Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,
About a year ago, you
and your wife penned a letter to your daughter, Max. A few months after
that, I wrote a letter to Kim Mai-Cutler, in response to her TechCrunch article
entitled: "East of Palo Alto's Eden: Race and the Formation of Silicon
Valley” (https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/10/east-of-palo-altos-eden/). Your letter to your daughter is hopeful.
And ambitious. And speaks about
poverty, in a very general sense. Mai-Cutler’s
article recounts a very specific poverty.
My letter wrestles with my
experience of poverty in a 2.5 square mile city in the heart of the San
Francisco Bay Area. Looking back, I have come to realize that your vision
for your child to inherit a better world than the one you now inhabit is not
vastly different from what many of us want for our children, in a town called
East Palo Alto. I believe we are neighbors.
I am a community
organizer. But today, I write this
letter as a former seminarian. While
some may disagree, I believe it is important to focus on the future of our
world (as you have done in your letter), but it is equally important to focus
on our current world. If not,
we miss out on an opportunity to shape the present moment. If not, we are akin to the person whose
theology focuses strictly on Heaven and the promise of eternal life, that they
ignore the here and now, the everyday social realities such as racism and
poverty and how they impact one on a daily basis in exchange for their belief
that the future reality could be better.
In your letter, you
state that your future goals are to: (1) “cure disease” and (2) “advance human
potential and promote equality”. Also,
you delineate a desire to “build strong
communities” and acknowledge that “inequities
are interconnected”. And these two
sentiments are the reason I am writing this letter. Mr. Zuckerberg, as Facebook's campus expands
into low-income areas of town, historic communities of color are shrinking in
the process. In large part, this is
because investors and developers are displacing people in order to make way for
your potential new employees. Take Trion’s
recent purchase of Buckingham Apartments in Redwood City and the unjust
evictions which ensued, for example (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/21/silicon-valley-eviction-facebook-trion-properties). My hope is that you will not let this
community vanish under these circumstances – or similar communities.
I get the sense that
you care about community, because you have created thousands of virtual ones. However, my fear is that we have become so future-oriented
and globally-minded in our technological and fast-paced society that we neglect
our present local realities – especially when it comes to poverty. In your letter, you say that “poverty is
shrinking [,]” but I ask, for whom? As I pen this letter to you, many people in
East Palo Alto live with a different set of realities:
Reality:
According to the census, East Palo Alto’s median household income is $52, 716
per year, with 16.5 percent of the population living in poverty. In Palo Alto, however, the median household
income is $126,771 and there is a 5.3 percent poverty rate
Remedy:
Facebook can hire locally as it is currently expanding its campus with the
intent to employ 6,500 workers
Reality:
Hundreds of low-income families of color have been priced out of the local
community due to Facebook now being in Menlo Park
Remedy:
Facebook can forego development/expansion until there is a jobs-housing balance
OR contribute a substantial level of housing stock to the region which helps
alleviate the housing crisis and does not exacerbate it
Reality:
East Palo Alto residents are saying “we want to be able to afford to live here”
while Facebook offered its employees a $10,000 to $15,000 incentive to “move
closer to work.” And given that Facebook
is located in Menlo Park, “closer” means East Palo Alto
Remedy:
Facebook can cancel its relocation incentive
Reality:
East Palo Alto is a predominantly Black and Brown community and is one of very
few counties in California where low-income families can afford to live. Facebook put up a “Black Lives Matter” sign
at its headquarters after Alton Sterling was murdered by a police officer in
July. However, Facebook as a corporation
has 1.5 percent black employees, out of thousands
Remedy:
Facebook can hire people of color within the corporation with the possibility to climb
the corporate ladder – beyond jobs as janitors, cooks, dishwashers and valet
drivers
The remedies provided
above are possibilities and are not mine alone.
They have come out of many conversations with community members and are
in no ways exhaustive. They are a
starting point. Mr. Zuckerberg, you wish
to create and expand virtual communities. But what about the offline reality of
local communities? In my opinion, you can’t
create virtual communities and ignore the everyday social, political, economic, cultural and racial context of the neighborhoods into which your corporation is
expanding. Furthermore, Black and Brown
Lives cannot matter on a national level and not a local one.
In your letter to your
daughter, you seem so hopeful, yet we are still so very unemployed, so very displaced
and so very disconnected from the wealth in Silicon Valley.
Yesterday, I
celebrated a birthday. My birthday wish is this – that you take a
stand to address the poverty in East Palo Alto – the heart of Silicon Valley
and consult with the community about what our assets are. In a conversation, Jesus was asked, “And who
is my neighbor” (Luke 10:29, NASB)? I am
asking that you consider that question as you drive through East Palo Alto on
your way home to Palo Alto, each day. While
philanthropy is important, consider making systemic changes which deal with
root causes of poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area. Please consider the change that can be made on a small
scale locally today, before eliminating poverty globally, tomorrow. Mr.
Zuckerberg, consider the opportunity before you. Consider the present moment.
Respectfully,
Kyra Brown, M.Div
#HousingCrisis #SiliconValley #EastPaloAlto #Gentrification #TechTakeover #OpenLetterMarkZuckerberg
#HousingCrisis #SiliconValley #EastPaloAlto #Gentrification #TechTakeover #OpenLetterMarkZuckerberg
