Freedom and Accountability

as jokes at the expense of transgender people. But if you listen to democracy issue, you know that my co host Urey and I discussed this in a bit of detail last week, and I had the opportunity to bring on one of the former former trans employees at Netflix who recently made headlines because the media company decided to yes fire them. Be pagals Minor, will join us in a bit to talk about their experience at Netflix as a black trans person and to talk about just in

general their experience in the world of tech folks. I am so excited to welcome to wok F Daily for the first time be pagals Miner, whose name you may have heard and know in affiliation with Netflix's current scandal. With regard to the fact that there has been considerable pushback on Dave Chappelle's special The Closer, and you have found yourself at somewhat of the center of that issue.

But before we jump into where things are now, I want to talk about your experience at Netflix as a black trans person and what kind of environment and kind of culture has been present at Netflix that brings us into this present moment. Yes, you know, it's actually really interesting, and I think I said this a lot. I actually chose Netflix because I thought it was going to be one of the best possible experiences for me as a black trans person. So before I decided to join up Flix,

there's a few things around my mind. Obviously, you know, I've worked in tech for a very long time, so I wanted to make sure I got great k But like you know, when I first, before I even started, I knew I wanted to have a child. I knew I was going to have gender confirming surge of surgery, and so Netflix checked the boxes from a benefits perspective.

And then the manager who actually recruited me, one of the things I liked best about my experience with him was that he asked me, for instance, at our very first meeting, you know, what are your pronouns, and you know, I was like my pronounder days of theirs. And he also happened to invite me there on the same day as a black out of it. So he took me down to get a plate of food and I'm gonna sill tell you that food was real good. You know, black folks know how to eat. And I was just like,

this is this is a very seamless recruiting experience. And then, obviously, just because I do my be diligence, I also asked to be introduced to people who had had my role, as well as other black at members and transfer members. So I did talk to a number of people before I started to figure out if it was going to be a very safe place for me. And I do think that overall, my experience Netflix was one of the

best experience I've ever had professionally. You know, I felt much safer at Netflix than I typically felt anywhere else in my tech career, and I also hope that Netflix gets back to that experience. How long were you at Netflix? So how from from the moment of the of the good plate of food at the ERG to your I guess expulsion firing being let go? How long. How long have you been there? So I started in March twenty twenty.

I was actually part of the first COVID cohort, so I would in the one day and the next day we're closed. But yes, I started March twenty twenty and my last day was October fourteen, so approximately one year and seven months. So you chose Netflix, like you're saying, because you felt safe, because you felt seen right as somebody, And you know, can you talk a bit too, because I'm part of I'm an advisor at an organization called

Lesbians Who Tech and Allies. And one of the things that you know is spoken about often is the fact of how little diversity there still is in tech, how difficult it is for people that are from the LGBTQ community and those that are also black and brown folks to navigate a very broish culture, a culture that is not affirming in any way. And so the reason behind you choosing Netflix was because of their openness and just your experience overall. What was your experience overall in tech

proper before you went to before you went to Netflix. Yeah, first of all, shout out to Lesbian's Who Tech. That's actually one of the first places I ever spoke at, and so it was a very foundational experience for me. But so this is the thing that's interesting. So one of the difficulties of working in tech is that I said it was safer than any other company I had

worked at. And so there's a nuance there because just because it's safer doesn't mean that it's actually where it's supposed to be if you actually want a place that

supports LGBTQ plus people, black people, Latin X people, Asian people. Also, from an international perspective, the company was rapidly expanding, and so if you think about it, the you can culture and so you can't stand for the United States and Canada drastically different than what's going on the LASTAMP, drastically different than what's going on in me a drastically different

that was going on an apack. And I was uniquely situated to understand that complexity because I was the elected leader of both Black app which is one of the largest ergs at Netflix, and I also was a part of elected to be the co lead for trans Start, which is one of the smaller ARGs but a very

powerful voice. And so what would happen is is that the people who are part of these ards would come to me constantly about their experiences, and so I would hear like everything from oh, this is the most heartwarming, best story ever, like your manager is so great, to holy crap, what is going on over there? Like why is this happening here? And so that's part of this conversation too. You know, everyone seems to think that this is about the special, but it's not about the special.

