Do you think like this re: diversity? Cynicism?

[kicks]

I'm at a conference. It's about resident and physician well being. I'm of course 1 of 3 brown people in the room, one of the other brown people is actually someone from our hospital system but not a physician. We just had a talk about residents specifically and wellness and depression and suicide.
Through the statistics and research there was no mention or discuss about minorities or lgbtq residents. Of course all the pictures they showed about previous meetings they had were filled with middle aged white men.
So of course I kept thinking about issues that we face being residents and providers.
Unless it's a specific diversity talk it's never mentioned.

I was actually going to get up and ask a question about this, but then no one asked questions and the speaker scurried off the stage so I chickened out and now I regret not saying something :/ I hope I have another opportunity.

Anyway, I guess my question is when you're in these situations do you most often think of how we're not represented? Does it annoy you? Make you mad? You're used to it so have given up thinking that way? It can be so mentally exhausting sometimes.

[andwhat]

I think about it all the time. My field is mostly white men. The people at the top are all white men except 1, and he does his best to make people forget that. The one black male that was in the top the quickly found a way to be a scapegoat a push out.

My job has just started having diversity panels and I have been attending. But it is really hard to get people to see that non-whites are treated differently. It pisses me off. Before they could say they maybe weren't aware, but now the information is there and they still don't care.

[childofhiphop]

I still literally count in my head the color in the room for every meeting I attend.

It's not hard and rarely does the count require 2 hands.

I also will add to "miss me" on the Diversity talks. They're right up there with the listening and learning currently happening here on GBCN. All talk; no real action.

[kicks]

Apr 1, 2017 0:15:40 GMT -5 childofhiphop said:

I still literally count in my head the color in the room for every meeting I attend.

It's not hard and rarely does the count require 2 hands.

I also will add to "miss me" on the Diversity talks. They're right up there with the listening and learning currently happening here on GBCN. All talk; no real action.

Yeah the counting in my head is definitely a regular occurrence.
I still think I've only seen 3 black physicians at my hospital.

[DesertMoon]

The office I work is about half brown people and half whites. My field has a huge mix of brown people and all kind really. I feel represented, however when incidents happen, like that one last month it reminds me of how different we seem to everyone.

[meshaliuknits]

My department likes to congratulate itself on being diverse. There's a fair mix of men and women, 80% of the department skews to mid 40s and above, 75% is German, and I am the sole bringer of melanin. I look around the room and I'm like "say what?" I'm certain I've got some kinda look on my face when they say it.

But this is a German company, so maybe their measure is different?

[kicks]

Apr 4, 2017 5:54:39 GMT -5 @natariru said:

I work for a very big publishing company that makes products for classrooms. I am very vocal if I find a lack of representation in our products. We had a 18 page brochure with ZERO POC on it. When I flipped through I said, DO NOT PRINT THIS. The room full of white men were so confused until I basically was like "hey, go ahead and tell me how many children that look like me are in there". They immediately pulled the brochure from the warehouse.

I will say though, the latest product has done an amazing job at showing diversity.

That's great that they listened to you.

[kicks]

Apr 3, 2017 17:31:57 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

My department likes to congratulate itself on being diverse. There's a fair mix of men and women, 80% of the department skews to mid 40s and above, 75% is German, and I am the sole bringer of melanin. I look around the room and I'm like "say what?" I'm certain I've got some kinda look on my face when they say it.

But this is a German company, so maybe their measure is different?

"Sole bringer of melanin" I'm going to start using that!
But yeah your department doesn't sound very diverse, yet they pat themselves on the back. Sounds pretty normal!

[andwhat]

Apr 4, 2017 8:05:56 GMT -5 kicks said:

Apr 3, 2017 17:31:57 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

My department likes to congratulate itself on being diverse. There's a fair mix of men and women, 80% of the department skews to mid 40s and above, 75% is German, and I am the sole bringer of melanin. I look around the room and I'm like "say what?" I'm certain I've got some kinda look on my face when they say it.

But this is a German company, so maybe their measure is different?

"Sole bringer of melanin" I'm going to start using that!
But yeah your department doesn't sound very diverse, yet they pat themselves on the back. Sounds pretty normal!

That is because non-black/brown people refuse to look at race as measures of diversity. See, they are getting brownie points for being colorblind. I noticed this when The Young Turks hired a bunch of new reporters and many black and brown people commented on the lack of diversity. But then they were like look at the number of women, there is an Armenian and a Persian (I thought they considered themselves white anyway), etc. They refused to look at actual race as a measure of diversity.

[meshaliuknits]

Apr 5, 2017 8:06:18 GMT -5 andwhat said:

Apr 4, 2017 8:05:56 GMT -5 kicks said:

"Sole bringer of melanin" I'm going to start using that!
But yeah your department doesn't sound very diverse, yet they pat themselves on the back. Sounds pretty normal!

That is because non-black/brown people refuse to look at race as measures of diversity. See, they are getting brownie points for being colorblind. I noticed this when The Young Turks hired a bunch of new reporters and many black and brown people commented on the lack of diversity. But then they were like look at the number of women, there is an Armenian and a Persian (I thought they considered themselves white anyway), etc. They refused to look at actual race as a measure of diversity.

It's true that the white folks I sit with here in the US didn't notice it until it was pointed out.

One of our colleagues was visiting last week which coincided with our employee resource group fair. We have a group for women, AfAm, Hispanic Am, Asian Am, parents and one for folks with aging parents. This colleague said that in Germany they had no need of these things because there weren't enough different people to matter. I wondered to myself if the people who fall into those groups would agree.