How Allies Create Mental Labor for Underrepresented People

Michelle Frechette:
Welcome to The Underrepresented in Tech Podcast, hosted by Michelle Frechette and Allie Nimmons. Underrepresented in Tech is a free database built with the goal of helping people find new opportunities in WordPress and tech overall. Hi, Allie.

Allie Nimmons:
Hi, Michelle. How are you?

Michelle Frechette:
I am good. How are you?

Allie Nimmons:
I’m good. I keep looking at myself in the Zoom, and I just am … Usually, I have on a bit of makeup. I’ll fill in my brows, put on a little bit of eyeliner, touch of concealer. Today, I am no makeup, my hair is a mess, my headphones had died, and so I’m wearing my husband’s pink cat ear gaming headphones. And I feel like I just look like I’ve had it today.

Michelle Frechette:
I think you look lovely.

Allie Nimmons:
But I don’t, I feel really good, but I feel like I look like it’s been a day.

Michelle Frechette:
Well, we didn’t record last week because you were under the weather. And next week is Thanksgiving, and so we’re probably going to skip next week too, so I feel like this is the mountaintop experience today, is talking to you before the end of the month.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. And we’ll probably do … Realistically, we’ll probably get to two in December because we’ll have a week of Christmas. And then I feel like it’s almost an average of once a month, we end up not recording for whatever reason these days.

Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, whatever reason, yep. Exactly.

Allie Nimmons:
So yeah, wow, we’re nearing the end of the year. That’s significant.

Michelle Frechette:
Woo, crazy.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.

Michelle Frechette:
It is, for sure.

Allie Nimmons:
I’ll let you introduce the topic for today because it was your idea and it’s a really good idea.

Michelle Frechette:
So I was thinking back, I was thinking about a lot of the times all the time because my brain never shuts down and I don’t sleep. But that’s another episode for another day. Anyway, I was thinking back on couple different experiences, one that I’ve had from one side of this topic, and then the other from the other side of this topic. And let me explain a little bit. This summer, well, this year for WordCamp US 2023, I was on the first ever, I forget what we called it, the first ever team for accessibility. That’s the word, accessibility. And as I reflected back over it, the team was made up of people with disabilities. Right? So Alex Stein, blind man, me, wheelchair, and then I don’t want to … Those are people who’ve spoke publicly.
They’re the person and I don’t know if they even have said this publicly, even neuro-divergence. So the three of us, headed up by the team member that led our team was Joe Simpson Jr. as one of the lead [inaudible 00:02:47], and we were underneath his tutelage or purview, I don’t know. I’m struggling with words today, Allie. I will get through this, I promise. Anyway, I thought it was great. It was one of the ideas that I had last year when I published that article, Five Days Without a Shower, was to have a team for, especially for, the big flagship events that specifically focused on accessibility because there is a need for accommodations for people to attend physically, and for people who attend online, of course.
But as a web community, we tend to think of the online part before we remember that public physical spaces and physical events also, people have needs that need to be met. And as I was thinking back over it, I was like, “I love it. I think it’s great.” And I couldn’t say, “No, I’m not going to do it,” and I didn’t want to say no, to be honest. I’m not saying that for that reason. But to have the team made up of all people with disabilities puts the burden of responsibility on people with disabilities. So we need accommodations means that I need to help make sure that we have the accommodations, as opposed to people saying, “Hey, I know how to help with accommodations, let me help make accommodations.”
And so I got to thinking back even further than that to the fact that … Or not the fact that. I was thinking back further to 2020 and the Black Lives Matter movement that was heightened, it didn’t start that year. Right? We all know. But it was heightened that year by the death of George Floyd. And that was the year that my allyship really skyrocketed because I had not been exposed to the need as much, and that sounds crazy, I know, but personally moved to want to, yep, I will alienate friends who don’t agree with me on this. I will alienate people. I will cut off relationships for people who are going to argue back saying, “All lives matter,” and all that kind of crap. Right?
But I was also still afraid because I was afraid I was going to make mistakes. I was afraid I was going to say the wrong thing. I was afraid that … I didn’t care about alienating the right-wing people that were like, “Black lives don’t matter unless all lives matter, blah, blah, blah.” And all that other stuff. Right? But I was afraid of that, but I was afraid that I would say something that my friend, Allie, would be like, “Oh, Michelle, you really put your foot in it that time.” Or that my daughter would be like, “Mom, cringe, delete it.” Right, those kinds of things.
And so I was like, “What am I going to post? What if I post this?” And I said to Talidia, and I said to my daughter, I’m like, “Hey, is this okay to post?” And she’s like, “Mom, I cannot police that for you. I have so many people always asking me, ‘Is this okay? Is this okay? Is this okay?’ I cannot do that for you. You decide what you have to post and you post it.” And then you and she both started recommending book to me like, “You need to read this book and this book, or this book. If you really want to understand better, read these blog posts. Do the research. Do the work yourself to understand how to be a better ally because it isn’t the job of a Black person to make sure that you’re the right Ally, Michelle.” And I was like, “Oh, my God. I had never thought of it that way.”
And you and I have talked about it a little bit over the years, but we have never done an actual episode about the emotional and just the sheer exhaustion that can come from being in an underrepresented group and constantly having to or being asked to be the person to other people that says, “Yes, you can say that. No, you can’t say that. Here, let me educate you. Yes, I’ll make that event. Let me tell you how to make that event accessible for me, instead of you doing the research to find out what makes an event accessible for somebody in a wheelchair.” And so I wanted to talk about that, so I’ve been rambling. I’ll kick it over to you.

