Posted on June 11, 2020

CNCF stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and racial equality for all. As a foundation that serves a diverse, global ecosystem of members, we also stand in solidarity with members of our community who challenge us all to do better – not just for right now – but for two months from now, two years from now, and beyond that.

As community member Bryan Liles recently tweeted,

For several weeks, CNCF has been listening, watching, learning, and feeling. We are not the heroes of this movement, Black people are, but what’s happening – and what needs to happen – matters to all of us. One way we are supporting the movement is by amplifying the voices of our community members through our social channels – see a short list below this post and feel free to ping us if you want to see yours amplified as well. As part of our everyday work, we provide diversity scholarships and diversity and inclusion activities at our events, support intern programs, sponsor programs to bring student developers into open source development, help developers and first time open source contributors to contribute to open source communities, and provide support for anyone who wants to present at CNCF events. Recent events have taught us that we need to understand, empathize, and do more.

In my view, open source often reflects what is best in our society. It brings together people from across the world, working on problems relevant to anyone touched by technology, for the better of our collective human race. The challenges faced by underrepresented communities, however, are meaningful even in this supportive environment. Systemic issues with the education system have prevented many talented individuals from discovering and thriving in our industry.

So I call out to each and every one of us in the cloud native ecosystem – do for others what you did for me when I first joined the community. Seek out and support members of our community with mentorship, guidance, and collaboration. If each one of us helps one person, that’s more opinions and experiences that will make our community and technology that much better.

The very core of open source is to welcome, collaborate, and unify. If you have a beautiful story to share, reach out to us. Let’s work together to change the narrative of our society. Let’s work together, no matter how long it takes – until Black Lives Matter is no longer a statement but is just part of our collective quilt.

Thank you.

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In support of our community