I recently started to notice a palpable lack of people of color in the workplace. I recently took to writing some tech activism articles and when I looked around for people who could check them and share their lived experiences as marginalized individuals in tech, I found very few. Then I started asking why. I already knew of the systematic oppression that I benefit from as a white person but I didn't truly look at the numbers and how damning they are. I listened to the experiences of BIPOC people that were fed to me, not the ones they were sharing, the real ones. There are people of color in the tech community but I noticed, I had met plenty of developers that were hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, African(but not Black), and Eastern. I am a queer developer and have met other queer developers, even a few women. That said, I NEVER met a Black programmer before last year, not while networking, not while working, not while reading, nowhere. How can we build good products for our communities and societies if we don't let an entire race of people have a vocie in the process? What are we doing? How are we claiming meritocracy when there isn't even an equitable palying field? Have you see and stayed silent in the face of oppression of your friends? Stayed quite to protect the team as a team member is bullied for something outside of their control? Let's brainstorm ways we can be better!