It's about externally, what kind of content is being put out there, and how can we make sure that content represents diverse lives and specifically for trans start trans lives, And if you were to ask me from the black perspective, also black lives right, especially dark skinned lives right, darc and black people's lives. Like every single employee who was a diverse person, I bet that if you actually asked them, they would say racially, not really hitting the mark on

some of our content, based on my experiences. So that's one part of it, and the second part of it is from an internal perspective, it's like, oh, like you know, Netflix is safer and better than pretty much every other company we've worked at. However, because of the Netflix culture values and concepts, like freedom and responsibility. Like freedom and responsibility essentially says that you're supposed to do what's best for Netflix, Like that's one hundred percent what it is.

Is like, even if it's not like a being on the bean path type thing that someone else may do, you have the freedom and the responsibility to go out and do that thing because it's the best thing for Netflix. However, one of the things I noticed in my capacity is rd LEAD is that that concept was misapplied or applied

differently depending on certain types of people. And in fact, one of the big arguments that I'd had with many people, when I'd brought up many times is is that it needs to be taken from freedom of responsibility to freedom

and accountability. Right, you know, if someone if if a colleague does if one colleague does this and they're a white sister and or man, and another colleague does this and that as a black sister and or woman, and she gets fired because someone says that she used to use bad judgment even though she was working within the funeral responsibility a spectrum, and he does not, then there's

a problem with the company. And so ultimately it's this internal battle saying if these cultural values are true, they need to be applied the same way to every single person who works in Netflix. And that makes sense, you know, And that makes sense because I think that I think across industries there is a reckoning that is happening right now. There, I believe, and I've had continue to have this conversation with different folks about there being a workers a worker's

revolution that is happening right now. There are so many different strikes, different walkouts that are being experienced right now that large corporations are trying to figure out, well, what are what do we do? And you know, what do we do we treat people with dignity and respect? What

do we do we pay people what they're worth? Like, there's a reason why this is collectively happening as we're still grappling with a pandemic that cost people a lot of not only their lives but also their livelihoods and people and having the time right whether privileged time or not, to recognize, you know, I'm not treated well, I'm not paid enough for this type of for this type of abuse, right um. And I think two particularly, we look to we look to big tech right as as the barometer

by which different firms and companies should be acting. It was the open campus model came because across different industries because of big tech, like you know, being able to give your employees different types of benefits right that would help them feel valued and seen that came from Silicon Valley and this approach to how do we get the best talent right? And then recognizing well, when we say best talent, who were we actually talking about when the

diversity is not is not there across the board. I want to switch gears now to the present moment that Netflix has itself in. When you first saw or heard about this Chappelle special, what were your initial reactions? Yeah, so you know, a few days before the special came out, I got an email basically giving me a heads up saying the special is coming out, and I was just like, oh, is it like typical? You know? I was like, you know, I know it's going to be some stuff that people

in my community won't like. And also, to be clear, so I identify as trans, non binary, but I also was socialized as a black woman, right, and so I have a lot of empathy and I get very upset when people disrespect black women. And so that's another reason for me for the special. I was like, is he also got talking about women in a derogatory manner like those those types of things, And they're like, yeah, kind of.

And and then came out and the special came out on October fifth, and I didn't I didn't watch it at the time, but on October sixth, that's when we started seeing like the news reports and then you know about like the turf mentioning turf uh mis gendering people. And so then a bunch of us actually looked at the transcript because you know, one of the things about working in company like Netflix is you don't want to watch it, right because you're feeding into the algorithm, you're

feeding into the number of views. And so we read the transcript and we were frankly horrified, right, I mean, he actually starts off with like something that's borderline anti semitic, and then you know, he just kind of continues to go and offend as many different groups as you possibly can and then spending like a large portion of it on transphobic content. Um and it might take was, wow, this is so much worse than I could have ever imagined, Like, you know, this is it's like if the last special

was not good. This special is just like, Holy cow, how did we not think strategically about what this might actually do to the internal and external reputation of Netflix? Hm? Hm, you know there there has been so much commentary, uh

since the special has aired. Um the cover that many people want to provide comedians because they are positioned, you know, in society as the jester for you know, for for for all intensive purposes, the jester that brings to light and saw finds the blow in many ways of a lot of societal ills, right, things that we will not talk about or that are uncomfortable to talk about. If you put a laugh track to it, it makes it easier to digest. What's your response to that argument around

