Alexis Ohanian, one of the co-founders of Reddit , has announced that he is resigning immediately from the company’s board, urging them to fill his open seat with a Black board member, WIRED reported .
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While many tech companies and their leaders have pledged money and action towards the cause, Ohanian’s is the starkest action yet.
He made his choice public in a video posted to Twitter on June 5.
In the video, he explains that he wanted to be able to tell his own Black daughter that he did everything he could to make the world better for her.
Ohanian has come face-to-face with the systemic forces affecting Black Americans before.
In 2018, his wife, tennis star Serena Williams, gave with to their baby girl via a C-section. The surgery was a success, but in the following days, life-threatening complications would highlight racial bias in heath care.
Having a history of pulmonary embolisms, Williams recognized the signs, but was ignored by the doctors until their own tests revealed what she had already been telling them.
Resignation isn’t the only action Ohanian is taking either.
In the same video, he also announced a one million dollar donation to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp , and pledged to use future gains earned through his remaining Reddit stock to support racial justice causes.
Describing the move as a “little domino”, he thanked everyone for their kind words. “More work to be done,” he says.
In a post on Reddt , CEO Steve Huffman addressed the news, saying that the board intends to honor Ohanian’s request for a Black replacement.
He also explained that while Reddit has worked hard this past half-decade to ban hateful communities and overtly racist users, they haven’t done a good job keeping their content policy in line with those values. Work is underway to rectify that issue and more clearly demonstrate Reddit’s stance against racism and hate.
h/t: WIRED
