Operating Systems

At Code Breakers, black and brown high school girls learn software engineering. When Benita (Parquet) is promoted to CEO, she enlists the help of a journalist friend (Tanenbaum) to confront a controversy over rejecting a white student. Then Bel (McGuire), a new Code Breakers employee, accuses the outgoing CEO (Lenartz) of sexual misconduct. The fallout threatens the most vulnerable in their community, including Dani (Cihi), a trans employee and former student.

Operating Systems wrestles with how internalized oppression often makes us reinforce oppressive systems even as we work toward justice. In a tokenizing system that often positions oppressed peoples against each other, can the relationships at the heart of the play survive? Is it better to leverage the resources of these systems in service of justice, or to burn the whole thing down?