelsey Timmerman Brazil! So how are we not all like Keanu Reeves? Like, whoa, like all the time? Who thought of this stuff? So I actually have a friend who knows something about this stuff, and I asked, I asked Ryan, who is a coder, and he pointed me to Ada Lovelace. So she wrote the first algorithm in 1843. Of course, her dad, her dad was disappointed by her birth that she wasn't a boy, which is ridiculous. 00;03;33;10 - 00;03;39;24 Kelsey Timmerman And he wanted her to be a glorious boy. And shortly after he left her mom. 00;03;39;27 - 00;03;54;21 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Wow. So she wrote the first algorithm. I guess her dad was proven wrong, right? I'm assuming he didn't think that women could amount to much, and she clearly blazed a trail that had to be inspiring to other women. 00;03;54;24 - 00;04;07;22 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: So I think about her, and I think about how much talent and potential has gone unrealized. Like, hers rose to the top, but how much has been unrealized because society looked at people in a certain way? 00;04;07;24 - 00;04;35;21 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Or how many stories were untold because men instead got the credit, right? And when it comes to black and brown women in technology, how many were kept hidden? We've heard the stories of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, the three black women who helped put men on the moon. But it wasn't until the 2016 book Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly and the subsequent film that the stories were shared in a mass market way with audiences across the country. 00;04;35;26 - 00;04;55;07 J.R. Jamison But black and brown women have been in tech since the 1940s, although their stories were often written out of the script of history. Black women were in the team that programed the first digital computer for the US Army, but their white women counterparts are the women who are often credited for being a small part of the overall team. 00;04;55;11 - 00;05;26;09 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is from author Wes Moore, and he writes, “Potential is universal. Opportunity is not.” Talent and potential often need encouragement, education and mentoring. They need opportunity, and access to that opportunity isn't equal, depending on one's race, gender, socioeconomic situation, sexuality, disability. For instance, black students have less access to computer science courses even though they are more interested in learning computer science. 00;05;26;11 - 00;05;56;08 Kelsey Timmerman It wasn't until 1982 that the first black woman earned her PhD in computer science. Women in technology in general saw a rise from the 1960s through the 1980s, where it peaked at 40%, but since has seen a sharp decline. Today, we share the story of Dr. Ruby Cain, a black woman who entered the field during this time, when 77% of women who held tech degrees were white, while fewer than 8% were black. 00;05;56;11 - 00;06;24;11 Chandra Ford Ford: I didn't know what to do. My sister and I were walking home from school and saw the police swarming around my father in our driveway. Looking into my father's eyes, I understood that something unjust was happening to him, but I was too young to understand what that was. I was only nine. My sister eight. What could we do? 00;06;24;13 - 00;06;53;24 Chandra Ford With as much dignity as he could gather, he unlocked the front door and told us to go into the house and call our mom at work. I called. Through the confusion, tears and hysteria, I tried to relay to her that the police were taking our father away. I could barely find my words. He didn't argue with them. He was stoic and calm, for us, I guess. 00;06;53;25 - 00;07;29;17 Chandra Ford But inside, he must have been broken and humiliated. They took him to jail under false arrest. My father was a city bus driver, a law abiding citizen, and never even received a traffic ticket. We later learned the bank robber looks nothing like my father in height, build nor complexion. The only common and distinguishing characteristic between him and this bank robber was race. 00;07;29;19 - 00;08;02;29 Chandra Ford Both men were black. I lived in Detroit during the riots of ‘67 and ’68 - through the curfews, the violence, the blind pig raid headlines and property destruction. As a young girl, I read all about it in the paper. My parents and others tried to hush talk around us kids about the 20 black men found at the bottom of the Detroit River, but I heard them. 00;08;03;01 - 00;08;32;07 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: The summer of 1967 is known as the Long Hot Summer. Detroit was a pressure cooker of social and economic issues. 