Tiffani Ashley Bell
@tiffani
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Programmer. Transilient. An internet person at The @HumanUtility . Nerded out at @HowardU , @Kennedy_School , YC, & @StanfordGSB . 🏳️🌈
LAX - FAY
Joined April 2007
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Pinned Tweet
My TED talk crossed 500,000 views the other day after going up a little over a week ago.
Best part so far, though, is people writing me talking about things they’re doing after having seen it.
Check it out if you haven’t seen it
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Jeff Bezos just used Twitter to set a Black woman up to be harassed the rest of the day for speaking her mind, just in case you’re wondering what else is happening today.
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Being a black woman means you’ll *still* get treated like an idiot even *after* you prove you’re smart
being a woman means being treated like an idiot until you prove you're smart
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One aspect of this Michigan kidnapping situation that I hope more people pay attention to and write about is how all those (white) men intended to also kill police officers.
But, somehow, law enforcement will continue to only think of Black men as a threat.
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This is not a new perspective, but I am so incredibly fascinated with how all these rules and regulations around what we can't do for people are breaking down in the face of this virus.
Detroit halted shutoffs.
Washington state re-opened its health insurance exchange.
Etc.
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People canceling Tesla orders *now* vs when it came to light that Black Tesla employees were being called everything nasty under the sun at work should get no brownie points.
People have been calling a spade a spade for a while now.
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I’m going to adopt this. 👌🏽
What if instead of "underserved" communities, we use the phrase "purposely ignored" or something similar.
With the history of the USA in mind, most "underserved" communities have been intentionally undermined by policy and other tools.
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The thing I like least about the folks who leave SF + Silicon Valley for Texas and Miami and wherever else is the crapping on the place they left *after* they've extracted all they can from it.
The Bay Area helped you build your immense wealth and that's the thanks it gets. smh.
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I know some folks will be helped, but I’m tired of people always thinking Black folks need “skills training”.
There are apprenticeships and bootcamps and trainings and workshops and yadda yadda yadda.
Black ppl will get tons of training and then still not be hired, funded, etc
Google Announces Initiative To Train 100,000 Black Women In Digital Skills By 2022
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The cops who murdered Breonna Taylor and haven’t been held accountable for it stole a whole set of futures.
Breonna Taylor’s Boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, Holding the Engagement Ring He Was About to Propose With to Bre, Louisville, Kentucky.
Photograph by LaToya Ruby Frazier.
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@insiderfood
Oxtail is disgusting. Causes all kinds of gastrointestinal issues. Had to go to the ER once after having some once, wasn’t worth the bills afterward smh
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I automatically take the “college is becoming less relevant over time” conversation less seriously when it’s sparked by white guys—especially in tech.
You’ve always been able to skip the line and not need the credentials the rest of us do. Check your privilege.
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So the man who stands up to do all this cussin' and carryin' on toward Beto is the MAYOR of Uvalde, TX.
You know, the place where 19 kids were just murdered at their school.
This is a MESS.
"This is on you until you choose to do something": Beto O'Rourke confronts Gov. Abbott at briefing on Texas elementary school shooting.
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You can sell health insurance whenever you want.
You can turn poor people's water back on whenever you want.
In some ways, people ought to be ashamed. I mean, really.
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I’d love to be on the board of
@reddit
,
@alexisohanian
.
You’ll get someone with a long history of being an operator and an advocate and someone who won’t be there just for the sake of having the seat, but to actually make a real difference. That’s all I have done in my career.
So let me put my recommendations in...
@alexisohanian
I’d love to see someone like
@tiffani
in that
@reddit
board seat you just vacated.
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We don’t talk about this because it’s impolite to say in most circles, but there are some people with imposter syndrome who deserve to have it.
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I really want tech bros to stop being so sensitive. People disagreeing with you is not you being “attacked”. Can y’all work on that for 2018? Seriously.
For an industry so focused on brain power, a lot of y’all crinkle up like paper when your ideas are challenged. It’s pathetic.
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Pay Black women (handsomely) for their expertise 2021.
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Being able to say "I don't know" is a sign of confidence.
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Right. As a person who’s been running a not-for-profit the last 6yrs, I highly doubt anybody has been scammed.
