Entrepreneurial Appetite
Black, Brown, and Bruised in STEM Ed: A Conversation with Drs. Ebony O. McGee & ReAnna S. Roby
Support The From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship
Dr. Langston Clark is on a mission to celebrate his 40th birthday by making a meaningful impact—securing 40 new donors for the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship at North Carolina A&T State University. This special podcast series dives deep into the journeys of A&T alumni who have earned their PhDs, featuring thought-provoking conversations and memorable moments. You'll hear from Dr. Ebony O. McGee, who revisits her critical insights from her powerful book, "Black, Brown, and Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation." Guided by Dr. Rihanna Roby, the discussion emphasizes the essential role of community support among Black educators and scholars.
Ever wondered about the true cost of systemic racism on mental and physical wellbeing? This episode tackles the severe health impacts faced by Black professionals, critiquing the false narrative that resilience is merely a personal responsibility. We shed light on the alarming rates of premature deaths among highly educated Black individuals and the physical manifestations of stress, from anxiety attacks to fibroids. By examining these issues, we argue for systemic changes to prevent such tragedies and advocate for structural solutions rather than individualistic approaches to resilience and self-care.
We then pivot to the foundational flaws in STEM education and the necessity for inclusive and affirming spaces. This episode challenges the exclusionary practices rooted in eugenics and examines the overlooked contributions of Black innovators in STEM. Through personal stories and broader systemic critiques, we advocate for an equity ethic in STEM that prioritizes racial justice and community well-being. Finally, we explore the critical role of Black STEM faculty in transforming academia and the importance of adequately funding HBCUs to nurture Black talent and future leaders. Join us in supporting the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship and fostering a more inclusive narrative in STEM education and beyond.
Support The From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship
Dr. Langston Clark is on a mission to celebrate his 40th birthday by making a meaningful impact—securing 40 new donors for the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship at North Carolina A&T State University. This special podcast series dives deep into the journeys of A&T alumni who have earned their PhDs, featuring thought-provoking conversations and memorable moments. You'll hear from Dr. Ebony O. McGee, who revisits her critical insights from her powerful book, "Black, Brown, and Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation." Guided by Dr. Rihanna Roby, the discussion emphasizes the essential role of community support among Black educators and scholars.
Ever wondered about the true cost of systemic racism on mental and physical wellbeing? This episode tackles the severe health impacts faced by Black professionals, critiquing the false narrative that resilience is merely a personal responsibility. We shed light on the alarming rates of premature deaths among highly educated Black individuals and the physical manifestations of stress, from anxiety attacks to fibroids. By examining these issues, we argue for systemic changes to prevent such tragedies and advocate for structural solutions rather than individualistic approaches to resilience and self-care.
We then pivot to the foundational flaws in STEM education and the necessity for inclusive and affirming spaces. This episode challenges the exclusionary practices rooted in eugenics and examines the overlooked contributions of Black innovators in STEM. Through personal stories and broader systemic critiques, we advocate for an equity ethic in STEM that prioritizes racial justice and community well-being. Finally, we explore the critical role of Black STEM faculty in transforming academia and the importance of adequately funding HBCUs to nurture Black talent and future leaders. Join us in supporting the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship and fostering a more inclusive narrative in STEM education and beyond.
what's up everybody. Once again, this is dr langston clark, the founder and organizer of entrepreneurial appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting black businesses. I want to welcome you to a special series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting Black businesses. I want to welcome you to a special series of our podcast celebrating a milestone that is close to my heart my 40th birthday. As part of this celebration, I'm setting an ambitious goal to gain 40 new donors for the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, an endowment that I co-founded to support teachers and educators who are on their journeys to get graduate degrees. For those of you who have joined our live discussions, you know that typically, 10% of the profits from the podcast go to support this endowment. However, for the months of June and July, I'm thrilled to announce that 100% of the profits will be dedicated to the From A&T to PhD endowed scholarship. If you are inspired to support this cause, a link to contribute to the endowment can be found in the show notes. We're asking listeners to generously support the From A&T to PhD endowed scholarship to help more educators increase their education so that they can better support the students in our community.
Speaker 1:This special series will feature testimonials from A&T alumni who have gone on to earn their PhDs, sharing their journeys and impact of their education on their lives and career. It will also feature some new episodes from authors who have written books about HBCUs and a few throwback episodes. In this throwback episode, we feature a conversation with Dr Ebony O McGee this time from 2021, in which she discusses her book Black, brown and Bruised how Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation. Our very special guest host is Dr Rihanna Roby, another HBCU grad, alcorn State, who, like Dr McGee, at the time of this recording, worked at Vanderbilt University. I want to thank all of you for joining us today. Go ahead, ebony. Give your shout out, ebony.
