Lunch Talk Series: Privilege Arbitrage

This iteration of the Lunch Talk Series will be covering Kojo Idrissa’s insightful PyDX talk, “Privilege Arbitrage”.

You should watch this if:

• You’re curious about diversity and inclusion
• You’re looking for guidance on improving tech cultures
• You want to be a better human

This talk covers using the systemic differences in technical communities that create privilege to improve your communities. It’s an interesting metaphor and Kojo turns it into a few graphs which are immensely helpful for visualizing a person’s privilege.

I also want to point out that this talk is useful in audio-only format. The slides are minimalistic and serve to keep people informed of the general topic during the talk rather than be the focal point.

In the details, Kojo provides a great explanation on privilege, how it’s created and why it’s significant when improving a community’s culture. He also provides general guidelines and specific situations for how people can put your elevated privilege awareness to work.

I appreciate Kojo’s delivery style and how he manages to keep his personality present throughout the talk. For me, my takeaway is exactly what he mentions in the general guidelines section. Start with introspection, then listen and learn, then speak and act when the opportunities arise.