Allie Nimmons:
No. I love all of that. And I mean, in a way, so I think of that as … And I think I got this phrase from Jill Binder, as it’s mental labor, mental and emotional labor of when somebody comes up to you and asks you those things, you have to stop what you’re doing, which might be something important, or something that you’re focused on, stop what you’re doing and access your mental capacities, your emotional well, and potentially have a difficult conversation with that person, just off the cuff, out of the blue, when you probably weren’t prepared to do that. When we come on here once a week, I’m prepared for us to potentially talk about stuff that’s uncomfortable, or unpleasant, or whatever. We volunteered to do that. We know it’s coming.
But when you spring it on someone, it’s like, “Okay. I don’t really want to think about George Floyd right now. I don’t want to think about George Floyd all the time.” It’s as underrepresented people, we tend to think about these things throughout the day consistently anyway. You, Michelle, think about how your disability affects your life throughout the day. It affects you, whereas somebody who only thinks about it every once in a while, maybe when they see you, to them it’s not as pervasive, so it doesn’t feel as heavy. So I definitely identify with that, and I think a part of that is why we founded Underrepresented in Tech because people kept asking us to do the mental labor of helping them people for their opportunities. And we were tired of doing that, having to stop what we were doing constantly and doing that for free, and blah, blah, blah.
Specifically with the policing of language, or can I say this, can I say that, if somebody is asking for, I need help understanding something, or I had this experience, maybe I had this argument, and I want to hear your opinion on it, that’s something different to me, even though I do count that still as mental labor and it is exhausting. That’s kind of different to me because that’s learning, whereas if it’s a matter of, should I post it, should I not, that is something that you can figure out for yourself. Your anecdote about your daughter is like … You can go read a book, go read a blog post, and find that answer yourself. It’s not necessarily the same as learning about an experience that is different from yours, from the mouth of somebody who goes through that. That’s kind of different.
And yeah, I think that especially in the world where we live in, which is very online and people are constantly posting things, whether it’s content, or if it’s just a thought in a tweet, I’m happy that people care enough about what they’re saying and that they don’t want to hurt people. But I think that a lot of allies take for granted that part of being an ally is doing a lot of the work yourself. Right? Asking underrepresented people to hold your hand through everything is not fully being an ally because you are not lifting burden off of underrepresented people. You are adding burden onto underrepresented people. I also think that it’s really important to think about the person you’re asking and your relationship to that person. There’s a small handful of people, you included, Michelle, that I will stop what I’m doing to help pretty much every time. Right?

Michelle Frechette:
Mm-hmm.

Allie Nimmons:
Because I usually know that if you’re asking me, it means that you did do the work and you still don’t get it, or you still don’t know, or it’s that complicated, where you’re really just looking for a second opinion. And we do that back and forth with each other all the time.

Michelle Frechette:
Exactly.

Allie Nimmons:
But I’ve had people that I’ve never spoken to, maybe mutuals on Twitter, that I’ve never spoken to have DMed me and asked me. I had this conversation earlier and there was an issue of race came up and I don’t know if I handled it well. Can I hop on a call with you? And I’m like, “No, no.”

Michelle Frechette:
Nope.

Allie Nimmons:
I have no interest in doing that. I appreciate that you want to reflect on that situation. That’s fantastic. I don’t know you.