60,000 low income residents lived crowded together on 460 acres in the Virginia Park neighborhood, which was predominantly African-American. The residents viewed the police, made up of 93% white officers, as an occupying white army. The auto industry had moved its factories from the city to the suburbs, and took jobs and the tax base with it. 00;08;32;15 - 00;08;55;08 Kelsey Timmerman On the night of July 23rd, an illegal after hours nightclub known as a blind pig was throwing a party for two veterans who had returned from Vietnam. The police raided the club. A crowd gathered. It became hundreds and thousands of people pouring into the streets. The governor sent in troops, as did President Johnson. The riots lasted four days and left 43 people dead, hundreds injured. 00;08;55;08 - 00;09;02;28 Kelsey Timmerman More than 1400 buildings were burned and destroyed, 7000 people were arrested and 5000 people left homeless. 00;09;03;00 - 00;09;29;14 Chandra Ford Ford: I also heard others talk about a black man walking to the bus station so that he could go to work. He worked the third shift. He did not know the city was under curfew. The police told him to stop, but he was deaf and could not hear the command. They riddled him with bullets in his back. He presented no threat. 00;09;29;21 - 00;09;59;25 Chandra Ford He was just a black man who was deaf going to work. One evening, while our family was stopped at a red light, we saw in an adjacent alley three police officers beating a black and possibly homeless man who was begging them to stop. Who do you call when there is a violent attack? You call the police. But what if the attackers are the police? 00;09;59;27 - 00;10;33;06 Chandra Ford These experiences were in stark contrast to the other experiences in my childhood of a nurturing family, neighborhood, church and school. We knew all police officers were not hostile, but we did not know if an encounter would be positive or negative. Decades later, as I reflect back, no one could or would have ever been willing to report this dark side of blue culture. 00;10;33;08 - 00;10;34;27 Chandra Ford Not like today. 00;10;35;00 - 00;11;01;03 J.R. Jamison Jamison: There were other riots fueled by similar issues across the country that summer. President Johnson appointed a commission to investigate the unrest. Known as the Kerner Commission, the report stated, “Our nation is moving toward two societies: one black, one white, separate and unequal. Reaction to last summer's disorders has quickened the movement and deepen the division. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life. 00;11;01;08 - 00;11;19;22 J.R. Jamison They now threaten the future of every American. This deepening racial division is not inevitable. The movement apart can be reversed. What the rioters appear to be seeking was fuller participation in the social order and the material benefits enjoyed by the majority of American citizens.” 00;11;19;24 - 00;11;50;28 Chandra Ford Ford: As an African American girl living in Detroit, Blue Code was among the first codes I would learn. As an adult, I would learn many more codes. Let's fast forward several years. As an African American woman and recent college graduate, I unknowingly blazed a new trail in the information technology field, but not before I was left to sink or swim 00;11;51;01 - 00;12;24;29 Chandra Ford with no mentor and no guidance. I was left to my own devices, my own mathematical mind, and my own two hands and feet. Of course, everyone has some help along the way. My help? Nurture and guidance came from my family, church and friends, mostly outside of the workplace. They believed in me. They encouraged me all the way through my doctoral studies. 00;12;25;02 - 00;12;55;04 Chandra Ford I came to Indiana at the beginning of my evolving IT career for an interview conducted by three white men. Although I interviewed well and answered many irrelevant questions, I was not offered the job because they said I was overqualified. Interestingly enough, a number of years later, this company faced a lawsuit for discrimination and ended up moving from the state. 00;12;55;07 - 00;13;19;22 Chandra Ford But what I found along the way in my IT positions is that no one actively tried to sabotage me. Instead, they gave me nearly impossible assignments that I had to figure out on my own, while they provided a roadmap and guidance to my Caucasian counterparts. And I was always the first to arrive to work and the last to leave. 00;13;19;24 - 00;14;00;10 Chandra Ford I was tested over and over, but I made myself irreplaceable and developed skills no one else had. That is how I swam. I could write my own ticket and won several regional and national awards through the course of my career. I was named the most successful data processing information project manager in both Arkansas and California. Today, I am an educator and focus my energy on healing internalized and institutional racism through shared understanding. 