While 140 characters may be the perfect length for many things, a nuanced discussion of racial and/or gender politics is NOT one of them.

If you Google a photo of me, you’ll see a “white guy.” My parents and I immigrated to the US from Portugal when I was 3. I grew up in Philadelphia, which was a pretty racist place in the 1970s. My parents, having come from a country that was 99% white at the time, moved into a small immigrant pocket of other Portuguese. Outside that circle, there were people who looked different. Once I started school, I got my ass kicked on a regular basis by kids of EVERY race. The black kids kicked my ass because I was white, the white kids kicked my ass because I spoke a different language. My face was the original meeting grounds for the rainbow coalition. (To be fair, I got my ass kicked a few times because of my smart mouth, and those I’ll take the blame for.) All of which can be very confusing when you’re in the middle of a culture that still defined itself along strict color lines.

I somehow ended up in art school where being different didn’t get you beat up; it got you looked up to (not to mention laid). I moved out of Philadelphia, first to Texas, where racism was a completely different animal; rather than a powder keg always in danger of exploding, it felt like it was baked into the culture. There was less visible animosity as long as everyone stayed in their part of town. I eventually settled down in San Francisco, because I wanted to raise my kid in a place where being yourself was tolerated. And defended.

I’m guessing you probably have a pretty good idea of what’s happening in America right now. Racism and hatred towards immigrants is on the rise. And it’s all being disguised as “patriotism” by Sarah Palin and her proudly misinformed ilk.

All of this leads me to look out for people who I think are being left out, beat up on, or not given a chance. Which leads me to the subject of conferences.

Can you have a conference with the speakers you want regardless of race, gender, etc? The answer is yes. You ABSOLUTELY can. You have that right. But since it’s happening in public, you need to be ready for a public debate about it. Is it fair? Doesn’t matter. It’s going to happen. And you need to be ready for it. And more often than not, the answer I hear is that it didn’t occur to organizers to try, it was hard, or the woman I called was busy, etc.

So rather than asking ourselves what our “rights” are, we should ask ourselves what our responsibilities are. Personally, as someone who showed up on the doorstep of this country with nothing but a passport (I’d like to be dramatic and say my parents showed up with $20 in their pockets, but the truth is I don’t know how much they showed up with. We grew up lower class, but we never went hungry.) and managed to find himself in somewhat of a position of authority, and in possession of a soapbox, I wholeheartedly believe it’s my responsibility to help others climb up. Not because I’m special, or have some gift, but because I believe the only reason I’ve made it this far is that someone before me cleared a trail for me to climb up, and I want to do the same for others.

This problem will not organically fix itself. A solution needs to be designed, and sometimes that’s messy. It leads to exclusionary conferences like Blogher, which while creating a “safe space for women,” also end up creating a safe space for the same white guys to keep doing what they do. Remember, it’s only diversity if you’re on the inside looking out. For those on the outside, it’s called inclusion.

So when I see the same white male faces for every conference, I speak out. Not so much to chastise them, but because I want the NEXT conference organizer to try harder. And it’s not so much for the people who are currently in our industry, but for those who come after them. They need someone to identify with.

Because the greatest impact that Barack Obama will ever have, is not health care reform, or fiscal reform, or telling Joe Biden to shut it; it’s standing behind a podium that says “President of the United States,” where millions of little kids can see him on TV and think “That could be me.”

Tweet | Written by Mike Monteiro on May 21, 2010 |