Chappelle's special? So, first and foremost, you know, I talk to other people who typically like his specials, and some of the things they said was this didn't feel as funny, right, And because that's why I hesitate to say it myself, because like, the last time I really liked a lot of Chappelle stuff was to Chappelle the first two seasons

of Chappelle Show. So like, I'm not obviously the audience for his specials, but talking to other people, they were like I really struggled with it, Like I was just like, can you make some jokes? Like why are we still talking about you know, trans people, right? And these are people who like to laugh with him, and so for me, I just thought, I was like, how are you missing

the point here? And also, as a part as a proud member of the LGBTQ plus community, I could go to a drag show every night and hear way more controversial, inappropriate things that will have me peeing in my seat because it's hilarious. Because we know that comedy can be great, especially when you know what you're talking about. Now, when you know what you're talking about, you can make something. So you can make something so terrible and difficult and uncomfortable and say it in such a way that I

will laugh. At the same time, questioned myself like maybe why am I laughing? Yeah? You know, but it's like, but that's the thing, and that's where that's what we want, right, Like we want this comedy to be so amazingly done that we laugh, right. And so you know, one of the biggest parts of the special that I thought was missing is and and is that you know, I'm black

and I'm trans. I'm black and I'm a lesbian. You know, the Special seems to have this supposition that the LGBTQ plus community is essentially adjacent to the white supremacist community, so LGBTQ plus means white and that trans people, and then separately that the civil rights movement the black people somehow are being hurt completely by the LGBTQ plus movement.

And I'm like, well, in that case, then by the trans of property, I am being destroyed by both movements, right, because at no point does he acknowledge that people like me even exist, right, And I think that that's one of the things that also again when you know what you're talking about, perhaps that could have changed his entire set because he would have been like, well, but you know,

I know, people like be exists. And because of that, I probably need to think about this more strategically, about the overarching point that I'm trying to make so that I can actually be funny and well said in this special versus completely ebracing this super the super small group of individuals who are harmed a much higher rate than virtually every other community in this country. Yeah, I you know,

as as a black lesbian. I'm watching this special and there was one point where I was just like, so, do you not understand that people live at multiple intersections of identities? And you know, while you can be I will say that he was valid in saying that they're like, oh, can gay people be racist? But in his mind he was really thinking white gaze? Can white gaze be racist? But instead of he was making gay synonymous with whiteness,

which is largely part of the problem. And what invisibilizes the rest of us, right is when is when that assumption is made from the jump? And you know, I what also stood out for me, and I want to ask you this was this this feeling that it was necessary to establish a hierarchy like the oppression the oppression Olympics, right, and to do it again without any nuance or understanding of those that live at the intersection of multiple communities. And so I'm like, of course, there's racism in the

lgbt Q plus community. I have worked in this movement for well over a decade. I can tell you firsthand stories about like where the money comes from, and like who gets to decide what is important and who is important and when money drives up in one area. Why that is and who are some of the most transphobic people that I've come into interfacing with our other members of the LGB community that are some of the most

transphobic people. And again, if you have a deep understanding, more so than the shallow puddle from which I believe he was operating from, then you would be able to have a lot more your jokes would be sharper, right exactly, exactly, like if nothing else, Like I would like to hang out with Dave Chappelle so that I could educate him, so that he really can make me laugh, right right, Like that's the whole goal, Like, you know, how do

we educate people? And that's the whole point, because like it was never about taking down the special it was about creating purity and content so that people could understand the context for which he was talking. Like for instance, you know, I've spent a lot of time explaining the term turf to people, you know, over the past week, and they were like what they were like, is this the grass? I was like, no, it's not the grass.

