I really appreciated this article, but there are a couple things that keep nagging at me (thread)...1/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-21/google-ethical-ai-group-s-turmoil-began-long-before-public-unraveling

-I'm characterized w @timnitGebru as "agitators who weren’t afraid to make waves when challenged." But that's not true. I was v afraid. I was anxious & scared constantly. I didn't want to "make waves": I wanted to be a researcher...2/

And I was shocked from day one that the role I thought I had accepted was not the role that was required of me. I joined as a computer scientist; I was introduced as a linguist. Just days before I was thrown out, a long-time collaborator was surprised to learn I was a CS PhD...3/

...Despite the constant work I did that included statistics, machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and language. The sheer ability of me to converse about language pigeon-holed me as a "linguist" and erased/marginalized my more real qualifications...4/

...within weeks of joining, I was ordered by a UX researcher to work on a specific kind of research with a specific person. I kind of ignored him because...what? He was neither my manager nor qualified. But management sided with him...5/

I tried to explain that I was allowed to define my own research, and indeed was exploding with my own ideas that I came to Google to work on. But it was this that was aggressive. It was this that did "make waves". I was immediately treated as insubordinate...6/

As someone who has been a peer reviewer for over a decade, I was very good at reviewing peer work & commenting substantively in docs. It was this that "made waves". My reviews weren't "Googley" enough. I started paying close attention to how all the women around me made spoke..7/

What I found was that they apologized all over themselves. They used the word "just" a lot; they hedged any comment to convey that maybe they didn't know what they were talking about. They acted peppy or happy, or else were very quiet....8/

I tried so hard to fit into this mold. I began copy+pasting how other women talked to try and make me sound like it. But I wasn't good enough at it. Writing objective emails like, "Okay, let's meet then" was aggressive and antagonistic. I began apologizing as much as I could...9/

But still I wasn't good enough. As I watched women who were more similar to me be treated way below their worth, I began asking to include them. It was this that "made waves". It was this that was un-Googley....10/

Intense and hostile territorialism began to rain down on me as my papers were accepted where my L7+ superiors' papers weren't being accepted. I watched as they maneuvered their seniority at Google to try to assert themselves as the leaders in the area, including excluding me..11/

I felt alienated, and scared, and anxious. And I tried to stand up for myself. And no one would listen. The groupthink about how someone who looked like me should behave was so thick it didn't seem people could see past it. It was this that "made waves"...12/

All I wanted was to be the researcher I had worked my entire career to be. This made me insubordinate. This "made waves"...13/

I didn't WANT to make any waves. I just came into Google with the apparently very wrong-headed idea that I would be treated as a full person and scholar the same way my male peers were. It was wrong of me. I was wrong. 14/

And so I would go give talks, and publish, and be treated with so much respect externally it was jarring and overwhelming. Didn't they KNOW I didn't really have value? Hadn't they HEARD? I enveloped myself in what Google thought of me and how Google wanted me to behave. 15/

And still was harmed even further. Reported to Ethics & Compliance for trying to hire an overqualified Black woman. Regularly reported to HR for who knows what (I was never told; I just was told that I was basically hated no matter what I did)...16/

So I spoke up more, because I would lose any way. I was treated with hostility when I succeeded. But for all of the Googley modes of behavior I picked up, I would not give up being an external researcher...17/

It was this that "made waves". I tried so hard to always, always do the right thing. But I didn't say it "in the right way". An email spent hours on trying to craft just right to be true and friendly was called a "tantrum"...18/

Eventually I became numb to it. Eventually I "made waves" when all I felt was an alienating hostility, and I needed and wanted help. I cried out for help. I told hundreds of Googlers on mailing lists how I struggled with pain and fear. This "made waves". The problem was about me.

Even writing this, I am filled w Google anxiety bc I represent myself above as a qualified reviewer. I'm just trying to explain where I'm coming from & give the context, hoping ppl might be less upset by my actions. But ultimately clarifying would just further harm me.