Over 150,000 people just dumped en masse 10s of millions of dollars on an organization that historically barely took in any more than $110K/yr.
Give them time.
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Lemme say a thing: I hope every white woman seeing themselves in Kamala being talked over and cut off tonight remembers that with the Black women right at your own company.
You know. The ones that you, too, talk over.
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This weekend I called for
@Stripe
to waive transaction fees for bail funds using them to fundraise.
One of their team members sent me a DM with a blog post saying they are waiving $1MM in fees for orgs fighting systemic racism. Thank you
@patrickc
! 1/n
Calling on
@Stripe
and
@Paypal
(
@AskPayPal
) to, say, waive the transaction fees for bail funds who are fundraising with your platforms for the entire month of June 2020 in solidarity with supporting justice for
#GeorgeFloyd
. (Cc:
@patrickc
)
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Just a reminder: you have value outside of your work.
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Dude laughed me just now for stepping off the elevator with a quick fast “nahh” when he got on without a mask. IDGAF. 😂
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Going to take a rare moment on here to be petty. I hope that jerk-off VC that asked whether I could actually code several years ago and wanted to see my Github profile to prove it sees *this* Github profile. 😘😘😘
When
@tiffani
learned thousands of Detroit residents were having their water cut off she built
@humanutility
—connecting donors with people in need.
See hows she’s
#buildingthefuture
via code, creativity, and determination.
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I hate the idea of bragging about it b/c it shouldn't have to exist, but software I wrote helps get ppl's water turned back on.
#WITBragDay
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I feel like we’re all being held hostage by the worst of us.
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I had a coworker that I used to think was a quackpot. He used to be like "Everything is made up!" I owe him an apology.
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Fewer questions in interviews about algorithms, more questions in interviews about ethics. 😗
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Hot bars in grocery stores that everybody can reach into.
name one thing we should NOT bring back post-pandemic.
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If you're tempted to give to causes to get a billionaire to run for president, pay somebody's water bill instead @
You can now donate to a Mark Zuckerberg for President campaign
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FWIW, I hope a lot of white dudes in tech are watching
@DHH
and understanding what kind of change and scrutiny they can bring to discriminatory processes (or even just ones that look that way) if they use their power and privilege to just say something—loudly.
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I have been taking an anti-depressant for the last two years. How they enable me to get through some very dark moments are a big part of the reason so many of y’all say I do awesome work. I’m saying this not to brag, but to destigmatize.
It is OK to go talk to somebody.
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It does. I think the world would be a different place if more men got affection from their dads.
Does this look like an appropriate father/son interaction to you?
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Tech is largely a bunch of rich white men determining what’s good for everyone else while simultaneously being dishonest about their ambitions. How is that not different from politics?
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I know this was meant to be a joke, but since it's out there, we should talk about how many white people don't want to be managed and led by black women.
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I want ppl to be specific today with respect to Kamala. She is about to be the first Black and South Asian woman (and first woman ever) to become Vice President of the United States.
Let’s not do that watered-down “woman of color” stuff today like y’all’re scared to say “Black”.
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That thing where you can go to the grocery store on a Thursday night, crack open the new issue of The
@OprahMagazine
and your work is in there.
THANK YOU to all of you who donate and support The
@HumanUtility
. ♥️💦
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If this was true my organization wouldn’t be helping Uber drivers with their water bills. You don’t know people with low income and it shows.
Gig economy jobs are a free market safety net that catches people before the tax-payer funded safety net.
Which is pretty awesome when you think about it.
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Event organizers: if you have an event in SF, get your event staff to chill on how aggressively they go after black attendees for badges.
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Observation: some men don’t do well when a woman understands something technical and they don’t.
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I watched the press conference with Detroit's water department director and read his face.
I don't have any faith that what is happening now will be the permanent state of things.
But, it just truly lays waste to everybody's excuses and policies.
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Thanks to
@shervin
's generosity, we're at $204,421 of $250K goal. That's $408,842 with foundation match for
@humanutility
. Epic times, epic generosity from everybody. ❤️💦
We're @ $152,711 of that $250K
@humanutility
campaign
@hunterwalk
+
@CBarlerin
kicked off. That's $305,422 w/the foundation match. I want to dedicate $100,000 of that to water bills in Miami. Can we get somebody to fill in $97,289 before midnight tomorrow?