Michelle Frechette:
Right.

Allie Nimmons:
Here’s a Calendly link. You can book a consulting session with me and Michelle if you really want to do that. But I think that people really take for granted how much time we already spend thinking about this stuff, that we don’t want to do it when we don’t have to. Right?

Michelle Frechette:
Right, right. We’re no educators on demand.

Allie Nimmons:
No.

Michelle Frechette:
We create a lot of content. I create with you here. You have [inaudible 00:11:56] on your own personal blog, a lot of really good allyship things as well, so we do … Together, you and I have put out literally hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of words, hundreds of thousands of words probably between the two of us, educating about underrepresented topics. So to ask somebody, to say, “Hey, I know that you do this kind of work. How do I do X, Y, Z?” I just want to go, “So you don’t listen to the podcast and you haven’t read our blogs. We’ve already talked about this and we already have content about this. And if you actually were doing the work, you’d already know because it’s out there.”

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. We have over 100 episodes, but if you go to underrepresentedintech.com/podcast, our episodes are organized by topic.

Michelle Frechette:
By category.

Allie Nimmons:
If you’re having an issue with accessibility, you can look in the accessibility category and find an episode more easily. We have episodes about allyship, community building, DEI concepts, events, hiring and recruiting, jobs and careers, marketing and language, resources and programs, so it’s not that hard to find an episode where we’re probably talking about the thing that you’re wondering about.

Michelle Frechette:
And we have a whole page of resources as well that we recommend other places where you can go to find the information. And we’re not saying that we don’t want to help because I think that actually, we’ve proven by creating Underrepresented in Tech and all the work that we do. I’ve given WordCamp talks. You’ve given talks. We have done the work and it’s just a matter of you … Not you, Allie. You, the listener, consuming the work that we’ve already done. And that’s not to say that … We always say, “If you have ideas, if you have questions, you can hit us up. We will point you to the resources.” But we’re not going to necessarily take a ton of time out of our own personal calendars to educate your personally. And that’s not a bad thing.

Allie Nimmons:
And it’s not personal.

Michelle Frechette:
And it’s not a slam on you. No, for sure it’s not. But I can point you to resources that can explain it better than I can in a one-on-one caught off guard. The other thing I wanted to bring up is that not only do you not know if you’re intruding on somebody’s time, if you’re intruding on somebody’s say, if you’re pulling them away from other topics, you also don’t know if the question that you’re about to ask somebody in an underrepresented group is triggering for them. Because, just because Allie has a black face, a brown face, different than my ridiculously white face, I’m so pale, it’s that time of year already, but just because we have different pigmentation, let me say it that way. And I’m, what do they say, melanin challenged?

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.

Michelle Frechette:
Is that the word for white people? Yeah.

Allie Nimmons:
Melanin challenged.

Michelle Frechette:
I’m melanin challenged, doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have issues in her past, or I don’t have issues in my past, that the way you ask a question, or the specific question you ask, won’t trigger something that is personal and painful to us.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.

Michelle Frechette:
Right? And I’m not saying that I have a lot of that. I’m a pretty open book. But I still have things that trigger me and I could burst into tears at a moment’s notice sometimes. Right? You just don’t know what emotional burden somebody else is carrying in their head, even if they are an educator, and even if they are open and share about their experiences publicly. You really need to think about what you’re saying to somebody in an underrepresented group about their under-representation and what questions you’re asking, in addition to: Are you asking them to carry your emotional labor for you?

Allie Nimmons:
And I mean, I’ve had people reach out to me and ask, “Do you have the capacity? Do you have the mental labor? Are you in a place today where you could talk to me about this?” And I really appreciate that. And even if I’m not, I feel like I’m more likely to try if somebody approaches it that way because that makes me feel so respected and appreciated that they acknowledge that I may not have the mental capacity, and they’re giving me permission to say no because when you just approach it without that, you’re putting that person in a really uncomfortable position because it is very awkward and upsetting to have to reply to someone and be like, “No. I don’t want to talk to you about that.” It’s not fun. I don’t enjoy doing that.

Michelle Frechette:
Exactly. And there’s a time and place. Right? So if I’m at a WordCamp and I just gave a talk on under-representation, and you want to come talk to me about it because I’m in that head space and that’s what I’m there to do, perfect. Come ask me questions. But if you just DM me out of the blue on a Tuesday and I’m in the middle of other stuff, I’m going to be like, “How do I even respond to this right now?” Because I don’t have the time and energy. I don’t want to be off-putting, but do your research. Listen to the podcast.

