A few months ago, I was honored to be asked by my fellow Princeton alumni to give the keynote presentation at a virtual awards ceremony. The Princeton Prize in Race Relations has honored more than 1,600 high school students who have worked to advance racial equity in their communities.

In speaking about myself and my company, I had hoped to inspire with lessons from my journey that might inform how they could continue to build on the amazing work for which they were being recognized. But in learning about this year’s winner and certificate of accomplishment recipients, I was the one who was inspired, blown away in fact, at how these young folks had substantially engaged and challenged their schools and communities in the advancement of racial equity. These young people gave me hope for the future.

Anyway, here’s my speech...

My name is Marc Coleman and I am the founding CEO and President of The Tactile Group. We are a full service software development and program support company working primarily in the public sector. We are a diverse and dynamic team located remotely across the continental United States. We deliver custom tailored, mission critical products and services to our clients - including the US Department of Education, NASA, and the City of Philadelphia. One of our public facing projects that you may be familiar with is our recent award-winning redesign of the Philadelphia International Airport website.

We are proud to say that our company is “Designed to Give a Damn.” This is not only our Mission, but also guides how we treat our team members, our clients, and the world in which we live.

As a team, we celebrate diversity of thought and of lived experience. We have been very intentional in creating a place where everyone can bring their best selves, lend their unique perspectives, and contribute their specific talents. Many recent studies have proven what we’ve always known empirically: that diverse teams produce better results.

My choice to live authentically in my identity has shaped my path and impacted my leadership. As a Black gay cisgender man, I occupy the intersection of multiple overlapping identities. This has afforded me the personal experience of simultaneously occupying places of privilege while at the same time experiencing the trauma of systemic oppression in real time. It has given me a unique perspective on empathy and allyship.

I built this company almost out of necessity. I built this company because, of the traditional career paths that were available to me, there didn't seem to be a place for me. The place that I wanted to work, a place where I could bring my full authentic self, didn’t seem to exist.

I still remember the first internship that I had the summer between graduating high school and my first year at Princeton. I got to flex my programming chops to help a major corporation improve some of their internal accounting process workflows.

The culture of that organization, however, stank of normalized misogyny and homophobia with a whiff of polite racism. Between the micro and macro aggressions and the palpable glass ceilings, I could not imagine a path towards excelling in this environment and maintaining my sanity. Even if I were to adopt the stance of “fitting in to get in,” I never really would. And why would I bring my best to an organization that didn’t value me?

So instead of conforming to a mold that was not made for me, I decided to make my own. I decided to forge my own path. I decided to create a place where I got to make the rules, a place where I, and my colleagues, could bring their full authentic selves and do their best work. I chose an entrepreneurial path.

Now, being an entrepreneur isn’t for everyone, and it’s not easy for anyone, but queer entrepreneurs of color face additional challenges:

Access to capital

• traditional banks lend to entrepreneurs of color at a significantly lesser rate
• People of color are more likely to inherit poverty than to inherit wealth

Violence and Discrmination

• Despite important legal progress and meaningful efforts to drive inclusion, discrimination and violence against the LGBTQ communities and communities of color remain a reality.

Fewer “safe” spaces

• By nature of our overlapping intersectional identities, queer people of color are often “other” within our own communities. Spaces where we should feel empowered, we are often further marginalized. For me that has looked like being the only person of color at LGBTQ Business events. It feels like when, at an African American-focused business networking event, people literally turn their backs to me and walk away mid-conversation when I casually mention my husband.

But as Audré Lourde said “I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group.” If I am to be fully present, I have no choice other than to “lean in” to all that I am.

My Entrepreneurship is somewhat unique in that it is driven not by the desire to make a specific thing, or provide a specific service, but by the need to make a space for authenticity.

But like most entrepreneurs, my career path has been anything but linear. It has been progressive. Each step along the way came with its own challenges and rewards, its own successes and failures. Each step has informed the next.