Speaker 2:All my people. My people are here but go ahead, lacey.
Speaker 3:Dr Clark, thank you so much for the warm introduction. Welcome tonight, y'all. I'm so excited to facilitate this conversation. I got to take a little breath because I'm really excited. Backstory, but right now I'm going to tell a story to introduce Dr Ebony McGee, who is an author of Black, brown and Brute.
Speaker 3:When I was the first Black woman finishing my PhD Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Department at University of Texas at San Antonio, dr McGee was an external member of my dissertation committee and I would meet Dr McGee in 2015 at Vanderbilt University, where we both just so happened to be employed now during the Critical Race Studies and Education Conference, and what I learned about Dr McGee within the context of that meeting because at the time I think I was still at Washington State because Dr Paula Grosprice, who is now at A&T, is interested in how these circles are just, you know, converging on each other was like yeah, I think you need to put your work, needs to be in conversation here, and I was thinking about, well, what does a critical race science look like?
Speaker 3:And then I meet Dr McGee who was doing this work around critical race engineering, like thinking about critical race studies and engineering. I was like you know, that's what I need to be, and my advisor at the time, my dissertation advisor and forever mentor at the time, dr Theodora Berry, was like you need to know her. It's one thing for you to just walk up to her and say, hey, how you doing. It's another thing when I introduce you and then like we can develop these affinities.
Speaker 3:What I didn't know at the time because I had not formally met Dr McGee is that she was a Delta and my dissertation advisor was also a Delta. So shout out to the Deltas for sister groups. I found out that that week, like the weekend, was critical race studies. The following week would be the Edify meeting, where Dr McGee was hosting a whole slew of scholar activists who were engaging and thinking about what does critical race theory, what do critical theories not just critical theories give us or provide for us to think past the conference, to support the work that they were doing. And from that moment, like she has been somebody who I she was, somebody I admired from a distance, but now it's like she is. Now it's intimate and it's real and it's close and like at this point I'm fighting tears a little bit. Even though I generally don't apologize for tears, I'm not apologizing. Now she's invited me to co-lecture in her class.
Speaker 3:She has made room for me right and I think about what it means for us to make room for each other, not just to do work, but to celebrate each other. I could not be more excited to facilitate this conversation tonight with someone who is near and dear to me in so many different ways. Please, y'all join me in warmly welcoming Dr Ebony McGee. Put some hearts in the chat. Let's light it up for her, because she deserves all the things right now, as we get ready to jump into this book discussion.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, rihanna. You are so, so kind. You've always been such a kind and warm spirit and you know what, when we think about being doctors and doing this academic thing, please don't ever lose that. Let that carry you far. I want to thank Langston for inviting me reaching and I said yes, I didn't know. He had like a whole podcast and he did these things monthly. And Amber Dr Johnson, I am going to the website as soon as this ends, as soon as this ends, happy to support you for everybody on the chat. I'm looking at the love, I'm loving the love. Aggie Pride, hbcu Pride, divine Nine Pride If you support someone who went to the HBCU Pride for that Pride for our Black and Brown STEM educators. Just really, really happy to be here and thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:Sure thing. So I want to ask this question around, like, how did you get here, in the kind of within the key of, like Deborah Copps, but also I'm thinking of specifically within the context of this book? So, like, can you tell me how did we get here and, specifically, what has been your path to get into writing this book, black, brown and Bruise?
Speaker 2:Okay. So I like to tell people I'm a recovering engineer and I say that because the bruises of me and my engineering job they are still with me to this day. You know, and if you talk to other stemmers of color, they have very vivid experiences of when they were shown that they were not enough, no matter how much they did. They were just simply not enough and the degree didn't save them. The PhD didn't save them, the titles didn't save them. But I wanted to better understand that, even if they were at, they had traditional forms of success and I put success in quotes because success doesn't mean you have a 3.8 GPA but you're in the hospital for Bayles palsy because of your anxiety attack. That's not success. So, traditional forms of success.
Speaker 2:I wanted to know how do we manage and survive these brutal academic STEM climates and what does it cost us? Right, because when you're high, achieving you never think about. This is hurting me. Right, we're the ones on the front of the website, we're the ones on the diversity paper, we're the ones getting the awards, but there is a cost to living and surviving in a toxic environment.