It's not this is like these are trans exclusionary radical feminists and what's dangerous about these people, and what's dangerous about someone like Dave Chappelle endorsing them is the simple fact of one, they don't think trans women or women. They think many trans men and trans mont binary people are just like confused women who have been harmed or hurt in some way and can't make their own adult decisions,

which is like very strange to me. And then they also have they literally tear women down to this concept of like menistruation or being able to biologically have a child. And we know every single day people who are born as women are also particular, there's a lot of women who are also born who can never have children. So does that mean that any of those women are not women? Right? And so this ideology is not only harmful to the

trans community, it's harmful to the overall women's movement. Right. The women's movement is being set back by this unintelligent conversation that's happening from this group of people who are full of hate. And so that's the type of nuance. Like I would love if Netflix, you know, founded, like you know, found a documentary that maybe already this or commissioner documentary that explain terms, you know, I would love

to see a POSE esque show on Netflix. Give me six seasons of a show that that's like Pose on Netflix, and maybe I would like I would just be like, you know what, I didn't even get mad about the Chappelle's Special because there's a there's another piece of content that I can go to that I can point people to that shows trans lives in the fullness of trans

lives right there. And that's the real point of this is that you cannot show one side of it that it's wrong, like right, cannot cannot say that enough it's wrong, it's inaccurate, it's not the right information, and then not also show the competing side. I mean, we do it for presidential elections. You can't. You can't have one person from one party, one person who's running for an office, on one channel and not give the other person or

other people the chance to speak their peace. And all were asking is for media companies to invest in that. So talk to talk to me about UM, the walkout that that happened and the important list of demands that were that were put up UM to the two Netflix to the president of Netflix. Yeah, so first and foremost, UM,

initially it was not going to be a walkout. So initially it was just supposed to be a trans date of rest, like an opportunity for you know, the trans people who had been deeply affected by this, because I could tell that it was a major emotional, you know, toll on people. Um, it was supposed to just be you know, at the trans day of rest, and then our colleagues who were not trans were supposed to educate themselves and look at different ways to support the trans community.

But the problem is then all of Ted's emails came out and text emails were progressively worse and worse and worse. And so then I took a vote of the trans you know community and asked them, hey, you know, I'm starting to think maybe this should be a walkout. What do you think? And it was an overwhelming vote saying yes, you know, we think that that, you know, we would

like to have this be a walkout. And then so on October fourteenth, at about like, you know, three or four pm, I posted in the public channel saying, hey, f why this is now a walkout? This is why, you know, we feel like we need to walk out, And that's how it became a walkout. So why were you fired, or why do you why do you why do you believe that Netflix terminated you after a year and seven months. So I will say that this is

what they told me. So October fourteenth, I said, hey, let's have a walkout, and then by seven pm that day I was terminated for essentially what they said was the likelihood that I leaked sensitive and confidential information and was this the president's emails? No, that this is the data the data in the Bloomberg article. They were like, it's likely that you did, because you you access this information.

And my response was yes, I did access that information in support of the initiatives that we were putting together to support our argument for diversifying the content on Netflix. Now, what's really interesting is is in that conversation they were like, well, but we also saw that you forwarded other emails in

different times outside of Netflix. And I was like, are those all too, Alissa Pagels And they were like, yeah, well or they didn't necessarily say yeah, but they were like, I mean we could double check, and I was like, that's my wife. I was like, I forwarded those emails to my life and and and at the time they were like, oh, by the way, it's a fireball offense to afford any email that Netflix sends, period and it's like, we are you aware of that? I was not aware of.

This was awhere, not that I know of. Like, you know,

so I have an attorney. Now my attorney is like, I don't really understand how they came to this conclusion as well, because like, for instance, they were like and so I like, for instance, I even said back to them, I was like, well, but like you know, sometimes you guys will invite us to events and you know, you say, hey, like you can go to this movie premiere, so you're saying I shouldn't afford it that email to my wife asking her if she wanted to go with me, you know,

and then you know, uh, you know, there's sometimes where they would say, do you want to watch this show and give us feedback to make sure the show is going to be good? And I afford that to my wife and said do you want to watch this show because you had to sign up and she would say yes or no. I was like, so I wasn't supposed to do that. You know, if a complimentary email came from one of our executives and I thought it was great, and I afforded to my wife and said, look at