Allie Nimmons:
And this happens to so many people. I mean, in our webinar where you talked to the three Black gentlemen, the episode one of our webinar series, they talk about that a little bit, of when you are the he only Black man at a company and things are going on in the world having to do with Black people, it’s suddenly like, well, you now have to speak for all Black people. And yeah, do not put people in that position, just don’t.

Michelle Frechette:
Nope, exactly.

Allie Nimmons:
It’s great to want to learn, but you kind of have to read the social cues from that other person. Right?

Michelle Frechette:
Mm-hmm.

Allie Nimmons:
You work with a Black guy and he’s the only other Black guy there, and if he’s talking about this stuff a lot, if you notice he’s posting about it and bringing that sort of energy to himself, that’s probably a person you can go talk to about it. Most of the time though, I feel like people are just want to come to work and do their job and go home.

Michelle Frechette:
But I’m going to bring up something that you’re going to … I know. I don’t ever speak for you, Allie, but I’m speaking for you and me both right now. Every question in your head about an underrepresented person does not deserve an answer.

Allie Nimmons:
That’s true.

Michelle Frechette:
I have seen people talk to people who are either paraplegics, or hemiplegics, and say to them, “Well, can you still have sex? Or could you go to the bathroom yourself, or do you have a colostomy bag?” That is none of your business. Right?

Allie Nimmons:
Wow.

Michelle Frechette:
That is none of your business. Right? And that’s so personal, it is so personal to ask a disabled person what they can and cannot do. That is not something that should ever pass your lips. You can wonder your entire freaking life, and never get an answer because you don’t deserve an answer to that question. And I’m sure that as an underrepresented person and an ethnic minority, there are questions that you’ve probably had that you’re thinking, “Oh, my God. Why would you ask somebody that?” And I specifically … I, in the past, I’ve seen you places where I haven’t seen you in a while, and I’m like, “I wonder if that’s her real hair or a wig.” And I’m never going to say, “Hey, Allie. Are you wearing a wig today?” Because that’s none of my business. It just isn’t.

Allie Nimmons:
That’s so funny. That reminds me. It brings me to when people, when a woman is pregnant and people feel like they have the permission to touch her stomach.

Michelle Frechette:
Ooh, yeah. No.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. People have this weird thing where it’s like there’s something different about that person, and so it’s almost like those old, I mean, I hate to use this word, but that’s what they called them, those old freak shows, where you’d go to look at people who are different. And that’s what they’re there for, and you’re there to ogle them, and you’re there to ask questions or whatever.

Michelle Frechette:
The bearded lady and all of that, yep.

Allie Nimmons:
Exactly. And so we still kind of have this weird mentality where we see someone who’s different and we want to know all of this stuff, and we feel like we deserve to have access to that because it’s different. It’s so weird. You wouldn’t touch a woman’s stomach if she wasn’t pregnant.

Michelle Frechette:
Right.

Allie Nimmons:
And you wouldn’t ask someone, “How do you have sex?” if they weren’t paraplegic. Why does this suddenly mean that you can invade their personal space?

Michelle Frechette:
Have access.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. It’s extremely unnecessary. And I’ve wondered stuff like that about people before.

Michelle Frechette:
Of course. We’re human.

Allie Nimmons:
I’ve never, ever, ever gone … That’s so embarrassing even to think about asking them something like that. It is so embarrassing. I mean, you’re one of my closest friends. There’s stuff that I wouldn’t ask you because it’s just-

Michelle Frechette:
Likewise.

Allie Nimmons:
It’s none of my business, none of my business.

Michelle Frechette:
Exactly.

Allie Nimmons:
So if you want to ask me about my hair, I don’t have a problem with that. The hair thing, I mean-

Michelle Frechette:
But I don’t have a [inaudible 00:20:44] to that information. Yeah, exactly.

Allie Nimmons:
And I will say, some people are different. Right?

Michelle Frechette:
Mm-hmm.

Allie Nimmons:
I’ve met people who are like, “Yeah, you can ask me absolutely anything. I don’t mind talking about it.” And there’s a section of that conversation which can talk to de-stigmatization. Right?

Michelle Frechette:
Yeah.

Allie Nimmons:
But that is not typical. That is not the norm. That is not the expectation. Right?