Speaker 2:The first of all wasn't made with you in mind and it wasn't really that was made to actually solidify that you will be forever inferior. So that's what I'm, that's how I came into this book and I say we're bruised but we're not broken. So, like that's my shirt, that's coming out we are black, brown, bruised, but we're not broken. But don't ignore our bruises. You know, just because we know how to cover it up like just because you're good at code switching or assimilating or whatever you have to do to get by doesn't mean that you know this is acceptable. We are hurting right and recognize that. You know, despite the awards, despite the accolades, that you need to recognize and atone for our pain.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you for that. And so I'm wondering, particularly because I know, like you mentioned, you come from engineering, now we over in colleges of education I come from chemistry and now I'm in the College of Education. I guess I'm wondering how do we see like being in conversation, right, with all of the stuff that comes out of like education, particularly like K-12 education and higher education, and the storm is rolling again, so my lights flickering.
Speaker 3:So I'm praying that we can see yours too. I'm praying we don't lose power, like how do you see your book in conversation with the folks, the traditionalist folks, over education and having not seen it a conversation with them?
Speaker 2:I am so sick of math educators. You know salivating over the equal sign or over some algorithmic, you know processes and you know maybe even the curriculum which gets closer to the kind of culturally affirming curriculum that I need, but they don't say anything about a student in a physics lab working for 16 hours a night, or a woman who's just had a baby and needs to breastfeed and the advisor says you don't have time for that right. So there is so much that happens within our education and within the workplace that we are not atoning to, but people want to just salivate over things that I'm not going to say it's not relevant. But God damn it, we are hurting, we are suffering over here, Right and you can't.
Speaker 2:I don't care how many yoga massages or twenty four dollar smoothies you get, like you cannot self-care yourself out of this toxicity of the environment that is actually making you toxic. So one of the things I talk about in my book are the mental and physical health ramifications. Now we spend a lot of time talking about mental health and I mean it is a surefire thing, like I have a therapist. I believe in it. But what about the physical health complications? So right now we have lawyers, doctors, people with PhDs still dying five to six years sooner than their white counterparts. So when we celebrate black success, what we are really celebrating is premature death. Now, I'm not saying this to exaggerate or anything, but we as people, as Black people and people of color, we have to stop working ourselves to death. Because guess what we found out? No matter how hard you work, people will still have these lower expectations of you and you can't work hard enough to keep up with the pace of their superiority. You just can't. So what we need to do is we really need to take care of ourselves, you know, mentally, and some of the ramifications, you know, will be physical wellness, but we often talk about the mental health and we don't talk about physical wellness. Let me just give you a couple of examples. So I mentioned Bell's palsy. This has happened in every institution that I've done interviews with, including HBCUs. So although we love our HBCUs, you know we also need to be attentive to the mental and physical health complications that happen in there. Because when I went to North Carolina A&T State University, aggie Pride, what I was told is you still have to work twice as hard because the outside world will not believe in you, although we believe in you. They won't. So I was still, you know, compromising, getting up and going to take a run or going out with my girls and you know, having other things that helps me, you know, thrive, not just simply survive. So other mental health complications young, young. So other mental health complications young, young, young girl barely in their 20s having miscarriages. Young girls having fibroids 25 and you have fibroids. Young men being hospitalized for exhaustion and anxiety attacks. We don't want to talk about the brothers and the anxiety attack, but it is going on. There is something happening with our black man and you know we feel that, that solidarity with, with the brothers, you know, thoughts and ideations of suicide with 4.0 GPAs, so sometimes, stem educators, who I love.
Speaker 2:It ain't the STEM, right? It's that environment, man, you have a culture that is set up for us not to believe. And then what do they pump to us? Oh, you have imposter syndrome. It's in your head, you know. Syndrome means your elevator, don't go to the top floor, right. Syndrome means that there is something in your mind that you're just like a little crazy. This is so damaging. There is nothing wrong with these kids. There are nothing wrong with y'all on this line. This place is set up to be toxic. You feel it, you see it. You are not crazy. It is not in your head and it is not your job to fix. If the environment is imposterous, why is it the student's job to fix themselves while the environment remains the same? So this is why I shift from my dissertation, looking at resilience and looking at grit, to say, god damn, how gritty do I have to freaking be in order to survive in these environments? So see, now I realize. Okay, I'm just going to say this last thing.
Speaker 2:Come on, you're doing good, I realize resilience is not a do it yourself endeavor. You are not supposed to rely on resilience day in and day out. Ok, they're supposed to be external supports so you can be resilient. It's like the white, rich, heterosexual male sitting beside you, right, but we use grit and resilience and that we're told to use it Like this is what they tell us to do. They don't say, no, we're going to change this environment. They say you have to just lift yourself up a little bit more or you have. You know black neoliberals who say, well, I had to do it, you know it was hard for me, you know, but I made it, and it was just one person. Now you got three. And I'm looking back like, well, if 25 years ago you had to do that and 25 years later we still here, why is that my problem, you know? So we really, really need to have more hearty critiques about the structure that is allowing us this premature death, using Ruth Gilmore's definition of racism. I'm going to stop there.
