In this episode, Allie chats with Gina Innocent of GoDaddy Pro. They talk about Gina’s time at WCEU, her meetup with the BlackPress Slack group, diversity in tech, and WordPress meetups!
Episode Transcript
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Underrepresented in Tech podcast, hosted by Michelle Frechette and Allie Nimmons. Underrepresented in Tech is a free database, but with the goal of helping people find new opportunities in WordPress and tech overall.
Allie Nimmons:
Hello and welcome everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the under, oh, excuse me, I have hiccups today so we’re going to be going through that a little bit, but yeah. Welcome back to another episode of the Underrepresented in Tech podcast. Today, Michelle is not joining us this week, but I am joined by my new friend, Gina Innocent. Say hi, Gina.
Gina Innocent:
Hi everyone. Thank you so much for having me Allie.
Allie Nimmons:
Absolutely. Before we get started in kind of what I wanted to talk to you about today, I’d love for you to take a moment and intro, oh, excuse me, introduce yourself to everyone. Let us know what you do with WordPress and where you work and where you’re located and all of that really fun stuff.
Gina Innocent:
Yeah. I am currently located in Chicago. I’m a Miamian who transplanted over here a while ago. I recently just joined the GoDaddy Pro field marketing team about two months ago, which is actually what introduced me to the WordPress community. I’ve always used WordPress personally for my own blog in the past, but I did not know that a WordPress community even existed until I was pulled onto this team. It’s been quite insightful learning so much about it.
Allie Nimmons:
Oh, that is so cool. I feel like that’s such a unique perspective as well. I feel like there’s a lot of people who used and worked in the WordPress community to start with and were familiar with WordPress, and then got a job like that. It’s really cool to hear that you were a user, and through the job that introduced to the community that way. It’s really cool.
Gina Innocent:
Yeah. I was actually very intimidated about going to my first WordCamp because I wasn’t familiar with the community. I felt like they were going to be shunned. I was going to be shunned and it was going to be like, “Ah, get this newbie out of here. She doesn’t even understand.” That was my biggest intimidation with joining the community. Before I joined the pro team, I was actually a support guide for our customers. Outside of troubleshooting WordPress, I didn’t know very, very much. I was really intimidated, but honestly I guess I didn’t have anything to worry about. Everyone was so welcoming.
Allie Nimmons:
That is so cool. What was that first WordCamp that you went to? Which city was that?
Gina Innocent:
I attended a Porto, Portugal WordCamp EU.
Allie Nimmons:
Wait, so your very first WordCamp ever was WordCamp Europe?
Gina Innocent:
Yep.
Allie Nimmons:
Oh my gosh. That is amazing. That’s so cool. I’m sure that you’ll get into other WordCamps as well through what you doing with GoDaddy, but typically WordCamps are just for a particular city. Like you mentioned, you’re from Miami. I’m also from Miami. I got introduced to the community through WordCamp Miami, which is one of the bigger camps in the United States. I’m so excited for you to attend a city based camp and see the difference because the national camps like WordCamp Europe, WordCamp US, are so much bigger and they have kind of almost more of a corporate feel I find.
Gina Innocent:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Allie Nimmons:
The city camps are way more, it literally feels like summer camp almost. They’re way more fun. They’re more intimate. That’s so crazy to me that your first one was that giant, enormous event. That is so cool.
Gina Innocent:
Yeah. Honestly, I think that is really, really cool. It was a really amazing opportunity for that to be my first one. I do believe that with it being so large, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to get to know people on an intimate level. I did get to sit down and meet with a few veterans in WordCamps and just discuss WordCamps in general, which was really great. I guess with the pandemic and COVID, the one here in Chicago slowed down. I don’t think they’ve had an event in almost two years or any kind of meetups, not even virtual, as far as that I was able to see. Couldn’t do that, but I’m very excited for the Chicago one this year. It’s going to be in December, which it’s like, “Why the coldest month out of the year?”
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, that is unfortunate. Wow. Oh man. Chicago in the winter is cold.
