SWE Illinois has taken an initiative to create an open and respectfully shared discussion space about diversity and inclusivity through the get-educated discussion series. This space serves the purpose to spread awareness about the inclusivity of diversity and facilitate enlightening perspectives within the SWE community. The hope is to get better educated and make SWE a welcoming home for all.
As a part of the series, each week one piece of media concerning diversity would be discussed in terms of its interpretations, moral learnings, and similar real-life experiences. The attendees would be initially placed randomly in breakout rooms of 3-4 people, as this ensures an intimate space for everyone to participate, and towards the last few minutes would be invited back to the main room to share their key points of discussion with everyone.
The series kicked off on the 16th of June, 2020 with its first discussion session. The article “Sounds Like Something a White Man Should Be Doing”: The Shared Experiences of Black Female Engineering Students” by Rashunda L.Stitt (Winston-Salem State University) and Alison Happel-Perkins (University of Memphis) was read and discussed. The article highlighted how Black women engineers encounter instances of racism, sexism, and prejudice that results from the intersection of their race and gender, and the following discussion emphasized several topics and prompted thought-provoking discussions.
The conversations started with understanding intersectionality. The article helps us understand this concept as it “emphasizes that categories such as race, gender, and sexuality can overlap and form a system of oppression that may be overlooked by only examining one of these dimensions” (63). This leads to the introspection of the extent to which SWE should be race-conscious. These new perspectives made everyone think - how there exists a pressure to represent minority/minorities - and a specific extract from the article helped us keep the point across in the most relatable manner - “Being the only Black woman was a gift and a curse according to Star, because, as she explained, everyone would remember if she messed up or if she did well. She knew that other students differently positioned by race and class were not held to these same standards'' (68). This initiated a discussion about how organizations and individuals can shift this inherent bias to reduce pressure on minority/minorities and induce a more positive space for mental health and growth. The hour-long discussion culminated with the questions of how we can persist these thoughts for future generations, despite all the adversity that comes along. This prompted self-reflection on an individual level, as the attendees thought of situations similar to few instances from the article.
Brainstorming ways to change and empower the ones who might be facing our often overlooked difficulties, SWE Illinois took this small step towards making our world a little more educated, and a little more inclusive for ourselves, and for all those to come.
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