Speaker 3:You know, you in your bag, you in your bag and I just want we can stay here Because I think one of the things you just got it because you named it racism, it's like the reality of it is. It's like existing in anti-Black, racist spaces, existing in white supremacist spaces, is constantly assaultive. Right, it's not just assaultive to like my personhood, but my whole being right and how I can show up.
Speaker 3:And so when you talk about in the text of early death, it reminded me I think it was back in 2014 that Bill Watkins passed and 2015,. My mentor from Washington, dr Floeller, passed. Now these folks these are Black men right who had been doing all the things, had been trailblazers. I was like this just seems early for folks to be dying Very early, and yet what we know is the work they were so into, the work they were doing that it keep. We can say it was.
Speaker 3:I think it gets into not only like the formality, like how does white supremacy kill within the context of higher ed. But here we are. You have a chapter in the text when you talk about the covid pandemic. We can see direct, direct correlations, if that's the kind of research you went to, around how the health outcomes for black and brown folks who were exposed to COVID gave them very different abilities to be able to live past COVID right and how essentially it led to their demise.
Speaker 3:And so I guess I'm wondering on another, in another line, because you got into some you've come through all the questions that I got, which is awesome, this idea around meritocracy, right, and how, oh, well, if I can get it all right, if I can get my credentials and I'm saying this specifically because now we like social scientists who are adjacent to STEM right and still very prevalent with the STEM context it's like, well, if I get all the degrees and I get all of the grits, can't nobody beat me. So how do we? I guess I'm asking that question is like, how do we we speak to this to really dismiss it and debunking this myth of meritocracy with the context of STEM environments. I think there's nothing more than reify some of the bruises and some of the trauma.
Speaker 2:You know, meritocracy is a very capitalistic notion in the first place, and we're very communal, collective people, collective people. So the fact that one has to just do hard work and persevere and rely on some kind of inner strength is not even a characterization of Black people, right, we are. You know, first of all, now that I'm a professor, I barely do anything alone. I mean, I got to write one paper by myself every year and everything else I do in conjunction with my students and with my people, right? So you know, even the very notion of that needs to be troubled when it comes to communities of color. It is a capitalistic, individualistic white supremacy notion, right? And it doesn't mean see, this is the thing I bought into this at one time, right. You know, we need to reveal I've never been to jail, but I didn't straight up been institutionalized and colonized, right. So I had to have a moment to myself to understand that it doesn't really matter how hard I work and how much I achieve. It will never be enough. And once I figured that out, I decided you know what I'm going to do, what I want to do, you know. I know I still have certain measures to make. I enjoy my professorate life, you know. But I'm going to carve my own space, and the way I've been able to really do that is by getting my own funding. Because when you got your own money, them folks what can they do? You know they're not checking for you in the same ways in which you know if you didn't have that funding they would be. But I also want to say that that's the same thing about self-care. So I just want to have a moment and talk about self-care. So what about my neighbor's responsibility to care for me? What about you, rihanna? You care for me, right? That's not self-care. What about the government's responsibility, which we pay taxes into? So that's our money, right? What about their responsibility to care for me as a Black woman, who are disproportionately affected by all four well, like four to 10 pandemics poverty, covid, anti-blackness and environmental racism? What is the government's responsibility, right? We have to stop thinking.
Speaker 2:And I do believe when Audre Lorde was talking about self-care, she wasn't talking about a bunch of massages in your favorite yoga position, she was talking about collective action. But you remember, with self-care started from disability studies where some disabled people were able to do certain things by themselves, like brush their teeth and wash their face. But that didn't mean that the caregiver was gone. She was just in the back getting some coffee because a dude could brush his own teeth. Then you got to the Black Panther Party, where they used the term self-care to define testing for certain diseases that were prevalent in the Black community. That's how they talked about self-care.
Speaker 2:So this kind of capitalistic, individualistic notion of self-care where you pay all these taxes but you don't expect the government or your society to care for you, I really think that that needs to be dismantled. So it's kind of like meritocracy and everything else that comes out, the next hot thing that'll be out you know where. Thus you are responsible for doing everything, while the system either remains the same or it gets worse. So I just I don't even know where that came from, but I just felt like I need to say it. It's on my heart it's good, it's good.
Speaker 3:We just let's pour from our hearts what?
Speaker 2:is it?
Speaker 3:what in the text, you get into this piece around, you know what? At the end of the day, this is not sustainable. I want to use your specific words because it's at the beginning of a chapter six. Right, let me be very clear. The entirety of STEM higher education needs to be dismantled, period.
Speaker 1:And so when I was- reading it.
Speaker 3:Like you know, it immediately took me to.