00;14;00;12 - 00;14;29;21 Chandra Ford We have to stop censoring ourselves when we speak to one another. It's okay to make mistakes. I have learned that you must ask questions to grow. You must stop believing someone doesn't like me because they aren't like me. So often we are afraid of saying the wrong things when speaking to and trying to crack the code of our differences. 00;14;29;23 - 00;14;47;19 Chandra Ford For me, I just learned the codes and keep swimming. [Contemplative acoustic guitar with drum & bass music] 00;14;47;22 - 00;15;11;11 J.R. Jamison Jamison: So, we typically don't talk to an actor after a performance, but I have to say, the actor you just heard, Chandra Ford, who performed Dr. Ruby Cain's story, that she actually knew Ruby and that she too went into the tech field. Chandra, I'd love to talk a little about that while we have you. And since the episode today is about women and technology, and particularly about black and brown women in technology. 00;15;11;15 - 00;15;18;10 J.R. Jamison Ruby's story takes place in the ‘60s and ’70s. You entered the field in the ‘90s. How was your experience different? 00;15;18;12 - 00;15;53;07 Chandra Ford Ford: Well, I would say that one way my experience was different is that I did not experience as much pushback, so to say. She spoke about, first of all, interviewing and being asked a lot of irrelevant questions and having been told she was overqualified. That was not my experience. In fact, when I hired into the corporation that I hired into in the ‘90s, in 1994 to be exact, 00;15;53;10 - 00;16;17;27 Chandra Ford I was- I got the job, and I was actually a little bit surprised. And I say it from this perspective: When I entered graduate school to obtain my master's degree in information technology, I knew absolutely nothing about the subject, and I mean that. I knew nothing. I came from a psychology and a public relations background, and so I automatically knew, 00;16;17;28 - 00;16;44;04 Chandra Ford yeah, I've got this degree, but I am not going to get this job because I don't know a thing. Only to find out that I obviously was exactly who they were looking for: someone maybe not necessarily knowing everything, but someone who was moldable to be brought into the company, to be trained on the platforms that they wanted. So that was one way that my story, I believe, is different than hers. 00;16;44;04 - 00;16;54;22 Chandra Ford And another way is that, I- again, I was well received. Let's just put it that way. That's probably the best way to answer that question. 00;16;54;24 - 00;17;05;12 J.R. Jamison Jamison: When you arrived at your new company, in your new role, you mentioned to me offline that you were one of two black women in a pretty white environment. What was it like walking into that experience? 00;17;05;18 - 00;17;30;29 Chandra Ford Ford: Well, you know what? Having come out of the graduate program that I was in, I think I was prepared, because even in the graduate program, I was one of three blacks. And so walking into that environment, it was intimidating. It was intimidating because I'm looking around to find someone that looks like me to kind of give me that nod like, “You go, girl.” 00;17;30;29 - 00;18;01;13 Chandra Ford But I didn't see anybody that looked like me. And so I didn't necessarily get that warm fuzzy, like, it's going to be okay. And so it was, it was, it was scary. It was intimidating. It was fearful. But one of the things I immediately recognized was that, okay, you are in this place. You got to demonstrate. You got to let them know, hey, I can do this. 00;18;01;17 - 00;18;17;23 Chandra Ford And so I think, I think being one of two black women kind of lit the fire under me for even more of a motivator to demonstrate, yeah, I'm here, and I deserve to be here. 00;18;17;26 - 00;18;27;22 J.R. Jamison Jamison: You did find solidarity with another woman who pulled you aside and said... What did she say? 00;18;27;24 - 00;18;53;26 Chandra Ford Ford: Well, interestingly, the woman that, that I found solidarity with was a white woman. And she pulled me to the side just, kind of, to confirm what it meant to be a woman. And she even said to me, “I don't know what it's like to be a black woman, okay, let me just tell you that. But I know what it's like to be a woman in an arena with all white men.” 00;18;53;27 - 00;19;18;26 Chandra Ford And so she took it upon herself to mentor me. Let's just say it that way. And she would, she would, she would help me to know how to - and I hate to say this because so often we as Blacks find ourselves having to do this - how to operate in the environment such that we, 00;19;18;28 - 00;19;48;03 Chandra Ford we do things in a white way. Not a right way, but a white way, because what's presented is that's the only thing that's going to be accepted. And so I learned, I learned quickly how to, how to do that because it was, it was, kind of, shared with me. If you want to survive, this is what you've got to do. 00;19;48;06 - 00;19;52;00 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And that included [laughing] business suits. 