how great this email was. I wasn't supposed to do that either, Like, it didn't make sense to me that all of a sudden, all of these things that I just did in my normal course of business that often again we're often complimentary if netflix were fireable, and that there had never been an example of what you could be fired up for provided to me. And you know, I think this really comes back to this idea, like no rules, rules is a great concept until until things

come up. Because I talk to other people and I won't name names, so I talk to other people. I was like, have you ever done any of these things? And they were like yeah. I was like, so basically we all should be fired because we were all breaking these types of rules, you know, And I think that's the that's the issue, you know, Like you know, and this goes back to the freedom responsibility and changing that

to accountability. You know, you can't tell someone that they have the freedom to be transparent and do all these different types of actions, but then when that person does something that you don't like, all of a sudden, they become a problem. Because I mean, so then the question would be was it then not within the scope of your position to access the data that you access to begin with. I mean, as far as I know, if you have access to something, you can access it like that.

I mean, that's as far as I know, you know, And also that it was if it had been restricted, then you wouldn't have been able to access it in the first place. Correct. And I'm not, to be clear, I'm not advocating for Netflix to change its policies to block things down. I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is is that this felt weird.

It felt really really strange. And actually, in my previous role, so my most recent role was Game Watch Operations program Manager, but before that, I was a senior data product manager and I manage finance and membership data, which are two of the most important pieces of data that you could

possibly deal with in Netflix. And in fact that that that job was so stressful because I would know weeks or months ahead of time whether we were probably going to miss how many you know, members we were supposed to have, how much money we made, and that is so much more sensitive than going on to a page and seeing, you know, what movie are we going to

release for instance. So and I know, I don't want to get into the legalities of it, because you obviously have a case that is, you know, that is pending. What are the feelings of let's say, the employees who are trans who are also allies, what happens if the demands that are presented are not met? Where where do you think where do you think that this goes? Yeah,

so it's really interesting. So one of the things I really appreciated about the allies that were a part of this movement is that they were a little scared, like they were a little pissed off too, right, And it really came back to like a few different ideas. So first and foremost it was this idea that you know, the emails were very strange. They seem to be shutting down the sense and that's not a core Netflix value.

They were also really upset because especially around those comments around harmful content, because like I think, no matter who you are, like we all agree that there are certain types of content that you wouldn't show to certain types of people. That's why you have PG thirteen, That's why you have rated art, that's why you have rated NT seventeen. So it's well, it's well litigated that content has an

impact in the real world, right. And I think the third thing about that was about reputation, right, Like it is ward for Netflix to think about the type of concept that we put out there. So I do think that no matter what, there's a little bit of a cultural rightning that has to happen to discuss what does it look like for Netflix to move forward and how it will actually handle these types of situations in the future.

So that's first and foremost. Secondly, in terms of the ass not being met, I'm not sure how that's gonna look, right, I'm not sure how allies especially are going to feel about that because the ass like almost everyone thinks the asks are very reasonable, right, And Netflix has the history of saying we're going to invest in this potential, this particular pipeline of talent to help grow this particular category

of content. For instance, like there's like there's a one for black and Latin X people are already when COVID first started, they started creating these huge funds for creations across the world, So it's not that dilearched concepts that

already exist, right. And then like one of the one of the other things is about actually, you know, investing marketing into trans you know content like so, for instance, many people think that Disclosure had a chance of potentially being nominated for an oscar, but Netflix didn't actually put a lot of power behind promoting it. Right, So these are all very reasonable, simple asks. And so I do think in my columns question, why wouldn't you want to

do at least something here? Right? Um, So that's that's my take on it. I hope that you know, I'm I'm being a little too pragmatic and like Netflix actually decides to take a dive in and really try to do um some some some bigger left there. But at the same time, you know, I've been very shocked by a lot of what Netflix has done over the past couple of weeks. These are things that I didn't expect

from this company. Um and and and you know, I'm I'm usually pretty good at predicting things, and so it's been very surprising to me the ways in which they've moved. Do you feel like, because of this termination and because of how public it is and has become, that you're going to be some in some way, shape or form

blacklisted in your industry, So it's really interesting. So first and foremost Netflix is a media company, but I'm a technologist, right right, So I do think that that helps, Like if I it could be that if I wanted to work in another media company, there could be issues. But you know, I'm going to end up being hopefully a product manader program manager a tech company, and I think it's a little bit different there, right, you know, from

from that perspective. And I have reached out, well, my network has reached out to me, and there's a lot of people who have nothing but complimentary things to say about how much they loved working with me throughout my career.