Speaker 3:I was I just finished the Prophets not too long ago, but it also took me to some texts that, like they get into this idea around during enslavement, when we get rebellious, the question is around like we need to burn the plantation because this does not work for us. And then there'll be folks who are like, well, how are we going to work, how are we going to survive if we get rid of the plantation? What do you say to the peers, right? Or are they like, well, actually we just need to, like you know, patch the pipeline.
Speaker 3:We actually just need to get some more of y'all up in here, because if we just get some more bodies and we know that's not the answer but if we just get some more bodies on top of bodies in here, then the work will be done. Yeah, what do you, how do you, how do you speak to this?
Speaker 2:So the foundation of STEM. So STEM was founded under principles of eugenics. The coefficients that we use, the Pearson, the Fisher coefficient, the Pearson correlation all of those guys were eugenicists, right? So you know, people like to really politicize, for example, african-american studies. The classes of African American studies started in the 1960s, of course, as a result of the civil rights movement. But no one wants to critique thermodynamics, right? The first thermodynamics class was like in 16 something. We were still slaves, we were still slaves, y'all Many of the classes that we currently see today. We were in Jim Crow. So while white male so-and-so was taking a physics class, my grandmother had to walk through the back door just to get some food. Right, these classes are fundamentally the same. So the same Fisher coefficient, that racist eugenics as Fisher did. We're still using that today, right, a complete overhaul of that. Like, you just want Black people to try to exist in that space, and we do, and we kill it. But we shouldn't have to. We should have a space that affirms us.
Speaker 2:You know, I was reading the book of Isabel Wilkerson and what she was saying about innovation is that, you know, first of all, this whole ideology on the media that all Black folks did was pick cotton is so freaking untrue. We were the machinists, we were the designers. We even cut white folks' hair. You know, barbershops weren't even white. But when it came to innovation, some of the ideas were stolen. So all that stuff you hear about the traffic light, that's just half of the story. There's so many inventions and innovations that were just either stolen or buried. And I said, well, the stolen part I can understand, but why would it be buried? And she goes on to explain that when it comes to white supremacy and maintaining white supremacy, blacks have to be seen as inferior, right? And if you invent all this machinery and make life better, even for your white slave owner, you know it will not fit the narrative of inferiority. So some stuff was just buried. That's why we're supposed to be flying in cars right now, and I'm not talking about the six billionaires who have them. Like all of us, we have all suffered. You know, when I'm thinking about Heather McGee, the other McGee and it's so funny, she has the H in her last name. I was supposed to have an H in my last name when my great great uncle went to fight in World War I. The sergeant said he didn't like the H and he took it out. See how they can just interrupt our entire identities like that. But what she says about the sum of us all is that we all suffer. Right, and that's what I'm saying in my book. We are all suffering.
Speaker 2:And my one last point I do not think the capitalistic version of we need more black people in STEM so other white big tech owners can get rich. No, ok, we need more black people in STEM because you shouldn't be anti-black company. That's the reason, right, so we don't have to add to your capital in order to be seen as valuable. You get a lot of bunch of white men who went to the same school, same neighborhoods, et cetera, et cetera, probably thinking the same kind of way, and you don't think about that that way with them. But with us, or people of color, it has to be some kind of value proposition.
Speaker 2:So that's why I'm with Langston. I'm sick of begging these white STEM companies. First of all, we here, because they say they can't find us. We must be hiding somewhere like we's here, y'all, we's here. Afrofuturism is right here. Just look at our HBCUs. And then, once we do get there, we have these toxic environments and we don't stay. So you know what? Just give us the reparations and let us start our own thing. Go Langston, I'm with you, brother, 100%.
Speaker 3:Yes, what is I want? I know we're getting close on time and we got to open it up for the guests to ask a question, but I want to take some time because in the afterword it hit on my heartstrings in another way, because you started talking about your mama right, and I know my own relationship to my own mom. My mom passed in 2009. But what I did not know is, when I was defending my dissertation in 2017, what all you had going on with your own mama right.
Speaker 1:So I'm saying all that to say because what?
Speaker 3:as I was reading that piece it reminded me of a statement around like black girl magic that gloria lance and bill is made around. Uh, what was? It was back at hip-hop literacies. I went to this conference with dr sandra lanehart, who I saw in the chat, so I gotta make sure I shout out my other academic auntie, mama, and she was like, know the magic, ain't necessarily us whipping out wands, right, and it's not necessarily us just doing more with less, but it's what we pour into the future generation.
Speaker 3:And so, all that being said, I'm wondering like how do you further see this book as an extension of like your mother's, like working through you and her sunset, and how do you see it speaking to future generations?
