To My Digital Daughter, Seven Generations
Forward, Baby girl, I am writing this in the glow of my screen, my fingers pressing these keys that will unlock your future. Each keystroke is a code. Each enter, a command. Each backspace clearing the paths in the digital streets I pray you walk free, inhibited, as yourself. My acrylic nails click and clack creating a new freedom song. Tap, Tap, Tap to preserve history. There are stories they don't teach us in school. Did you know that our great-great-grandmothers encoded algorithms in the way they braided hair, how they inscribed survival in recipes passed down without measurements, how they ran the most powerful neural networks in church basements, kitchens, and beauty shops. We were always the architects of our own salvation. We been here.
Tonight, as I commit another piece of code, my hands reflect on palm calluses from picking cotton. The blue/purple stain on fingers from farming indigo. The way my mother's hands flew over typewriter keys in rooms where she was the “first one.” The way your aunties mastered machines that weren’t built with their touch in mind. I hear Nana’s voice: "Baby, plead the blood." Before every big meeting, every funding pitch, every time I had to walk into rooms carrying not just my dreams, but the weight of all our tomorrows. The devil is a liar.
They don’t want us to know that we have always been the original programmers—writing freedom routes through dark nights, coding literacy in spite of laws against it, building whole communities to thrive on less than nothing. When they locked us out, we built back doors. When they restricted our code, we found new syntax for survival. That is our legacy: hacking our way to liberation.
My sweet girl, right now I am fighting battles I pray you’ll never have to. Fighting so you won’t have to explain your brilliance three times over. So your ideas won’t be stolen and credited to others. So you won’t be called “aggressive” for speaking with the same confidence as your peers. Some nights, staring at 404s at 3 AM, I touch the screen and wish I could do more, build faster, clear the path wider. But trust that I'm doing my best. And know this: every line of code I write is a protection spell for you. Every algorithm I challenge, I do so to make sure it recognizes the full spectrum of your beauty. Every database I design holds our stories, our truths, our laughter. When they tell you tech started in garages in Silicon Valley, you will know the truth—it started in the ingenious ways your foremothers made a way out of no way. We are technology manifest.
I dream of you walking into rooms where your innovations are celebrated, not stolen. Where your leadership is welcomed, not questioned. Where your creativity flows free, unfiltered by someone else’s lens. I dream of you creating without the burden of being the “only one,” the “first one,” the representative of your culture, race, religion, or preferences. The road behind us is paved with the prayers of grandmothers who never touched a computer but understood processing power in their bones. The place we set before you, is designed wide enough for all of us to walk side by side. We are making it strong enough to carry all your dreams. We are making it safe enough for you to shine without looking over your shoulder.
Every time I press "run," I am running toward you. Every time I debug a system, I am clearing the streets you will walk on. Every time I encrypt data, I am building you a shield. Every time I optimize a process, I am carving you a door. You come from a line of women who turned cotton fields into college degrees, who turned Jim Crow into Black-owned businesses, who turned discrimination into determination. Now we are turning binary into liberation, repositories into revolutions, every "no" into a new syntax for possibility. Baby girl, this digital world will know your power because we are fighting to make it so.
And on the days when the code won’t compile and the systems seem stacked against you, remember—you have Mama Jazz's persistence in your DNA, Nana’s prayers in your protocol, and generations of genius in your genes.
With all the love, all the hope, and all the fire in my heart,
Your Digital Ancestor
P.S. And baby, remember to plead the blood before every meeting. Some debugging tools are eternal.
April is Black Women's History Month. Mark your calendars (because they won't).
Should Corporate Calendars Include Cultural & Historical Observances?
Yes - Our histories aren't "optional features"
No - Let companies pick and choose
Actually, let's build our own systems
Drop a ✊🏾 if you're ready for ROOTED 2025
Sometimes I hesitate to share these pieces because they feel too raw, too real. But watching big tech companies decide which parts of our history are "sustainable" to remember? Nah. That pushed me to write this letter to my digital daughter - and to all of us building in these tech spaces.
And since we're here... let me tell you what happened this morning. I caught my reflection in my laptop screen while typing this - acrylic nails clicking away, crown held high - and thought about how many times I've been told to make myself "more professional" in tech spaces. Meanwhile, these same fingers are out here coding the future. 😌
Keep the comments coming. Tag your sisters. This…