Gina Innocent:
Yes it is. Usually that is my time to hibernate, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m actually looking forward to introducing more people from it. I’m surrounded by small business owners and creatives and web designers who are black and I don’t even think they know about this community. I’m very excited to tell them about my experience and bring them in and see how they can network and fit in as well.
Allie Nimmons:
Absolutely. That is a huge thing that I feel very passionately about in this community is like, “What can we be doing better to bring more diverse groups of people into the community?” That definitely includes other black people. I mean, I’m a co-organizer. I mean, you and I definitely have to chat about this later, but I’m a co-organizer of the BlackPress Slack group. That’s one of our main goals right now, is to invite people that are already using the software into the community because there’s so much benefit. Even if you’re not a developer or you don’t write software, there’s still so much benefit to being a part of the open source community that is WordPress.
Gina Innocent:
I completely agree. I actually joined BlackPress not too long ago. I was likely to meet one of the co-organizers in Europe. I met Destiny.
Allie Nimmons:
Oh, awesome.
Gina Innocent:
I felt like we practically spent the entire trip together. We met up almost every day. That was amazing. I was able to meet two other beautiful women who have been a part of BlackPress and we did a meet up there. Destiny is such a go-getter. She just seen a gentleman there and she was just like, “Hey, come to lunch with us. We’re part of BlackPress.” He came and he had lunch with us and we got another gentleman and we brought him to have lunch with us as well. We just discussed our experiences, where we were from. It was magical meeting so many people of color from different parts of the world. One young lady was from Zimbabwe. Another one was from the UK, who actually became an expat in Lisbon, Portugal. It was just a little bit of everything. It was great. I met a girl from Philly and she told me about her travels to Chicago. Hopefully we’ll be able to meet up. She’s an art buff. We’ll probably jump and do some art museums here in Chicago.
Allie Nimmons:
Was that Win by any chance?
Gina Innocent:
Yes.
Allie Nimmons:
She’s a friend of mine. She was on the podcast a couple weeks ago actually. I talked to her about internet art.
Gina Innocent:
Yeah. She’s so dope.
Allie Nimmons:
She’s so dope.
Gina Innocent:
And insightful, yeah. Hopefully I’ll be able to meet up with her here. We’ll get to know each other a lot more.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. I’m so happy that you’ve already found your way to BlackPress. Yeah. It is such a challenge to find all these people and bring them together. Once that does happen, I totally agree with you. It’s definitely a magical experience. I was super upset that I couldn’t make it to WordCamp Europe, but I will be at WordCamp US. We are hoping, me and the other BlackPress organizers, we are hoping to do a similar meetup at WordCamp US. Maybe a little bit larger, hopefully having more people there, maybe having it at a restaurant or something, and hosting kind of like a mixer event where people can come together and like you said, meet other people that look like them and have similar experiences and so on and so forth. We’re definitely out there.
Allie Nimmons:
I mean, from my experience thus far, and I’d love to hear how you feel as well. I’ve heard a lot of people talking about, just kind of not seeing each other. We don’t see each other as much. It’s hard to anticipate that there are other people like us out there, because we’re not just front and center all of the time.
Gina Innocent:
Exactly.
Allie Nimmons:
It’s so important right now to be intentional about creating these spaces for us to be and to be comfortable. I mean, that’s one of the reasons BlackPress exists, is not to segregate us into one group, but to have a safe, welcoming, warm space with other people that look like us.
Gina Innocent:
Yeah. I completely agree with that. Within the tech community or honestly, in majority of corporate communities, you don’t see yourselves. I feel like with GoDaddy, we do have a Slack channel. We have our Black in Tech Slack channel. We’re there and we communicate in there. My partner calls it the HBCU of GoDaddy.
Allie Nimmons:
Oh, my god.