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Black women in tech stick their necks out and (for the most part) everybody benefits except them.
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At a high school graduation here in SoCal where the valedictorian just AIRED OUT teachers who showed up drunk, guidance counselors who didn’t help with scholarship applications, and everything else.
My God she is going places! May she never lose that spirit. ❤️🔥😂
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I read this this morning and I had to put it down for a sec when I saw how people were told to “assume good intent.”
I’ve heard that suggestion recently, and I think it’s telling how often it comes up in mostly-white, mostly-male environments.
It gives bad behavior a pass.
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What happened with the vaccines in Philadelphia is what happens when whiteness automatically translates to credibility.
No way a Black 22-year-old would have even been able to get a *meeting* to do this.
Philly gave a 22-year-old white graduate student in psychology, with a startup and no healthcare experience, thousands of vaccines to distribute. It ended up being a mess. He took doses home to vaccinate his girlfriend, while cancelling vaccine appointments for the public.
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This. I worked at McDonalds for a summer in 2004. It is skilled labor.
I never memorized how to make a BigMac which would have made me more efficient, among other things.
People mistake repetitive, formulaic work for being unskilled and that’s just not the case.
If you call anyone who works in fast food “just a burger flipper” or they just “pour coffee” you can’t use those services anymore sorry but it’s illegal for you to do it until you get a fucking grip
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The thing nobody prepares you for—even though you know it’s coming—is showing up at family functions and everybody is aging. People walking a little slower, looking a little grayer, etc.
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As a person actually doing work to change the world, I’ll say I’m much more effective at helping people when I have eaten, slept, had contact with other people just to socialize, and gotten copious amounts of fresh air vs. the moments where I fall into isolation and workaholism.
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I hear from a Facebook recruiter so much that I've decided to talk to her just to build a relationship should I ever need to recruit *her* to recruit for *me*. 😌
I admire the persistence.
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People were hung out to dry with this stimulus decision. Remember that at the polls.
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First Black First Lady having to tell us to pack lunches and dinners so we can stand in line to vote because we already know tons of people are going to be disenfranchised that way is a travesty.
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I have been telling y’all for years the United States is a failed state in so many ways when it comes to water.
Call your members of Congress and force them to *continue* to invest in water infrastructure—even beyond what is in legislation now. It is not enough money.
DEVELOPING: Jackson, Mississippi, a city of 153,000 people, is without reliable running water, officials say.
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Happy to say I sent an email earlier accepting an offer of admission to
@StanfordGSB
as a Sloan Fellow. It’s a one-year masters in management program for experienced leaders.
C19 has wrecked the start date, but it’s still something to be happy about.
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The absolute height of white male privilege right here.
A “preacher” armed with a semiautomatic rifle showed up at Beto O’Rourke’s townhall in Hemphill, Texas, to challenge O’Rourke’s position on … abortion, calling it murder. A month after 20 people were murdered with an AR-15 in a Texas elementary school. This is America.
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I, too, was in an abusive relationship once upon a time. The kind where the smallest thing would set them off like a bomb. It was like dating a ticking time bomb w/random resets.
Without sharing more, I’ll just say you can’t stay + fix them. They will ruin you. That’s not love.
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@tressiemcphd
No. Been getting dressed out of my suitcase ever since I got back from being away for 3 weeks last Saturday. Won't stop until everything has been worn out of that bag lol
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In my weird life where I straddle two worlds, I see this everyday.
People on my timeline raising VC funds, getting promoted, getting hired, etc.
People in my inbox needing help because they’re not sure when they’ll work again and are skipping meals.
Heard on PBS today that we have a recovery and a depression going on at the same time. Basically, two economies. High paying jobs where people can work from home have come back. Minimum wage service jobs are still gone, and people are suffering deeply.
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On whether a company supports diversity and inclusion: believe org charts and team pages over blog posts.
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I was diagnosed with depression after my previous startup failed, but I didn’t shoot anybody. We have to stop excusing this barbarism.
Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock had been depressed after losing money in the past two years, sheriff says:
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So, over 3,000 of you followed me over the last week and a half. Hi!
Maybe you saw my Medium post, or the Reddit thing, or the Stripe thing, or the YC thing.
The thing most important to me, tho, is the not-for-profit org I founded + run, The
@HumanUtility
. We pay water bills.
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Hi, press: I don’t want to talk to you about the Medium post or the Reddit board seat.
There’s actual work that I do that is really life-changing for people that I’d be happy to talk to you about.
I know poor Black people being denied water doesn’t drive clicks, but yeah.
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This is truly my issue.
Isn’t it weird that we all already know who is going to win the popular vote and yet we’re all biting our fingernails wondering who the president is going to be?
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You’re not. I like the impersonality, predictability, and uniformity of hotels.
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I really am inspired by other women who just go off in making change in the world. As a woman, the world generally insists that you don’t know anything, that you don’t have value, you don’t matter, etc.
So inspired by women living in defiance of that.
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OMFG.
Also: she needs to be protected. Not even saying this in jest.
Dawn Wooten, the nurse who blew the whistle on ICE, just went on MSNBC. This is being done in our name.
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I would like all of the white people in my inbox and DMs asking me for things to just stop.
Read the room.
This is not the time to get the closest Black person to you to labor for you.
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Can't wait to build a company worth $70,000,000,000+ and nobody gets groped and cocaine is the furthest thought from anybody's mind.
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A half a million dollars.
What is the best professional compliment you’ve ever received?
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White people: this is how you need to carry on the next time you see the police harassing some Black people.
Channel that deep down desire to call the manager and go OFF.
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A level of petty I am completely and utterly here for.
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I would love to go to a startup event and it’s just a bunch of women of color bragging about all the stuff they’ve done in their startups. All their fundraising successes, exits, acquisitions, how amazing they are as leaders, etc.
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Multibillion-dollar technology companies that aren't diverse shouldn't ask women of color to be a part of diversity initiatives for free.
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Tech as an industry feels disappointing some days. You have all these supposedly smart people who make such poor choices.
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Yup.
I have been programming off and on since I was six years old (and even, then, was self-taught).
I confess I only got a CS degree because I knew way back in 2002 that nobody would believe that I, a black woman from NC, knew anything without the paperwork.
Same in tech.
You can find lots of self-taught coders at big tech cos from majority backgrounds. But most of the black folk you will see are over-credentialed. "Harvard this, Howard that, MIT the other," types.
Which is why "You don't *need* a CS degree!" is... complicated.
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Yes. Also why when people ask if we provide financial literacy classes as a condition of giving people water bill assistance I say, “Absolutely not.”
Somebody trying to make ends meet for their family on minimum wage is likely better at managing their money than any of us.
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Pro-tip. People are allover the place now: put a time zone in your initial request to chat with somebody.
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AP US History is gonna be LITTTT a few years from now. My goodness.
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@sehurlburt
My software pays water bills for people in Detroit and Baltimore who can't afford them 😊
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Also, ngl, Twitter can’t go away because that’s the only way I watch TikToks 🤷🏽♀️
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Hi. My name is Tiffani. My code gets people's water turned back on but I can't write a linked list from scratch anymore or explain Big-O.
Hi. My name is Erin. I've been writing JavaScript for 16 years and I still have to look up the function signature for Array.splice.
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I will rejoice the day we stop giving air time to people who believe diversity “lowers the bar.”
At best, they are prejudiced, biased, and loud. At worst, we’re blithely giving free airtime to racists and sexists.
The only folks who are mediocre are those people.
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Three white kids pinned down a black girl at school and cut her locs off as they insulted her for them.
This should be ruled a hate crime.
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Not moving out of the way of white men in public unless they say, “Excuse me.”
It got super awkward at Whole Foods yesterday with a guy, but he finally said it. I went, “See? Wasn’t that easier than trying to awkwardly squeeze past me without saying anything?”
Him: 🤨
Me: 😂
Black Women ONLY ::: What is most unpopular thing YOU do regularly?
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If white people don't get what Black people are talking about wrt white privilege in these United States of America *today*, y'all just don't want to.
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