[This article has been updated]

I have a bone to pick with women, specifically brown women, in tech. By now everyone has heard about the drama surrounding , PyCon, SendGrid and fighting sexism in tech. I’m not here to defend Adria’s actions, because I definitely think the entire situation could have been handled differently. But that’s not the point of this article.

This article is about one thing – why aren’t women of color in tech discussing Adria Richards?

I’ve been a fan of Adria’s and Butyoureagirl.com for years. I followed her as she made the big move to San Francisco, conducted various tech related workshops and became a . I really admired her and her accomplishments.

So what happened? Well, I won’t get into specifics because there have been countless articles written on the situation. Some telling Adria where she went wrong, others called her a bully, those who empathized with her situation, a few highlighted the violent backlash and a final comment from Adria herself.

Through all the noise, half-truths and opinions written online, there’s a noticeable silence – where are the opinions from women of color in tech?

Adria has been raked over the coals, threatened with rape, called the n-word repeatedly on her – yet still there is a dead silence.

There are tons of brown women in tech and I have not seen one post, tweet or Facebook status on this subject. Why?

Do we not speak up in fear that we will be the next target of assault? We’d rather stay safe than speak up for an obvious abuse of social media? Have they been living under a rock for a the past week? It’s safe to say it’s possibly a combination of the three. But why does it have to be this way? Why have women of color not spoken up to defend or even distance themselves from the incident?

I have always been outspoken and opinionated. I do not condone how Adria handled the situation, but I can’t pretend like the racist backlash against her is justified.

What’s your opinion?

Update:

After writing this article, it was brought to my attention that there has been conversation online on this topic by women of color. So it’s only fitting that I update the post.

If you are active on Twitter you can use the hashtag to engage other users in conversation. However, I did find that some were using the hashtag to mock the entire situation, so be careful who you confront.

Several blog posts have been written on ForHarriet.com here and here. Popular online magazine for brown girls, Clutch Magazine made their stance known. Dr. Goddess, well known speaker and evangelist for women, voiced her opinion on Twitter  and . BlackEnterprise.com also published an article on the subject.

In addition, other brave women have come  forward their tales of being bullied, victimized and discriminated against within tech related fields.

It also saddens me to know that several outspoken women have been harassed online, stalked and even had their sites attacked/hacked simply for voicing their opinions. So it’s understandable why larger sites haven’t been more vocal. When situations like this happen, it always makes me pause and take a step back.

As much as we like to think times have changed, the world shows us that we still have far to go.