Speaker 2:I'm looking over to my son right now, akari, because you know, this is a subject that's near and dear to both of our hearts. So, on December 31st 2017, my mom passed away in her sleep from cancer and I was talking to a neighbor on the block because, you know, this is in Chicago. So, like we talked to our neighbors, like you know, like this thing, we need to get back to that because, you know, in Nashville people, you know they won't talk to me, but anyway, I was talking to the neighbor and he was saying he was counting the number of people who died on the block and he was saying that there is something wrong with our water filtration. You know that is related to this. And I said, wow, that is a STEM issue. This is what would happen if we had an equity ethic in STEM.
Speaker 2:What I mean by that is you talk largely to people of color in STEM. They don't want to build bombs. They don't give a fuck about China. They want to better their community, right? They want to solve racial justice, not just social justice. Let's call it what it is Social justice is not us. They want to solve racial justice related issues. Right, and when he put that on me. I just said imagine if we had Black STEMers who were involved in this project where we as a community, just community members, could say we think something is happening on our block, where all of our people are dying much earlier than they should be and we think something's in the water. How could we put that equity back in STEM? And all this messaging about being a super-de-duper power and building more nuclear bombs this is not resonating with us.
Speaker 2:But folks want to know why don't we have more STEMers of color? First of all, we do. You're underestimating us, like we's here, we's out here. And secondly, we get, you know, disenfranchised by wanting to do STEM and racial justice and people not wanting to put that together. That's a beautiful marriage. God damn it. You know that will make a better planet. Why don't you want that?
Speaker 2:Nih actually penalizes you. You know, with that study fund Black scientists. My sister, dr Lola, is one of the authors Retrack NIH. Nih is what I'm trying to. Dr Lola is one of the authors Retrack NIH. Nih is what I'm trying to say Actually penalizes you. The reviewers are more likely to penalize you if you have a communal component, if you have an equity ethic in your research, like we're not just doing science to be doing science, we're trying to better the world, right. And why isn't that message resonating Like who don't want to do that? Right? We don't even know if, 100 years, if our great great grandchildren will even have a place to you know be, and it can't play outside. We're thinking about domes and all kind of stuff. So, yeah, we have some great grand challenges. It came from that really, really personal experience which helped me to understand the power of equity ethic and why we need to infuse that in STEM.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. So before, if you have questions, if you could put those in the chat. That would be great. But before I go ahead and open that part up, I'm wondering what's something you I was. So first let me back up One question I was going to ask you, like is the question you asked me in my dissertation to the fifth, so like so who is this book for?
Speaker 3:And like? How do you get them to change the curriculum based on reading this book? You can answer that question if you want to, but for somebody who hasn't read the book, well, I guess why. For somebody specifically outside of STEM right, how would you engage them to like read? Why would you say they need to read the book?
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of people who are not in STEM think that they shouldn't be in STEM because they don't think that they can do good in the world and be in STEM. Like you know, many people of color see, we have our own racialized experiences and we want to make the world a better place, like we are the moral givers of the world. You know, I'm here to tell you. Forget what you heard. We are there and STEM needs to make a space for folks like that, right? So STEM needs a straight up makeover. So I hope they can see some of the examples of equity as they can talk about how we want to better our communities, we want to better people, we want to better folks outcomes and see themselves in that work. But certainly for those who have read and if you have read, a plea to you the haters, the racist trolls, are on Amazon giving me really negative book reviews. So if you read, could you please you know, tell the truth that this sucks. You know, let somebody know. But if it doesn't, can you please provide a counter narrative against you know? Some of this, these somebody called it racist garbage, et cetera, et cetera. But for those who have read it, I want. What I'm looking at is the future. So I consider Afrofuturism, us Black people. Now we are the Afrofuturists, right, we are the ones we want to see in the future but also re-imagining what could STEM look like if we were not just at the table, if we built the table, not just on the menu, but we created the menu right.
Speaker 2:Right now we are living in young white man's dreams. So when we go on Twitter even though Twitter wasn't even shit until black people got it right, you know. So we know we can spice up some stuff, but why can't we have our own twitter? If we wanted to start a revolution tomorrow and I do what kind of cars we drive? White people's cars. What kind of planes will we take? White people's planes. What kind of search engines will we use? White people's search engines, like we. You know we ain't got nothing. I ain't gonna say nothing, cause you know when I say that, somebody will send me a link about, you know, the black cell phone guy and all that stuff. So I mean we do have some success, but nothing like on a grand scale that we need to and we need to be in that. We just don't need to use Twitter and make it flavorful, right, put the seasoning on it. We need to be the creators of that. So that's my plan for the revolution. That's what the book is about.
Speaker 3:All right, this right on time. What is it? Dr Johnson? I hope you heard that as the tech person here. No pressure but pressure. So they said I know some tech folks in the audience as well, but let's jump into these questions. That's in the chat. So this first one is from Patrick, and he said could you comment on how stereotype management goes beyond the concept of proving them wrong?
