Welcome to Notes from the Margin, a new column focused on elevating the voices of scholars from marginalized communities in computing, with a particular focus on Black women. We ourselves are two educational researchers who focus on the experiences of Black women in STEM, with a subset of our work devoted to Black women who teach computer science.

I (Tamara) am the Deputy Director and Senior Director of Research and Programs at the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing at Georgia Tech. However, what is more important to know about me is that I am a Black woman from the southern United States who believes that circumstance should not define opportunity, and as an educational researcher, this viewpoint guides all of my work. In my dissertation I wrote, "I understand how powerful technology is and appreciate its uses. However, I left a graduate computer science program to pursue a degree in education. If someone like me, who had considerable exposure to technology from an early age, still is not interested in being a computer engineer then what does it take?" My parents both worked for IBM, but they weren't creating technology at IBM. They were the salespeople. I didn't have anyone showing me that people that looked like me could have careers in the creation of technology. Therefore, my mission every day, as I continue to push for freedom through educational equity, is that the brilliance of Black women is recognized, respected, and showcased.

I (Pamela) am the Founder and Executive Director of PLR Consulting, a boutique consulting firm specializing in Program Development, Management, and Evaluation. PLR Consulting works with organizations and institutions that seek to address multi-faceted obstacles confronting historically and presently marginalized groups in STEM environments and optimize current STEM programs through management and evaluation. I am a Black woman from the southern United States and a first-generation graduate in all aspects of education—undergraduate, MS, and PhD. I entered STEM through the field of chemistry and at each step of my academic and professional career, I was met with a cultural resistance to who should belong in chemistry and what a chemist should look like. However the discipline's resistance led to understanding my own resistance. My resistance was leaving the academy and building a consulting firm with an intentional focus on broadening participation for Black women in STEM. More importantly, my resistance continues each day as I look for opportunities (found or created) to support, empower, and encourage Black women in STEM.

---

We ascribe to the assertion, put forth by hooks, "We looked both from the outside in and from the inside out. We focused our attention on the center as well as on the margin. We understood both. This mode of seeing reminded us of the existence of a whole universe, a main body made up of both margin and center."

---

Each column will dive deeply into one focus question. These will range from computing focused, research driven questions to those that interrogate society and justice more broadly. No matter what, we hope each piece will leave you not only wanting to go deeper but will also spark provocative conversations and meaningful action. With articles written by us, along with contributions from invited guest authors, we seek to reshape the conversation about those of us in the margins of computing.

So, let's dive into our focus question for this month.

Focus Question: Why is the column called "Notes from the Margin"?

Language matters, and our column takes its name and ideology from renowned Black feminist scholar bell hooks' seminal work, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center [3]. We ascribe to the assertion, put forth by hooks [3:xvi], "We looked both from the outside in and from the inside out. We focused our attention on the center as well as on the margin. We understood both. This mode of seeing reminded us of the existence of a whole universe, a main body made up of both margin and center." What hooks is seeking to help us understand is that those of us on the margins have a unique view that allows us to see the possibilities for a better future. Our marginality forces us to not only understand the world of the oppressor, but also that of the oppressed. This unique viewpoint allows us to create new spaces at the margins. Spaces of what hooks calls "radical openness" where we fight to hold onto our memories, tell our own stories, and determine and enact our own forms of resistance. Therefore, she asserts that there is great power in holding on to our place in the margins. Not the subjugated margins that we are put in, but the ones we create for ourselves.

We Can't Win at their Game

Audre Lorde [5] has been trying to tell us that forever. When, in 1979, at a feminist conference, she said, "For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" she was encouraging us to find a different way. To find our own way. Although that is the most famous quoted part of that speech, it is the next sentence that is most important to us. "They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change" [5:19]. So, what are we sacrificing by using our time and resources trying to play a game that was not designed for us to win? A game we can't win. We must keep top of mind the powerful, unique view and position we have at the margin.

