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On Racialized Tech Organizations and Complaint: A Goodbye to Google
Today (Wednesday, February 2, 2022) is my last day at Google. It’s been a year and two months after my former manager Timnit Gebru was fired, and nearly a year after my next manager Meg Mitchell was given the same treatment. I’m following Timnit and joining her at the Distributed AI Research Institute as Director of Research, effective tomorrow.
In resignation letters, this is where you write how much you appreciated the people you worked with. And I’m definitely going to do the same. But this is in spite of the culture of Google, rather than because of. The Ethical AI team created by Meg Mitchell and Timnit Gebru was one of the most inclusive on which I’ve ever worked or had the fortune of witnessing firsthand. Throughout many teams I’ve experienced in tech and academia, this one’s members have shown each other the most mutual respect, care, admiration, and appreciation. Even though it was unstated, Google’s Ethical AI team has (and continues) to exemplify a deep ethic — learned and emerging from a Black feminist tradition — of growth, nurturing, and wanting to see each other succeed. For that, I want to give our erstwhile co-leads the deepest appreciation. I’m going to deeply miss all of my teammates.
But Google’s toxic problems are no mystery to anyone who’s been there for more than a few months, or…
