Tech Workers Watch In Silent Complicity as Their Co-Worker Gets Hauled Away
The second day of MS Build proved just as eventful with another brave demonstrator risking his life and livelihood to fight for human rights, while his colleagues watch in silence.
This morning I watched a video that left me with a deep sense of shame and disbelief.
It was a glimpse into what went wrong with our society and how it has taken a turn for the worse.
I’m talking about the Palestinian demonstrator who bravely spoke up for his people, while his colleagues - maybe even a few friends - watched in an insipid silence as he was brutally pulled out of the room.
“Jay! My people are suffering!” cries the unnamed tech worker, cutting across Jay Parikh, head of CoreAI, as he rambles on about the multiverse. “Cut ties! No Azure for apartheid! Free, free Palestine!”
One colleague puts his head in his hands, another grimaces in embarrassment, several look away or down at their phones.
But no, they’ve got it backwards.
They are the ones who should be ashamed, they are the ones the world will soon look away from in embarrassment.
This video bothered me so much because if my life had taken just one different turn, I could have been sitting in that room. I may have watched just as silently as this brave man has his say, I could have just as easily not read about Palestine, Gaza, or been just as clueless about the genocide.
The What If scares me just as much as watching the audience in this video. The people at the conference could be ones I had studied with, worked with, maybe even shared a couple of drinks with. How could people who are so smart technically be so unaware of what’s going on? How dare they be ashamed of the demonstrator when instead they should be ashamed of Microsoft, of Azure, of powering a genocide that is wiping out an entire ethnic group?
This video reveals two worlds that middle and upper-middle class workers inhabit. One (and exactly one apparently) with an understanding of class politics, labor rights, colonialism and social justice. And the other which still believes that if they keep their head down, listen to the boss, and willingly laps up whatever the C-Suite, the HRs, and the mainstream media want to push down their throats, then they will be okay. That they can continue living their comfortable lives with their fancy cars while the world burns around them.
Some of them may be on visas, and fear that they will be fired, or deported, if they speak up. I empathize with that group, truly. It’s hard to stand up for truth and justice when you yourself are a second-class “temporary worker“.
Maybe you didn’t have the guts then to stand up in support, maybe you just didn’t know what the right course of action was.
But it’s still not too late. If you are a Microsoft employee support your colleagues at No Azure for Apartheid, they are fighting a brave battle on multiple fronts. Sign their petition. Read about the Israeli take over of Gaza and their practice of settler-colonialism that have spanned decades to culminate in this moment when over 14,000 babies are on the brink of imminent death.
Reach out to your Palestinian and Muslim colleagues. They must be feeling alone and disenfranchised, especially after viewing this video.
Be brave. America has slid into a competitive authoritarian regime and this time, it’s powered not just by its oil and coal but also by tech and AI.
As tech workers one will learn sooner or later that it’s better to be on the side of the humanity against billionaire bosses, than keep working like diligent robots until the next layoff gets you too.
Joe Lopez, another brilliant demonstrator who interrupted Satya Nadella on Day 1 on the MS Build conference, summed it up grimly in his company wide letter, “If we continue to remain silent, we will pay for that silence with our humanity.”