Gina Innocent:
We laugh there but when you go out to a lot of these conferences and things like that, you do feel like you’re underrepresented. I was on TikTok this morning and I kind of got emotional because this one girl, she was at a tech conference with her company and she stepped outside and she was crying because she said that there was no one there. She was like, “It was probably three people of color that was at this tech conference,” but she was the only female there. She felt whenever she tried to network or talk to anyone, people wouldn’t take her seriously. They weren’t trying to engage with the conversations with her. But when her boss who happened to be a white male would speak to them, they would perk up and now they’re trying to keep the conversation going. It made me very sad because, I don’t know if at other camps or any kind of like WordPress tech events, will I ever experience the same? I feel very blessed. I feel lucky-
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Gina Innocent:
… to have experienced WordCamp EU with Destiny and other black people. I didn’t feel completely separated. I have a very supportive team. They were just like, “You know what? If you need anything, just let us know.” At these other events, it could be that. Again, even the workshops or the speakers, I would love to see more people who looked like me or you who I can feel a little bit more connected to. I hope that maybe in the future that does happen. I was made aware or privy to, previously there wasn’t. It was a lot harder to see people of color. There wasn’t very much diversity at the camp, but now there’s an initiative where people are really trying to get us out there.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Gina Innocent:
I feel like with any group, any subsection, it’s going to be a long-
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Gina Innocent:
… journey.
Allie Nimmons:
I agree. Yeah. I first started becoming active in the WordPress community in about 2017. I remember the first couple of WordCamps I went to and events and things like that. Yeah. Really not feeling represented. I completely agree with you that in the last couple of years, there has been, I think a lot of that is due to external as well as internal factors, right? The Black Lives Matter movement becoming so prevalent and bringing so many of these issues that have always existed, right? This stuff has always existed. It’s not new, but bringing it to the forefront of people’s attention, I think has pervaded into certain areas of society, including our workspaces. Then there are people inside of the community. I like to give myself and Michelle a little bit of credit for that, but there’s tons of other people in our community who are demanding and advocating for change and more diversity and more inclusion and calling people in and calling people out for doing better.
Allie Nimmons:
I can see measurable improvements. I was just looking at the speaker lineup for an event that, I remember last year looking at their speaker lineup and being like, “That is very homogenous,” right? Lots of the same types of people. I can already see this year is better. That’s really all you can ask for, right? Things like this don’t happen overnight. It takes work. I think one of the things that, despite how much work is still ahead of us, one of the things with the WordPress community in particular that I feel like makes it worth it, is the fact that you can see the changes. You can see people doing things. I mean, for WordCamp US coming up, there are tons of companies that are offering to sponsor underrepresented speakers to make the financial burden less on them to be able to travel to the event. Huge, amazing, wonderful.
Gina Innocent:
Especially now that these, I mean, we are seeing the flight costs go up real time. I’m very happy that a lot of companies are choosing to pick up the ticket and help become accommodating for people to attend WordCamp US. I hope that they extended to contributors and not only speakers. I feel like there are people from all over the world who deserve to be at WordCamp, regardless if they are going to be highlighted as a speaker or leading a workshop, they deserve to be there as well. I’m very excited to see exactly who’s going to be picked up by some of these companies. I know GoDaddy is doing so as well. I hope to be part of that decision process. Hopefully me being in this new role in working in this platform, I’ll be able to be a voice or be heard or have some kind of input that will bring out a lot more people that will make this event more diverse, inclusive.
Allie Nimmons:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gina Innocent:
Unfortunately, when I look at the people in WordPress Chicago, it’s not very diverse. Hopefully by meeting and creating an environment that makes it a little bit more diverse, I can bring somebody here from Chicago.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. That would be incredible. Can I ask, I definitely want to circle back to the WordCamp Europe event and hear your take on the event. While you were mentioning Chicago and that event, this may not have an answer, right?
Gina Innocent:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Allie Nimmons:
Why do you think it is? I’ve never been to Chicago before, but my perception of Chicago is that it is a fairly diverse city, that there are a lot of black people living in Chicago.
Gina Innocent:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Allie Nimmons:
Why do you think it is that the event is not as diverse as maybe the city’s demographics would indicate?