Starting with my formal training in Engineering and Architecture, I learned how to bring a scientific methodology to problem solving, that math can be beautiful, and that data should drive decisions.

While still at Princeton, I joined an existing crew of DJs on campus and helped to grow that business over several years. When I parted ways with my partners, I started my own DJ business with a mix of night club gigs and private events. Here I learned marketing and the importance of customer relations - especially when it comes to dealing with the Mother of the Bride.

I took those lessons to my next business, a Bed and Breakfast (believe it or not) in the times before AirBnB. Here, I honed my communications, budgeting, and scheduling skills.

I then started what would become The Tactile Group in 2004. I started out doing graphic design for print, moved on web design, and now software development for the public sector.

Over the almost 17 years since I started the business, we have had to continuously flex to meet the requirements of new opportunities. That flexibility, that ability to react and change direction quickly and roll with whatever comes, has been one of the major factors in our success.

This super ability is due in no small part to the inclusive culture that I’ve been very intentional in building. This super ability is possible when everyone can bring their authentic selves.

I now stand before you as you prepare to enter an exciting phase of your path as a human. As evidenced by your receipt of this recognition, you are propelled by a strong desire for social justice reform at a point in history where the general populace is paying a little more attention to these things.

THE MOMENT WE’RE IN

Corporations and politicians rushed to make statements, paying what seems like at times just lip service to the existence of these inequalities.

But, as you know, the fight for equality is not new. Many have fought, advocated, organized, and died - all just to ensure that the arc of the moral universe be bent a bit more towards justice.

You, however, are armed with even more tools than those who have fought this fight before you. You have unprecedented access to communications, technology, and data. You have the tailwind of a once in a generation shift in public sentiment caused by the events of the past sixteen months. But your greatest weapon in the war for social justice is your impatience.

I’m excited to see you use all these tools to pull on that moral arc, REALLY HARD. An equitable future depends on it.

As you continue to do this work. I encourage you to BE IMPATIENT. Your generation isn’t waiting for permission to change the world. Use that impatience to hold folks accountable.

Keep pushing the older generations out of complacency, past empty performative pledges, towards actionable goals attached to real metrics, complete with repercussions for underperformance.

As you continue to do this work. I encourage you to BE VIGILANT. Injustice has to be called out every single time, especially when it spews from the mouth of a colleague, loved one, or that person you know from the gym. That stuff is hard. But the power of challenge from a personal connection may be the only way to open a closed mind.

As you continue to do this work. I encourage you to MAKE CHANGE WHERE YOU ARE.

You may be making your closest friends by forming strong bonds around advancing racial equity. You also have the opportunity to amplify your own voice by regularly and purposefully interacting with folks outside of your bubble.

Your career paths may lead you to work directly with social justice organizations. But even if you don’t become a social justice professional, there are many ways to do this work. Continue to volunteer your time, treasure, and talent to these organizations. Advocate for equitable hiring and procurement practices both as an employee and as a customer.

As you continue to do this work. I encourage you to MAKE IT INTERSECTIONAL.

The future of our country is multicultural, multiracial, and non-binary. According to an intersectionality perspective, inequities are never the result of single, distinct factors. Rather, they are the outcome of intersections of different social locations, power relations, and experiences.

And while it's natural and necessary to concentrate on the issues that are the most important to you, the most effective approaches to social justice reform must be intersectional. We must all be instruments for prying open the door of opportunity for anyone who is truly ready to walk through it.

In closing, I would like to remind you that it’s going to take a strong network of committed individuals to bring about the changes we need to see in our communities.

So please -

• Be impatient
• Be vigilant
• Make change, wherever you can
• And amplify your effect by incorporating an intersectional mindset

Thank you again to Princeton and the Philadelphia-Delaware Area Committee for inviting me to speak today. And I’d like to offer another hearty congratulations to Quinn Luong and all of the Certificate of Accomplishment Recipients.

Now, go out and keep changing the world.