By Elizabeth Halvorson
Ebony McGee, an author and associate professor of diversity and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education at Vanderbilt University, took the virtual stage and delivered a lecture on how marginalization affects the success of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx doctoral students in the STEM field on Wednesday, Oct. 19 in collaboration with Grand Rapids Community College’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
McGee highlighted the importance of not only including seats for minorities at the head table, but also giving them the space to be a part of the conversation being held.
“We’re asking Black and brown folks to sit at a table that is maintained mostly by white males,” McGee said. “Here, you can have a seat. The menu is pre-populated. You are not here to change the menu.”
McGee explained that companies who push for diversity in their boards tend to use a person of color as a “token” to appear more inclusive without actually offering them a voice to spearhead change.
“These things within themselves are not that,” she said. “They’re great steps towards the revolution, but the revolution really means breaking the table, right? The table needs to be dismantled and rebuilt with people of color leading the way.”
When pinpointing other issues in the STEM field, McGee uncovered that people of color who are seen as resilient or gritty experience an early death due to overworking themselves.
“I’m talking about doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, dying six to seven years earlier than their white counterparts because of this high-effort coping,” McGee explained before pointing out that resilience is a tool to be used when you need it. “This internalized grit to fight 400 years of structural, constitutional, departmental racism within and beyond STEM is leading to a premature death.”
McGee also identified that when most Americans think of the slavery of people of color and the horrendous events that they faced, the timeline is skewed.
“I know people want to put this in the pre-AD timeline, but while mostly white, rich slave owners were taking mathematics at Harvard University, normally taught by Nazis, my people were in slavery,” she said. “They were not only picking cotton. They were machinists and innovators, but their efforts went punished, covered, or unknown, even to this day.”
ODEI’s Diversity Lecture Series continues Wednesday, Oct. 27 with another virtual lecture by Da’Shaun Harrison titled “The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness.” The lecture will begin at 12 p.m.