Gina Innocent:
I love Chicago. It’s a very beautiful city, but I’m going to be a hundred percent honest. It’s some strong segregation here. Where you may see a lot more people of color, black people, they’re on the west side or the south side. Ukrainians have their own area. Chinese people who have their own area. African people who have their own area. Everyone’s tucked off into their own neighborhood of security. I do find that most people who work within tech, if they’re a little older, they are in the suburbs. If they are younger, you’re looking at downtown, or their transplants. I feel like that has a huge impact as well as, there’s not very many resources. The black WordPress users that I know are self taught, where you may find someone who was taught either within school, or it just was a little different for them. They were web designers for years and years and years.
Gina Innocent:
I do find that segregation does speak a bigger, bigger role. Some people may feel intimidated or they’re fearful of certain groups of people. Unfortunately here, as progressive as Chicago can be or it looks to be, there’s still very much some prejudice that underlines a lot of the interactions here in this city. I would love for there to be more programs within these south and west side neighborhoods that will educate more people there, but you won’t get it. You’ll probably on the north side, which is really where I live. You’ll have schools like Walter Payton and Lincoln Park that will have these afterschool programs that will teach kids WordPress or coding or other tech or some form of technology, where these programs do not exist in those communities. It’s people who have small businesses learning WordPress on their own, to maintain their own business really. That’s really the unfortunate part. I feel like that’s why I never knew about this WordPress community as a WordPress user, because I don’t feel like it was ever placed in the forefront of people in my community.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. That makes so much sense. That’s such an amazing insight. God, that just shows how much this country and I mean, plenty of other countries as well. I’ve lived in five different states across this country throughout my 30 years on this Earth. I didn’t know any of that about how segregated Chicago is. That’s really incredible to learn about. Yeah, it makes me wonder if somebody started a Chicago meetup and had it on meetup.com, had it on the WordPress dashboard, how that would go, if people would show up, if it was a virtual meetup and the kind of physical segregation that exists there, wasn’t so much of a concern as far as having to travel to a different part of the city.
Gina Innocent:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. It just makes me wonder how that would go, how that would work.
Gina Innocent:
Yeah. I’m curious to see as well. With the Chicago meetup, I’m very curious to be a part of it just to see how they go about pulling people in. Sometimes people, they just network within their comfort zone, within their circle.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Gina Innocent:
Sometimes that circle is not going to extend to the south side, unfortunately not. The south side is a very beautiful place. We have UIC, which is in Hyde Park. There are really amazing neighborhoods on the west side and south sides of the city. But because of the bad rep of gun violence that the media consistently pushes out about Chicago, it leaves so many people just kind of left in a wind, which is why now that I’m a part of the community, I hope that I can be that liaison that’s just like, “Okay, well I’m out here anyways. I’m at this party anyways, what do you guys do? What is what’s happening here?”
Gina Innocent:
My partner, luckily she’s an entrepreneur. She has her own podcast studio and she’s been a DJ for over 10 plus years. Unfortunately, we are in clubs or parties quite often. There are a lot of networking opportunities, which is why I do know a few graphic designers and WordPress developers through her actually. It’s just like, “Okay, well, why aren’t you guys in this?” They do really amazing work. The artists in this city are mind blowing. The creatives in the city are just inspiring. It’s just like, they should be a part of this community too.
Allie Nimmons:
I mean, not to put you on the spot, would you ever consider starting a Chicago meetup series?
Gina Innocent:
Actually yeah, I would. I definitely would.
Allie Nimmons:
You heard it here first.
Gina Innocent:
I don’t want to step on the meetup group that already exists. That’s my only thing, but yes, I would definitely love to start up a Chicago meetup series and get that going. I feel like, of course I want to get a foundation going on my own first, but yeah, I will do it, definitely.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. I mean, I’m not seeing anything on the, I’m on meetup.com right now, I put in WordPress in Chicago and there’s not a single event on this list. Just saying.
Gina Innocent:
Oh, okay, Allie.
