SXSW's Attempts to Talk About Diversity and Harassment Went Ignored

We don't know what was colder — the Texas air conditioning or South by Southwest's reception of its online harassment summit and panels around diversity.

To begin with, the story around SXSW's Online Harassment Summit is not a pretty one. SXSW organizers originally allowed two panels to make it to the schedule — including one about online harassment. Then, threats of violence were made, and the events were canceled. Media companies like Vox and BuzzFeed stated they would cancel their appearances at SXSW if the two panels were not put back on the schedule. A few days later, SXSW added them back and created an entire day around online harassment.

It's no wonder, then, that the full day of events took place at the Hyatt Regency, a 15-minute car ride away from the Austin Convention Center, where most panels are held. The security was intense; my bag was thoroughly checked, and I felt more like I was walking through airport security than to a SXSW panel. However, once you arrived at the panels, the rooms were fairly empty, with a handful of the audience being reporters. In a sense, it was like preaching to the choir and to those who already face harassment. SXSW literally distanced itself from the summit at a time when the festival needs to start talking about these issues more.

The festival is not without its own problems around these topics. This year, a US Olympian was forced into removing her hijab (and later given the wrong name on her name tag), and a Google engineer was held in jail for five hours because he looked "suspicious." One night during the festival, a guy casually made a rape joke to me. My male friend next to me profusely apologized on behalf of men after seeing this exchange, but as for me, it was just another day of being female in the world. These conversations also apply to not just questions around online harassment but around diversity and equality as well.

Tracy Chou, a software engineer at Pinterest and an advocate for making Silicon Valley a more diverse environment, held a panel called "Tech Diversity: Why We're Still Talking About It." The environment? Another freezing room — but at least this one was in the convention center. However, the audience also consisted of mostly women. The same could be said of the panel "#BlackLivesMatter: New Solutions to Old Problems." This talk took place in a small room at the JW Marriot — a six-minute walk from the convention center. After attending a series of panels where issues like this need to be discussed, I asked the two panelists — Chas Moore and Fatima Mann — what they thought about being separate from the festival in this manner.

"I don't think South by [Southwest] wants to be the place for this kind of conversation, but they want to say 'we did this'," said Moore. "So they keep it a part of South by [Southwest], they keep it a part of the program and itinerary. But it's just like let's have that conversation over there because all our celebrities and our big money and all our big sponsors [are] over at the convention center. We don't know how this is going [to] go, so let's just be safe and put it over there." The bright side? The festival organizers are probably taking note. "I think next year they probably won't do this to us again 'cause we're having this conversation," said Mann.

But like with anything, there were some silver linings. One of the interactive keynotes that featured Megan Smith, the US chief technology officer; Laura Weidman Powers, CEO of CODE2040; and investor Trae Vassallo was a little more packed. The audience was a mixture of all sorts of people and it wasn't just solely the notion of preaching to the choir. I also visited The Girls' Lounge, where women were enjoying connecting with each other. I attended a panel with Kerry Washington, who talked about her own online harassment problems but still believes in the power of social media. As for the online harassment summit, not everyone was unhappy. One panelist, Randi Harper, was glad SXSW provided extra security. The outlook for these types of conversations feels like it's getting a little brighter.

So where do we go from here? We continue to have these talks and write these stories, because they need to be heard. And maybe — just maybe — we'll start to move forward and we'll see a keynote at SXSW one day about how diverse tech companies have become, how online harassment is an idea of the past, and that the power of social media truly is more positive than negative.