A historically conscious manifesto calling for worker organizing in tech, led by Black and Latinx technologists
What We Build with Power is an urgent call for organizing shared strategies in order to disrupt the tech industry and move toward a more economically inclusive and equitable workforce.
Economic disparities between White, Black, and Latinx workers persist. Activist and organizer David Delmar Sentíes argues that tech is in a position to move beyond empty platitudes and toward an organized workforce that values the economic well-being of Black and Latinx communities.
Delmar Sentíes uses his firsthand experience as the founder of Resilient Coders—a free and stipended nonprofit coding bootcamp that trains people of color from low income communities for careers as software engineers—to highlight how we must identify and dismantle the intentional systemic barriers in tech that are precluding nonwhite people from participating in their cities’ prosperity. He shows how diversity and inclusion initiatives fail, reveals how philanthropic efforts often exacerbate racial inequalities, and argues for a total overhaul of tech culture.
“Through insights from his remarkable nonprofit, Resilient Coders, David Delmar Sentíes offers a provocative invitation to reinvent the tech industry and our economic future.”
—former Governor of Massachusetts Deval L. Patrick
“An incredible breakdown of how oppression and discriminatory systems impact the education and hiring of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. David has provided depth, data, experience, and knowledge in one necessary, easy read that details the whys and hows around how you either contribute to or are a victim of systemic barriers, and where progress needs to be made.”
—Pariss Chandler, founder and CEO, Black Tech Pipeline
“Finally, a leader in tech workforce development confronts head-on the issue of poverty and race in the industry. Delmar Sentíes is a warrior for equity, and he confronts both our assumptions and our biases in a way that rips away the band-aid solutions that we’ve accepted and leaves us thinking about how we can truly bring equity to the field.”
—Sheila Ireland, president and CEO, Philadelphia OIC
“This is compelling and informative reading for anyone who cares about making access to the tech workforce more equitable. If you’re dissatisfied with the status quo, with incremental progress, and one-off victories—and you should be—you will be energized by this book. As a technologist and founder, David brings his expertise and experience to bear, highlighting current practices and laying out pathways toward catalyzing true change. What We Build with Power is calling us to think bigger, to go deeper, and to shake systems in order that transformative economic inclusion and justice can finally take place in tech.”
—Daisy Magnus-Aryitey, co-executive director of Code the Dream
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
Power Consciousness
CHAPTER 2
Workforce Development as a Radical Act of Economic Liberation
CHAPTER 3
Disruption of Self
CHAPTER 4
Disruption of Industry
CHAPTER 5
You Have the Power to Break the Dam
CHAPTER 6
Rebuilding
CHAPTER 7
Big Ideas
Acknowledgments
Notes