Allie Nimmons:
It looks like there’s an, and I mean, you said you’ve already met a handful of people and if it’s just a handful of people meeting on zoom every couple of weeks or so, that’s all you need to get started, right? That’s the social proof that people are going to be looking for if you might have new people looking to see if they want to join in. If you already have a couple of regulars that are coming in and out, that’s really powerful. That’s very much how the meetups that I would go to in Miami were. There was definitely people that were there almost every single time. Then people would hear about it, either through meetups.com or through the WordPress dashboard and they would just show up. I definitely think that it could be doable for you to do that. I mean, I would love to come. If it’s virtual, I would love to come by.
Gina Innocent:
Okay. You know what, I’m actually going to put some forethought into this and then we’ll see what I can come up with.
Allie Nimmons:
Yay.
Gina Innocent:
Yeah. I guess if I can at least get five people to come, then that would make me happy.
Allie Nimmons:
I think that would be wonderful. We are running a little short on time, but I did want to sort of back to WordCamp Europe. I really want to hear what it was like for you, not only being your first word WordPress event. That’s so incredible. I would love to hear your kind of impressions, especially after your feelings of trepidation at the beginning, but also if there’s anything that you can or feel comfortable touching on, as far as being a black woman in Europe. I mean, I know that at existing while black in America is very different than existing while black in Europe. I’ve literally never been to Europe before in my life. I’d be super curious to know what that was like for you and how you felt.
Gina Innocent:
Being in Europe, it was my first time in Europe as well. Honestly, I can’t say that I can get away from knowing how it feels to be black. I did meet a black woman who is an expat there as well. She was just like, “I don’t feel like I’m black everywhere I go here.” It was like a big weight off of her shoulders. She didn’t feel the stress that she felt like the weight of being black in the US. She didn’t feel that anymore. As far as for me, it was a short trip. Everywhere I felt, I felt like I was a black woman, even though no one’s ever said anything. I don’t feel like I was ever discriminated. I would walk into stores. I did shopping. I didn’t feel anything. Yeah, it was a weight off of my shoulders. I was the American and not the black American. It did feel really, really good to that extent.
Gina Innocent:
After that, I didn’t really feel very much about Europe, or I didn’t notice my skin color outside of my own experiences here in the US, just projecting that in another country pretty much. It was just like, “Oh, it’s because I’m a black person,” even though no one’s… Just a projection out of fear or out of just being used to it here. That’s just from service there. The service was amazing. People were amazing. That was good.
Gina Innocent:
At the camp, at the event, it was okay. It was good. Again, I didn’t notice it or didn’t care to anyways. There were certain times at the events afterwards where I was reminded that I was black, only because the conversation of diversity came up with some people. In those moments it was just like, I feel like sometimes they’ll see someone of color and then they’ll be like, “Diversity, that’s the topic. Let’s keep the conversation going.” It’s just like, “Come on now.
Gina Innocent:
There was this one conversation I had with this young woman. She was really kind and she was really, really nice, but she was discussing her experience about being around black people. I believe she was Russian and how they were extremely racist and she’s never been around black people. She talked about slavery and things like that. It’s just like, “I’m just trying to enjoy this drink. I don’t want to think about slavery trauma.” She just had this focus on just saying her experience with it. I let her have her moment, but also I had to take it back. It was just like, “I understand you haven’t been around us very much and you’re still learning,” because she did admit that she was still learning. It wasn’t something that she was taught about or whatever.
Allie Nimmons:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gina Innocent:
I just had to take that moment back because I was trying to enjoy myself and this is not the conversation I want to have.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Gina Innocent:
She was telling about a story, how she was at a train station and she seen a black man and the black man was offering to help her because she was on the wrong train. Instead of her taking his help, she automatically became guarded and clutched her purse and got off the train. She was like, she didn’t notice the racism in that until years later. It was just like, “Thank you for sharing the story, but honestly, it doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Gina Innocent:
I understand that. The US depiction of black people in other countries, it can be very off putting, even for me. I’m black, but I’m Haitian. I’m the first American born child here. Trust me, I understand how it looks or how this country makes black people look to people of other races or people in other countries, even in countries that are black. There’s been diaspora wars going on for years. Besides that, it was great.