Speaker 2:You know I do not. First of all, thank you for the question. I don't think stereotype management is a good tool. I'm just going to say that, so I'm not touting. If everybody just used stereotype management, we would be okay, but it seems as though it's a necessity, right? So being able to be seen as talented, it has a very short life when it comes to Black people. So there's certain things that we have to do so we don't have to just exude so much energy and prove in our intellectual value and some of those things.
Speaker 2:So some of the ways in which students move through their STEM, educational and workplace spaces is to showcase really high grade or to talk about the summer that they spent in Martha's Vineyard, when they really just worked at the grocery store, right? So they don't have to answer stereotypical questions, right? It's removing one Cinco de Mayo tattoo, you know, and co-opting whiteness. Now, you know, a lot of people say that's self-hatred, but I don't know if it's self-hatred or not. Everybody that I interviewed had to identify as Black or Latinx or Indigenous. So the very fact that they identify with that population, you know, says that some of their racial identity is aligned with that kind of solidarity. But they did say that life was just easier moving through these places and spaces.
Speaker 2:But the reason why I don't think it's healthy is because, even when the sister is at home working on her STEM homework by herself, she still feels the pressure to get every question right. And this pressure keeps her from going to the study group, where you know y'all can split the love right. You don't have to get all the questions right, just bring something to the table right. It avoids her from going to the office hours because the office hours reinforce her inferiority. So there's so many. I want to get rid of stereotype management, but I want to let acknowledge to people that it exists, because they just think that us 3.8ers, we just walking around without a care in the world and you know, you just could, you could. It's the fathers from the truth. It's the fathers from the truth.
Speaker 3:Thank you for that. This next question said I'm going to read it, so I'm going to mess it up. It says I'm asking this question as a queer brown immigrant who is a fixed term faculty in STEM. When I look at the composition of who are, fixed term is women women of color and immigrants of color Tenure faculty of color know this and are publishing data on it, but what is the plan that we have to dismantle this hierarchy of knowledge maintained by academia by naming the tenure process in fixed term people?
Speaker 2:So fixed term? Does that mean adjunct or maybe a practice professor?
Speaker 3:I think like professor of practice, so like not tenure track.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know that's a byproduct of capitalism as well. And you know capitalism and white supremacy goes together. So capitalism says we can work people to death with as little labor I mean with much more labor with as little resources as possible. And white supremacy says we're going to make sure all those people are minoritized, right? So that's why you have high populations.
Speaker 2:So this is how the universities lie to you. They say, oh, we have 30% underrepresented minority faculty, but 90% of those faculty members are adjunct or professors of the practice, right? So we need to. And you know Angela Davis said it. You know you cannot dismantle racism without dismantling capitalism. So we got two interlocking systems working together. And remember, folks of color, particularly women of color, always get it first and worst. But guess what? Now it's coming. Now it's knocking on your door. Right Now is the white male professor. Now you running around the four different colleges trying to teach adjunct, right? So that's why we say it's okay to work on anti-Blackness, because when you fix anti-Blackness, you know you're going to fix so many other problems as a result.
Speaker 3:Thank you for that, yes. Next question is like have you found in your research any data on the effects of brown on Black bruising In engineering? It seems to have a definite presence.
Speaker 2:Okay. Okay. So this is anecdotal, don't like you know don't blow me up but what I've been told. So when I say brown, I'm also talking about indigenous, but for this conversation I'm just going to talk about Latinx people that being white Latinx is a form of a symbolization that dark Latinx and Black people don't get to participate in.
Speaker 2:So the reason why the numbers of Latinx are always four to five points higher, percentage wise, still horrible, like, don't get me wrong, still horrible, still horrible is because they said the white Latinx population is able to almost get like an honorary pass through not not racism, but like at the privilege, racism level, right, so they're able to get some benefit. And I reminded people in my 2016 piece that you know, black folks, we had a history of passing, right. So this is not necessarily like a Latinx people problem. And you know, to be white Latinx doesn't necessarily mean that you are anti-Black, right, you know, because it's really deep and I'm still learning about it. But there is certainly room for the Latinx community and the Asian community, while we're at it, to look at their own ways in which they perpetuate anti-Blackness.
Speaker 3:Thank you for that. Yes, indeed. So this next question is what advice would you give for STEM staff, support staff and historically white institutions? What things should we be advocating for for our students? How do we build the communal support?
Speaker 2:This is an excellent question.
Speaker 2:I didn't spend enough time talking about staff and you know I greatly apologize for that, because it was the staff that was actually retention makers.