00;19;52;05 - 00;20;16;03 Chandra Ford Ford: I should have said that, that, that, that was even down to the way I dressed. Exactly. I would be in a board meeting, and everyone in the board meeting, white men, would have on blue business suits, blue and black business suits. So what did I do? I went shopping and I bought blue and black business suits. Not skirts, but pants. 00;20;16;05 - 00;20;57;11 Chandra Ford Because, for me, that's what I needed to do. And to remove as many barriers, to remove as many differences. Because the mere fact that I'm a black woman, I couldn't do anything about that one, okay? But I could curtail my, my physical appearance, my dress, the way I wore my hair. Even being mindful of, of how I present it and the articulation of how I did sales presentations. I had to have all that together, such that, in my mind, I would succeed in that environment. 00;20;57;15 - 00;21;05;27 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And you were successful, you shared, in that environment, but sometimes you got a side-eye from a white colleague or two. Can you talk more about that experience? 00;21;05;27 - 00;21;31;06 Chandra Ford Ford: I did, I did, you know, one of the things that also that was a motivator for me is that I didn't want to lose. And I've always been very competitive. And so stepping into that environment even more, I said to myself, I got to win here. And so figuring out, okay, what “win” meant, you know, coming to an understanding of what the whole notion of “winning” meant. 00;21;31;06 - 00;22;10;03 Chandra Ford And for, for me, initially when I went in, I was a network designer. I spent a couple of years designing networks, and then I got promoted to sales. And so I said, okay, this is what they want to see in terms of a winning salesperson. Oh, it's on. And so all these men who are giving me the side-eye - they don't think I know it, but they are - I'm just going to show them I can, I can, I can win, I can win, and I did. I was very successful in that role such that I got promoted and some of the ones that had been giving me the side-eye now reported to me. 00;22;10;06 - 00;22;40;00 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. So looking back on Ruby's story in the ‘60s and ’70s, fast forwarding to your story in the ‘90s and moving forward, you've since left the tech field, but how do you think the environment must be today for women entering and especially black and brown women? Do you think that the field has advanced or do you think that these, 00;22;40;02 - 00;23;05;28 J.R. Jamison these environments still exist, where people feel like perhaps it's not being, you know, created in the right way? It's not a welcoming environment. You know, Ruby talked about how she wasn't set up for success. You talked about how you did get a mentor, but you had to adapt and mold to this really white male environment. Do you think that's changed? 00;23;06;00 - 00;23;31;08 Chandra Ford Ford: Well, you said something initially. It's been a while since I've been in the field. And so based upon what I have seen of present day companies, I would say they look different; however, the culture, the unspoken culture, is probably the same. How about that? 00;23;31;10 - 00;23;32;00 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. 00;23;32;00 - 00;23;41;26 Chandra Ford Ford: They look different on the surface, but the inner workings and, and the heartbeat of those companies, it's probably the same. 00;23;42;04 - 00;24;03;07 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. We talk in the education field about: people diversify, but they don't necessarily make experiences equitable. So when you don't focus on equity but you focus on diversity, it can create an image that looks different. But as you mentioned, the inner workings remain the same. 00;24;03;09 - 00;24;16;06 Chandra Ford Ford: Oh yeah, the the heartbeat of those environments is still the same. So you can, you can change what it looks like. But if the core of what it is has not changed, you're going to get the same results. 00;24;16;08 - 00;24;25;22 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. But you know, as the saying goes, the future is female. [Laughing] So fully, at some point, 00;24;25;25 - 00;24;29;02 J.R. Jamison there's going to be radical transformational shift. 