Michelle Frechette:
Right.

Allie Nimmons:
I am one of those, I don’t ever want people to touch my hair. But I absolutely never mind people asking about it, partially because my mom used to wear braid extensions all the time. And I remember somebody asking her, “Is that your real hair? Is that your hair?” And she said, “Well, yeah, it’s mine. I paid for it. I have the receipt. You want to see the receipt?” And I always thought that was so funny, so I usually use that as an answer. And I almost want people to ask me about my hair so I can use it as a joke. But that’s weird, I’m weird. That’s not the typical response that people want.

Michelle Frechette:
This is way off-topic and I hope you won’t mind. You can edit this out if you don’t want to share this part of it. But when you and I met up in New York City, and you had blue braids. They were gray and blue braids. And I was like, “Oh, my gosh. I love your hair.” And you took your hat off and you had sewn them into the hat so you didn’t have to worry about it. You were like, “Look at this. They’re not even attached,” and I was like, “I love it.” I’ll tell you what, people stopped asking me if what my hair color was, was my natural hair color when I went purple. Prior to that, all bets were off. They were like, “Oh, is that your natural hair color?” And today it is. Woke up with it.

Allie Nimmons:
Honestly, we can do a whole episode on black hair.

Michelle Frechette:
We could. We could.

Allie Nimmons:
We could talk about the crown act. We could talk about discrimination. We could talk about … Because for a long time, yeah, a lot of women were embarrassed to say that it was their natural hair because the point was to assimilate. Right? The point was to make your hair look more white, air quotes.

Michelle Frechette:
Right.

Allie Nimmons:
But now, it’s sort of like it’s more a form of expression, self-expression, or artistic expression to have whatever kind of hair. So now I feel like the general consensus that people are a little bit less cagey about it. But yeah, we can do a whole episode on black hair.

Michelle Frechette:
We should.

Allie Nimmons:
Because I think it would be really fun.

Michelle Frechette:
Be fascinating, absolutely. For sure. So that was my idea, is we would talk about that, and we did, so that’s very awesome. Yeah.

Allie Nimmons:
And if you have more questions, we do always say if you have questions, let us know. And we may not stop what we’re doing to answer it right away, but we might do a podcast episode about it if it’s something we haven’t talked about.

Michelle Frechette:
Exactly. Yep. We have a contact form on our website. You’re welcome to use that. You can DM us at the Underrepresented in Tech Twitter account, or you can DM my personal account on Twitter. I’d be happy to chat with Allie about anything that comes up. And I just want to redirect you also is that we have the lists of podcasts that we’ve done, like Allie said. And we also have a list of resources, a resource page on our website. And if you need book recommendations, both of us have books that we can recommend to you, so ask us publicly on Twitter. What book would you recommend for this, that, or the other? And we will answer that. Ask us at Underrepped in Tech, which is our podcast, our Twitter account, X account, whatever. And you can go to our website because you can’t remember it. It’s linked on our website as well.

Allie Nimmons:
Is it? Wait a second.

Michelle Frechette:
If it’s not, it will be by the time we go live here.

Allie Nimmons:
It’s on our contact page. We don’t have a link to our Twitter on our website, [inaudible 00:24:36] me, so it’ll be there.

Michelle Frechette:
We’re going to put that on there. [inaudible 00:24:39].

Allie Nimmons:
It’ll be there.

Michelle Frechette:
How funny. I just assumed it was. Look at us.

Allie Nimmons:
It should be. It’s a good assumption you made.

Michelle Frechette:
We’re newbies at this whole web thing, except we’re not.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, I’ve never made a website before. It’s linked on our media kit of all things, but it’s nowhere.

Michelle Frechette:
We’ll put it on our footer or something.

Allie Nimmons:
If you’re listening to this, yeah, it’ll be up.

Michelle Frechette:
Anyway, if you have questions, questions are always good. We encourage them. Just make sure you’re asking appropriately and you’re asking within the right context. Thank you.

Allie Nimmons:
Correctamundo.

Michelle Frechette:
See you.

Allie Nimmons:
See you next week. This episode was sponsored by the following companies, The Blogsmith. The Blogsmith is a holistic content marketing agency for B to B technology brands that creates data driven content with a great reader experience. Visit theblogsmith.com to learn more. Thank you so much to our sponsors for this episode. If you’re interested in sponsoring an episode, using our database, or just want to say hi, go to underrepresentedintech.com. See you next week.