Gina Innocent:
Again, I had a really long conversation with someone within the community. I don’t know if he’s going to feel uncomfortable about me saying the name, but he was just talking to me about the community. I was like, “I’m very excited to learn more about the community, but there’s a topic or there’s consistent topic of diversity. Diversity, diversity, diversity. It almost sounds like it is a hot topic or a trendy topic, to the point where I don’t believe it. Is it for show? Are you saying it because you see someone of color around? What is it?” I want to be a part of the community, but I have to trust that the community is serious about what they’re saying and you’re not just saying it to look good. Just like pride monthly, we’re in June.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Gina Innocent:
Am I going to be your gay flag floating everywhere because you finally got someone of color to join the community? I don’t want that. He was actually very open. He gave some really great insight and he was just like, “Look, I don’t know what anyone else is about, but I know what I’m about and that’s not what it is. Unfortunately just like this world, you will have people who will perceive themselves as one person and they seem like they’re great, but they’ll be the negative or they’ll be opposite of who they really are. With the community, apparently you guys are really great with calling people out and saying, Hey, no, this is wrong, and making sure that they are removed from the community or they’re not someone that has a platform anymore within it.” That has been my biggest fear is just there’s this diversity kick that I don’t want it to be okay. “Yeah, we’re just trying to meet a quota.” I don’t want to be a quota.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Gina Innocent:
Sometimes at some certain events, while talking with certain people, I felt like it was a buzzword and I was a buzzword. I’m just trying to learn more about the community as whole and be a part of it without being the black girl within the community, but just the WordPress user instead.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.
Gina Innocent:
Of course I’m going to always be the black girl, but I want it to be so much more than that and I want it to be genuine.
Allie Nimmons:
Yes, absolutely. I hear all of that. I love all of that. I agree with you that, I mean on everything you said, but there’s particular points in there that are worth highlighting, right? There are a lot of people right now who are learning and they’re learning clumsily. I’ve had so many people, I mean, a friend of mine who, I won’t name names because we are friends now, but it was a very, very strange first interaction. The first time I ever met her in person, pretty much the first thing she said to me was, “What does queer mean?” I had identified myself on Twitter as queer.
Gina Innocent:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Allie Nimmons:
It was just sort of like, I was just taken aback. That’s such a personal, complicated question to just start off with. Yeah, it was the same situation. I just have a drink in my hand and I’m like ready to meet people and like, “Oh, you want to get into this now?” it’s difficult to say, “I respect that you are coming from a good place of wanting to be open and wanting to not be that racist, prejudice, whatever type of person, but you can’t put that emotional labor on me to stop what I’m doing to do that with you right now.”
Gina Innocent:
Right, this is not an educational moment.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. I am not here for your education. I can be if we have that relationship. There’s plenty of my friends, that we’re friends. If they come to me and ask me a question or want to talk about something, I feel as though I can take on that emotional labor because we are friends.
Gina Innocent:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, like in your case with that woman, if it’s a stranger, it’s like, “I don’t owe you this conversation. I don’t owe you this moment for you to feel like I’m going to assuage your guilt, tell you that it was okay that you were afraid of that black guy however many years ago. That’s not fair.” I think that’s one of, kind of the growing pains that honestly, white people in general are going through right now as we’re trying to push through this really painful period where everyone is aware of racism, not just us, but everyone.
Gina Innocent:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Allie Nimmons:
I think that a lot of people in the WordPress community are very aware of this. It is a trendy topic. It is a buzzwordy topic, but for the best reasons, and this is my opinion, right? I can’t speak for anybody else. I think that people are seeing that not only is it preferable, but it is now becoming expected for you to be putting topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the top of all of the things that you do. I think people are learning how to do that as business owners, as entrepreneurs, and all of those things. It’s tough. It’s tough to say, “Well, we want diversity equity and inclusion as part of your regular systems,” right? Just as important as you would consider your marketing or your finances, having diverse teams and people and so on and so forth should be a part of that. You’re right, it does sort of come off as inauthentic.