00;24;29;05 - 00;24;33;14 Chandra Ford Ford: I was going to say, there's going to be a revolt somewhere. [Laughter] 00;24;33;16 - 00;24;49;16 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Well, Chandra, thank you so much for talking to me off the cuff. I know that it wasn't expected; you came to do a story today, and I said, “Hey, you shared this little experience by way of email with me, so let's talk about that.” So thanks for sharing your story with us. 00;24;49;17 - 00;25;14;25 Chandra Ford Ford: You are welcome. And I just want to say what an honor it was to read the story of Dr. Ruby Cain. She and I are kindred spirits in the sense that we are in the same sorority, and I really, really respect her. I did not know everything that I just read of her story. So I am so honored to have been asked to do this. I love her. 00;25;14;26 - 00;25;20;16 Chandra Ford She is a wonderful gem here in the city of Muncie and to Ball State University. 00;25;20;18 - 00;25;31;03 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yes she is. [Upbeat drum & bass music] 00;25;31;06 - 00;26;04;16 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Even though Ruby and Chandra's experiences spanned from the 1970s to the 1990s, not much has changed. Today, 50% of women who entered tech roles after college will leave them by the age of 35. However, one woman has set out on a journey to shift the statistics. In 2012, Reshma Saujani founded Girls Who Code, a program that aims to support and increase the number of women in computer science by equipping young girls with the necessary computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities. 00;26;04;19 - 00;26;30;12 J.R. Jamison The organization works toward closing the gender employment difference in technology and to change the image of what a programmer looks like. Today, Girls Who Code has 80,000 college-aged alumni, and its programs have served 300,000 girls from across the country and around the world. Half of these girls come from historically underrepresented groups, including black, Latinx, and from low income households. 00;26;30;13 - 00;26;38;14 J.R. Jamison Its alumni are choosing to major in computer science or related fields at a rate 15 times the national average. 00;26;38;16 - 00;27;00;27 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: According to Girls Who Code, there could be almost 3 million young women working in tech by 2030. But is a tech industry ready for a culture shift? Currently, senior HR leaders in the tech industry are twice as likely as the women themselves to say it's easy for women to thrive in tech. So there's still clearly a cultural disconnect that needs to be worked out to create inclusive environments. 00;27;00;29 - 00;27;33;22 Kelsey Timmerman But what does inclusivity look like? Here's what Girls Who Code recommends: Flex scheduling; improve parental leave policies that encourage everyone access to use them; setting external goals and targets to increase diversity and equity and hold leaders accountable; women-specific support like mentors, sponsors, and employee resources; and inclusive networking events at times when everyone can join. Dr. Ruby Cain had a successful career in IT, despite working in a system that didn't work much with women and especially young women of color. 00;27;33;24 - 00;28;06;26 Kelsey Timmerman Recognizing the systemic challenges she faced, Dr. Kane now, through her nonprofit, It Is Well With My Soul, works to increase awareness and understanding of structural racism. Like Ada Lovelace, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson before her, she paves the way for others to follow in her footsteps. [Theme music] 00;28;06;29 - 00;28;23;05 J.R. Jamison Jamison: We want to thank the late Dr. Jay Zimmerman, Dr. Renae Mays, Jason Donati, and other organizers from Race Muncie who led the Facing Racism Project, where the story in this episode, Sink or Swim in Code, originally appeared. More at RaceMuncie.FacingProject.com. 00;28;23;08 - 00;28;28;09 J.R. Jamison Chandra Ford played Dr. Ruby Cain, with story by Amy Robertson-West. 00;28;28;11 - 00;28;55;19 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: To listen to past episodes of this program, visit IndianaPublicRadio.org/TheFacingProject. From there, you can subscribe to the podcast where you'll get episodes of the project delivered to your device each month. Listeners can contribute stories or volunteer to share the stories of others with the Facing Project that may appear on the show. More information at FacingProject.com/InspireAction, and to continue the conversation about this episode, find us on Facebook at The Facing Project. 00;28;55;21 - 00;29;16;19 J.R. Jamison Jamison: The Facing Project is recorded at Indiana Public Radio at Ball State University in beautiful Muncie, Indiana, and is produced by the amazing producer extraordinaire Sean Ashcraft. The show is distributed nationally through PRX. We are your host, Kelsey Timmerman and J.R. Jamison. And until next time, we wish you the courage to share your own story and the empathy to listen to others. [Theme music]