So I'm very hopeful that this is just simply a lesson for Netflix and that people remember the quality of my work for the past decade in technology and that I don't have issues, you know, and if I do have issues, if nothing else, I get to loudly say, hey, by the way, there's a lot of stuff going on here that we should really talk about and address and

try to figure out how to fix, you know. I just I have to say that one, I commend you for the conversations that you have been having that are so much far beyond oh, just take down the special, right, because taking down the special isn't getting to the heart of the heart of the matter, right, which is to your point, initially about accountability, about responsibility, about representation that is on par with the you know, the good and

the bad, right, giving that exposure, creating those pipelines. And I think that in these many large companies from Facebook to Netflix, Google and you know and all of them, that they're very tight lipped and you don't really know what's going on internally, and then when you get to see that, when the curtain is pulled back, you're just like, so, this isn't great, right, And as a consumer, I'm saying to myself, and especially as a black queer consumer, I'm like,

I don't really think that these asks are that hard, right for a multibillion dollar company to be able to put together. I know, you hire consultants and you know, and and and advocates and all of these different things. So make more of a concerted effort, right, like, show people that you are beyond just obviously it's a company. It's capitalism, Dave Chappelle makes them a hell of a lot of money. So they were never going to, you know, to take down that show. But it's like where else

can you put investments? The last question for you is, you know, what are your hopes for your former colleagues now who did put themselves volves out there, who did do this walk out? Um, what are your hopes for how they're able to move forward in this climate? Yeah? So I think there's two categories there. So for my trans Star siblings, like, I'm so proud of them, right, Like I it's so interesting because Tara and I, like

we talk about this all the time. Tara and I are probably the two feistiest members of trans Star and the rest of the group often Um, they're they're the most creators of great people in the world. But it would have been easy, um, and the two of us had to go through what we went through to take a step back and say do we really want to do this? Do we want to risk this? And they did. They pushed forward, they kept promoting things, they kept making

sure it happened. I'm so proud of them, and I know for a fact that every single one of them is made the better for it, because, like I know that they now know that they have the strength to to fight no matter what. And I also really firmly believe that they can make this happen, like they can really continue to be the bug and Netflix's ear saying, hey, where's that trans content? When's it gonna happen, Where's it

gonna be here for the allies to join? You know, one of the things that's interesting to me, and this goes to show when you deal with quality people, it does not matter what happens, they show up for you. You know, I've gotten dozens upon dozens of mustages for my former Netflix colleagues. They also set up a diaper fund for me, and honestly, it's at this point it's it's a big enough fun that I'm just like, I'm gonna have to donate some diapers to other people because

it's like this is too much for diapers. But you know, they set up all of this to make sure I was taken care of, and so like, I love and appreciate them. You know, I have no ill will towards Netflix, primarily because I want them to be successful, right and and a lot of those individuals they have the ability, they're so talented, they're so smart, and I know for a fact that they're gonna be a bugging people's ears too, saying hey, this was weird, this was strange. How can

we be better? Let's never have the situation happen again. We should never be divided in this way as a company, because like we are trying to fight all these other

competitive forces, why are we also fighting within ourselves? Be you know, once again, thank you so much for making the time for willkaf today, but also for your courage to speak out and be honest and vulnerable, right because it's it's oftentimes black trans people just in general are silenced, our stats and our victims and are made to be victims. And in this instance, you're, you know, a warrior on the front lines, bringing much light and needed attention to

a situation that frankly shouldn't have occurred. And hopefully people will learn from this moving forward. And I hope that as your case evolves and moves forward, that you'll come back and join us again and give us an update as to as to where things go. I will be happy too, and and and honestly, I really hope it's a very positive update, you know, I am. I'm putting that energy and those vibrations out for you. As well. Yes, for sure, thank you, thank you. That is it for me.

Dear friends here on woke as always. Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.