The website Be More, predictably, tries to urge people to move beyond race and ethnicity and literally be more. While I think its aims are certainly honorable, I am skeptical. While the team behind it, both the staff and expert advisors, is relatively diverse, it consists of mostly highly educated professionals. In order to truly get an accurate cross section of society, I believe it is necessary to have a wider socio-economic spectrum of people-people who are not experts but who can talk about their own experiences with honesty.

I do think the distinctions between race, culture and ethnicity on the home page are important. Although these words are used often daily, many people do not understand the nuances between them. Defining and differentiating between terms is highly necessary for any movement to accurately convey its message.

The website clearly appeals to a certain subset of millennials (specifically yuppies), as evidenced by the tech vernacular it uses. The page says that its mission is to “hack” unconscious bias. It is a start-up which does workshops at other start-ups. Although this niche is in dire need of training about race (as evidenced by articles like this and this, racial sensitivity training won’t do anything if the company isn’t diverse in the first place. Although I cannot claim to propose a solution to better diversify the tech bubble, there are a few things that come to mind. These include initiatives to get women and people of color interested in science from a young age through elementary schools, making college more accessible and affordable to all, and including more tech instruction in basic curriculums.

-Melissa Duchan