If you haven't seen the powerful video, How Can We Win, from Kimberly Jones [4], search for it. This viral video was all over social media during the racial uprisings of 2020, and even made it onto Oprah's Where Do We Go From Here and John Oliver's Last Week Tonight. In that video, Jones, an activist and author, is not only speaking to our hearts, but she is also educating us about the experiences and history of Black folks in America. After several minutes of pure fire, Jones brings it back to the same ideas Lorde brought forth in 1979.

So, if I play 400 rounds of Monopoly with you, and I had to play and give you every dime that I made, and then for 50 years every time that I played, if you didn't like what I did, you got to burn it, like they did in Tulsa and like they did in Rosewood, how can you win? How can you win? You can't win! The game is fixed.

We can't win trying to play their game. We can't win.

Let It Go, Let It Go, Let It Go

Bag lady, you gon' hurt your back
Dragging all them bags like that
I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to
Is you, is you, is you
    Bag Lady
    Erykah Badu [1]

So, now what? What if we saw this as our opportunity to be free. Free from the rules we have laid upon ourselves about our role as scholars in the margin. In her book Gather, rest coach and yoga teacher, Octavia Raheem writes, "When I put down what is not mine to carry, I am free" [7:10]. We, those of us at the margin, often decide to not only carry the burden of trying to climb out of oppression, but also the burden of trying to explain our value to the oppressor. See, some folks of privilege think fighting for equity and freedom is the job of the oppressed and that their involvement, at any level, is "community service." In a way it is, …but the community you are servicing is your own. Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison [1993] said it best when she appeared on Charlie Rose in 1993:

"If you can only be tall because somebody's on their knees, then you have a serious problem, and my feeling is white people have a very very serious problem, and they should start thinking about what they can do about it. Take me out of it."

We did not create the problem. And a continued expectation that it is the responsibility of Black folks, trans folks, disabled folks, women… we could go on and on. A focus on those of us at the margins to constantly share our trauma, to continuously identify with and share our victimization, is not only insincere but harmful. Morrison understood the power of her position at the margin. She reclaimed it with every story she wrote. That doesn't mean that we don't actively fight every day for justice, but not from the position of victim, simply from the position of human. But if you cannot see our humanity, nothing we can do will convince you of it.

A Radical Lives Here

So, when others believe that they are better equipped to tell our stories and that our humanity only exists through the lens of struggle, we must resist. We must share our notes from the margin. Our very survival depends on it. We begin right here. Within the dominant culture's medium of academic publication. We do it our way, tell our stories, with our language, to our people. We ask our fellow resistors living at the margins to take ownership of this column and see it as a space where we not only critique the existing center but dream of a radically different future. Consider this your invitation, from the voice of hooks, "We greet you as liberators. This "we" is that us in the margins that "we" who inhabit marginal space that is not a site of domination but a place of resistance. Enter that space." [2:22]

Acknowledgements

To all of our fellow Black women scholars. We are because you are.

References

1. Badu, E. and Hayes, I. Bag Lady [Recorded by Erykah Badu]. On Mama's Gun. (Motown, 2000)

2. hooks, b. Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, 36 (1989), 15–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44111660; accessed 16 Aug 2023.

3. hooks, b. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, 2nd Ed. (South End Press Classics, 2000).

4. Jones, K. 2020. How Can We Win. (Youtube, 2020). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb9_qGOa9Go; accessed 2023 Nov 7.

5. Lorde, A. The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House. (Penguin UK, 2018).

6. Morrison, T. and Rose, C. Toni Morrison — Charlie Rose. (Charlie Rose, 1993); https://charlierose.com/videos/18778; accessed 2023 Nov 7.

7. Raheem, Octavia F. Gather. (Independently Published, 2020).

Authors

Tamara Pearson
Constellations Center for Equity in Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA, 30334
[email protected]

Pamela Leggett-Robinson
Pamela Leggett-Robinson
[email protected]

Copyright held by author.

The Digital Library is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2023 ACM, Inc.

Contents available in PDF
View Full Citation and Bibliometrics in the ACM DL.  

To comment you must create or log in with your ACM account.