Allie Nimmons:
It’s difficult. It’s complicated. Again, this is me personally saying this, I would rather companies hop on the trend and do the things that are necessary to diversify our open source community, even if they don’t fully mean it, because we’re the ones that are going to benefit from it. The next generation of diverse people coming into the community will benefit from that. From my experience, I tend to take people at their word. From my experience, nine out of 10 people are genuine in what they’re trying to do. If there’s that one person that’s just doing it for metrics, I don’t always feel like it’s a good use of my time to try to pick that person out. But at the same time, it doesn’t feel great when you feel like a number or a metric or a box to be checked off. That’s never a good thing.
Allie Nimmons:
I think it’s just something that we have to continue to deal with until we figure out that good middle ground and sweet spot that everyone can kind of be okay with. Maybe that’ll never happen. I don’t know. In the past just year, there are so many diversity efforts that have cropped up and began. Yeah, if someone’s doing it for optics, if there’s a company that’s sending diverse people to WordCamps for optics, fine, those diverse people are still going to get those opportunities.
Gina Innocent:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I agree.
Allie Nimmons:
I can kind of give it a pass, but I mean, I’m always glad to see another black person in the community. Sometimes I struggle with that as a mixed race person, as a light skinned black person, if you don’t see my face, I’m basically white passing. I always struggle with seeing a black person be like, “Oh my gosh, yes, there’s another one of us. I want to bring them in. I want to embrace them in all of these things.” Sometimes I wonder if I tokenize people in that regard. That’s something that I have to struggle with and understand and so on. But that being said, I’m super happy to have met you. I’m super happy that you’re on the podcast and I’m super happy that hopefully in the future, you and I can connect on other things diversity related and not diversity related, right?
Gina Innocent:
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons:
We are in this first big wave, I think in the WordPress community of, these diversity efforts and it falls on the shoulders of a lot of us to bear a lot of the emotional burden of that. That’s the way that I’ve chosen to see it, right? If I have to put out some more emotional labor to set up systems and mindsets for people in the future to have it easier than I’ve chosen to do that personally, that doesn’t mean that you have to. That doesn’t mean that anyone else has to. Yeah. It’s a weird confusing time. I mean, I personally have seen the difference in the way that black folks have been treated and appreciated and considered from, just a few years ago till now. It gives me a lot of hope.
Gina Innocent:
Yeah. I have to agree. I have seen a shift. I do see a lot more opportunities. I completely agree with you if me being here, even if it is a diversity pull in or higher, et cetera, et cetera, opens the door for other people who look like me, I’m going to use it, I mean, regardless. I do look forward to working with you in any capacity and building a relationship outside of WordPress. Just getting to know everybody within the community as a WordPress ally, or in that relationship or regards, but also as a friend. I think everyone’s here to get to know people and work better with them and become better people. I’m here to educate as well. I don’t know everything, but I’m here to educate as well. Let’s get some good timing going here.
Allie Nimmons:
Absolutely.
Gina Innocent:
After that, I’m very excited about my journey and experience in this WordPress community. The EU WordCamp isn’t going to be my last. Hopefully I’ll be able to do as much as you have been doing within the community since you’ve been there. Crazy 2017, and we’re already in 2022.
Allie Nimmons:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gina Innocent:
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons:
A lot has happened. All right, we’re going to cut off here, but yeah. Thank you so, so, so much, Gina, for being on the podcast for giving us your time and your amazing thoughts. Let the people know where they can, I like to do the Hot Ones outro, let people know where they can find you, let people know what you got going on.
Gina Innocent:
Yes, you can find me on Twitter, Go, G-O, GinaMarie. You can follow me there tag me. Pretty much on Slack, I am in BlackPress, GoGinaMarie. I am in Ladies of WordPress as well and WordPress Women of Color. So ping me or message me and yeah, let’s connect. Let’s get to know each other. Let’s see what we can create here in this community.
Allie Nimmons:
Awesome. Wonderful. All right, everyone. We will see you next week.
Gina Innocent:
All right, bye.
Speaker 1:
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