Anti-Racism, Pro-Astronomy: Week 1

What's this about?

I'm participating in a six month Anti-Racism, Pro-Astronomy experiment led by Sarah Tuttle to educate myself on matters of diversity in STEM each week, and act on that education. For the two weeks leading up to the start date, I tried to convince myself that my first idea for an action plan would be hard, but I've decided it's worth a shot. Before I tell you my plan, some background.

At the UW, graduate students and faculty involved in our Pre-MAP program hold meetings called Diversity Journal Club. It's like an astro-ph journal club for matters of diversity in STEM, though the requirements to present recent papers are relaxed. One or two speakers laboriously hunt through social science literature and pop-sci articles looking for sources to cite and to build presentations around. They prepare a presentation, and end on discussion questions for the audience, often leaving room for people to discuss personal experiences or how to take positive action. In my time at UW, the present Diversity Journal Club owes its organization and sources of topics to a big group of people including Sarah Garner, Russell Deitrick, Nell Byler, Eddie Schwieterman, Michael Tremmel, Erin Hicks, and Christine Edgar, among others.

I have gained much more actionable knowledge at these Diversity Journal Clubs (DJCs) than I ever have from an astro-ph journal club, and I think they hold an important place in the discussion about how to combat racism in astronomy. DJCs give us a common vocabulary that may help to ease the flow of conversation in our office or at home about race, which is so often talked about as a "hot-button issue" that we need to actively remind each other that it's a personal matter for nearly half of the members of our community. DJCs create a venue for unaware perpetrators of microaggressions to (potentially) recognize their actions. DJCs confront scientists in their own language and challenge them to draw on statistically quantified results from that tell us what we're doing right or wrong.

I think we could all use more of that kind of active introspection.

What's the plan?

I've always been a tremendous fan of astrobites for summarizing nearly impenetrable journal articles, making it possible for undergraduates to find accessible introductions to the papers they are nearly ready to read. As an undergraduate, I found that astrobites articles met me half-way in my half-English half-astronomer language which gave me enough context and background to then read the full journal article without stopping to Google.

I want to start a blog in the spirit of astrobites dedicated to finding primary sources that can act as the seeds of Diversity Journal Club discussions. These can include peer-reviewed journal articles or primary-source personal accounts by under-represented minorities in any field which speakers feel can help teach majority astronomers about the experience of the non-majority. Each post will also include a brief description of the paper and its results or major take-aways, and a handful of questions that speakers can use to start discussions after their presentation. My primary goal is to lower the barrier of entry so that interested astronomers at other institutions have no excuse not to host a Diversity Journal Club with borrowed momentum. 

Need a source that describes a Hawaiian perspective on TMT? We'll have that. Need some pointed questions to get your colleagues challenging their views on the issue? We'll work on those. 

At first, I will source these posts from the Diversity Journal Club presentations that have already happened at UW by collecting sources from my peers. I also want to collect information on how they found their sources and collect those resources in one place. The posts will not be presentations in a box, but they will point you in a few directions to base a presentation on. 

This week I've done a bit of research on options for multi-author blogging and on how Diversity Journal Club runs here. Next week, I plan to tap every past DJC speaker I can find to chat about their resources and how they come upon them, and take input from peers and other Anti-Racism, Pro-Astronomy participants on how best to do this blog.

If you have good resources or (even know of another blog that does this and makes my idea unnecessary), let me know in the comments or on Twitter.