The Los Angeles .NET Developers Group Cancels Juval Lowy Appearance

Juval Lowy is the name of a .NET luminary who first came to my attention via .Net Rocks! It is a name misspelled by me in the recent past. It was going to cost $50 bucks to see him speak here in Los Angeles until this comes into the Inbox:

I am sorry to inform you that the Saturday, January 13, 2007 event has been canceled due to lower-than-expected enrollment. All payments will be refunded as soon as possible; your account should be credited by early next week. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

This cancellation was unexpected. These are the reasons why my powers were not going to send me to the event—in any event:

$50 bucks. Even my ego sees no gratification in spending $50 to see anyone. Back in my twenties, to go see the theatre, to impress an Imperial girl—or now, in my thirties, to go to the theatre to educate my children, spending $50 or more bucks is feasible. But in this world of the podcast, there is no incentive to spend money on this sort of event.
Weather. It’s freaking cold this month! The information coming directly from my body overrides what any of you Europeans and colored New Yorkers have to say: it’s too damn cold to venture out to go see some bloke speak—especially about computer technology. I know you guys are laughing about, “You don’t know what cold is…” That’s why you artic tech guys can make more money than me—you can stand the cold! Unlike most of you Okie rubes, I’m a native Californian with strong African features. Prepping myself for something like snow is a joke—you take your monkey ass to Mount Baldy! The people who lived here before Columbus might go to Palm Springs for the winter.
$5 bucks. I was put off by attending previous ladotnet.org meetings because they actually asked me for money. Since my career took off during the Dotcom Bubble, it is very hard for me understand why IT people would charge money or ask for donations to cover the expenses of these meetings. But this is just another ghetto-kid misconception of the great white world. Ghetto kids just assume that any dude with a white-collar job is rich, instead of a high-income, low-net-worth individual. Ghetto kids need real reality television.
Family. My coworkers are not my family. My tech-club associates are not my family—let alone my friends. My career did not take me to a far away city to become a disconnected, suburban, home-owning stranger, trying to skype together some semblance of “community.” My actual, old-fashioned, ultra-ultra orthodox conservative family ties prevent me from venturing out in cute little outfits whenever the need strikes. No, I’m just a renter paying for fossil fuels in grand, stupid, idea called a “city” trying to keep a mismanaged roof over my head in some of the worst traffic jams in the entire world.To my knowledge, the Los Angeles .NET Developers Group provides no downloadable sound recordings or videos of their live events. This betrays a form of poverty my ghetto experience once reserved for self-described “Black” organizations. It is a sign of a leadership that is out of touch with the mainstream of contemporary technology—or, worse, it is a sign of leadership deliberately “specializing” in live events for artificial reasons related to power, control and some petty profit. So it is ironic that they would ask me to pay money to be in their presence—or, worse, they assume that it is a service to me to attend their live events because I am somehow unable to navigate around, say, dnrtv.com, ITconversations.com or Channel9 on MSDN.

Networking? Now even a white guy working in the tech industry would eventually tell you that when tech geeks meet strangers they assume they are complete idiots. So much for American optimism! So imagine what happens when they meet non-whites—even people from India and China! You can sense they think you are a complete idiot by the way they answer your question—where they choose to establish context (from level 0 or level 7—many choose -5). There is always an acute sense of hierarchy in the patriarchal tech world. It takes tremendous amounts of energy to provoke these people to consider the possibility that my melanized technical experience could be of assistance to them—and even more energy to make the expectation that people should pay a premium for it. I’m not saying this feat is impossible—I’m telling you I am not a whore.

Now when I was first starting out as that ghetto kid I mentioned earlier, I could sense how secure I made the white (and Asian) guys feel when they knew I did not know shit and they had to explain the ways of world to me. Damn near 15 years later no one speaks to me in the same secure way because things done changed, baby… It is almost impossible for me to escape the description “arrogant” in the same manner any gainfully-employed, urban woman with any form of self respect can’t escape the word “bitch.” I suddenly make another “victim” when I ask a question they are unable to answer. Many make desperate attempts to reduce my query to the absurd until they find a person they see as an authority ask the same question and suddenly it’s not so absurd.

There is no preexisting, default respect in me to be “patient” with these boys being boys. I did not play Token on South Park—when white boys speak of their “black friends” this is the archetype they usually (unknowingly) refer to. My parents did not raise me to be the “only Black,” sidekick, mascot, lonely-one-desperately-trying-to-fit-in to get basic (and even sub-human) human contact. I grew up on 1355 W. 70th Street. I can’t make you understand what that means when that show did not come on television. August Wilson spent his entire life trying to get strangers who think they know of me really understand where we come from… I respect August Wilson’s life’s work and anything more that I can contribute to “building bridges” would ironically pale in comparison…

When I did not know shit, I was courageous and secure enough—and respectful enough of the divine truth to admit I did not know shit (thanks Mom). I have been a very, very excellent student. I am egocentrically proud of my ability to learn quickly and ask the correct question. It is a profound insult to be associated with insecure political appointees who are—in extreme cases—sexually charged with the knowledge that he knows something that you do not. This is the shit that gets most people in Washington out of bed in the morning (in Redmond and the District of Columbia). It’s the shit that keeps the newscasters reading bullshit in whore makeup on Tee Vee. I can safely say that I hate that taking-pleasure-in-other’s-ignorance shit and it deeply offends me when there is even the slightest (sometimes-mistaken) suggestion that I play colonial, missionary power games like this. It hurts me to the core of my being when some scarred Black woman preemptively accuses me of this shit—but don’t get me started there…

I say all of this to say that the Los Angeles .NET Developers Group is probably an excellent networking and socializing resource for others but it’s not for me… I’ll catch Juval Lowy in my next digital download.

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