What’s missing from the T. Lorenz debacle with Clubhouse and a16z.

When @FeliciaHorowitz started to host these virtual dinner parties, the point was to create an intersection between emerging tech entrepreneurs and black professionals in the creative arts.

Her dinners were never about Power and Money, which is why the stage is populated with everyone from young tech entrepreneurs to famous black celebrities, to people who have zero power or influence.

Felicia has gone out of her way to *consistently* create a safe space that attracts talented individuals in sports, technology, medicine, and media, without marginalizing the people who have a few questions.

What’s missing in the rabid defenses of women and (declaratively) BIPOC is how they hurtfully fail to recognize that these dinners are founded, operated, and moderated, by a black woman.

What missing from these epithets of elitism and privilege is how the most popular Clubhouse conversation is not a Closed Room or a Social Room, but a Room freely open to the public.

What’s missing from the essays on blocking is the psychological safety many black people feel when they see black professionals discuss an important topic through the lenses of their crafts. They’d prefer to not have you “defend them,” right now, while they’re trying to learn.

What’s missing from these gormless busybodies who DEMAND respect is the humility to see how disgustingly condescending it is to the people you believe you are respecting.

There’s an old racist trope that black people are docile, in need of saving and of having simple things *slowly* explained to them. These tattletale hall monitors really believe they are the good guys, because they speak up and call attention to injustice.

You are not the good guys because you hate racism and share your black friends’ comb. You are good when you see a black woman doing her best, bringing people together, and having the decency to give her the benefit of the doubt when she makes a mistake.

You are good when your motivation for attention doesn’t overwhelm the reason why you have it: to call out injustices *and* to recognize when a grave injustice has been corrected. The press did a better job covering the GameStop saga than explaining it. Felicia rectified that.

Everyone is discussing whether a derogatory word was said, and by whom, and all I can think of is how Felicia is likely hurt by the very idea that she might have caused another person harm, as she was helping.

It is a failure of contemporary ethics ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269890055_The_Ethics_of_Gossiping) and of reason ( https://www.sfu.ca/~swartz/use_and_mention.htm ) to malign people in the name of safety—moreover, without recognizing the context of people whom you believe you are charged with keeping safe.