Speaker 2:So what I mean by that is the minority engineering program directors, as they have been historically called I'm sure there's some new, some better terms now were the glue that kept Black students, brown students, asian students and other minoritized beings at the school, wasn't for them.
Speaker 2:When I say, have you ever thought about times that you wanted to drop out? Sometimes it's a faculty, but the majority of time is staff members so-and-so, who, because you know Black people created fried chicken, so let me not use that, you know, but brought me over some soul food or something like that. So they are really, really miracle workers and what they need to be is acknowledged for that right. If you are retaining a Black student and helping that white institution's numbers either remain, you know, at those lowly levels because you know ain't nobody really really doing great, some people are doing greater than others or you know you are retaining a Black stemmer. You should get a lot of credit for that and having material resources. So I would fight. I would hope if leadership was on that call, they would give you the material resources that you need so you can continue to be an advocate for Black students and other minoritized students.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. Okay, one more question.
Speaker 1:Can I ask to follow up to that real quick?
Speaker 3:I know that's rude just jumping in there like that. No, it's no show.
Speaker 1:I done messed up a name and everything you know. I don't even know which one to say. That's why I'm calling it by our first name, robbie Robie, because you know I get. Anyways, let me stop being nervous on here, all right. So I'm reading a book and I've been wrestling with the fact and I asked Jelani Favors this, who wrote a really great book on the history of Black colleges- Love that book.
Speaker 1:He's also an Aggie, so Aggie pride that's really why I wanted to say that, because he's an Aggie. Anyways, I'm wrestling with the fact that I started off at A&T, like you did, changed my life. You know. I was a mediocre student. I wasn't, you know, living up to my potential in like multiple aspects of my life before I got there, got there and I was educated at Ohio State. It was paid for, you know, because somebody handed me off to Ohio State for my master's Right and then somebody handed me off from Ohio State to University of Texas where I got my doctorate.
Speaker 1:But I still in my mind like I don't think these white schools are redeemable. I don't think they can be redeemed. I don't think the DNI stuff is going to work the way we think it's going to work. And I'm almost I'm wrestling with the fact now that I think in some ways I don't want to get in trouble. I think D&I is like it's like reverse reparations.
Speaker 1:So the money that should be going to Black colleges or Hispanic serving institutions, tribal colleges, all this, that and the third, those resources get siphoned into these predominantly white institutions that don't really do nothing with it. You know what I mean Don't do nothing. So shouldn't that money first and foremost go to, like the money for D&I at Chapel Hill should be at A&T before it goes there? You know what I mean? Like it should start with us, because those are the institutions that are causing the problem. These racist theories, these racist you know the racist statistics and formulas and all of that stuff came from these white institutions, so why would we expect them to have the solutions for our problems? I don't think the historically white institutions are redeemable when it comes to this, so I'm just wondering if you could speak to that.
Speaker 2:Me being at a historically white institution and having a diversity and inclusion officer. I would be real careful about how I say this. But first of all, I think you know TSU is owed $50 million from the government, right? So when it comes to who should get the money, the government should give us the money that we deserve. First of all, the government should not be underfunding us. So now we have to rely on rich white people to be generous to do that. Like what? If they stop being generous, then what's going to happen? Right?
Speaker 2:So this is what I'm talking about like, redefining self-care. We pay enough in taxes for you to adequately fund HBCUs. We pay enough in taxes for you to adequately fund HBCUs. We have Black. You know, first of all, my son wouldn't go to a historically white institution, right, by mother's will and by his choice. But I teach Black students at those institutions every day, right? And further than that, I teach some white students who need me there, right? You know, like 83% of the teaching force is white, right? Who's going to like that?
Speaker 2:Black students aren't the only people that are caring for our children, caring for our schools. We had a STEM companies. Like, we need them to get some wokeness, and you know the term woke is just so played out but they need some sources of support too. So I don't know if I would say that definitely the governments need to fund and white folks, if you want to give HBCUs money, we'll take it. That's our reparations, please, and thank you. But I also think that historically, white institutions also need to do a major overhaul with their diversity and inclusion.
Speaker 1:So I would say this I just think the white schools already got the money. They already got the money. Just do what you're supposed to do, y'all not getting no bonuses for doing the wrong thing. I feel like we're rewarding white institutions for the bad jobs they have done historically, and they already got the money to do it.
Speaker 2:So when that comes to my institution, that is absolutely correct. We have the money Stanford, harvard, et cetera but many state universities have been defunded. Again, capitalism and Republicans, you know, are at fault here, where a state university used to be a viable way that the black, lower economic classes could go to a state university. But federal funding has really, like just been decimated Right. So some of these things are not related to diversity and inclusion. It's related to capitalism and Republican control.
Speaker 3:Unless somebody else dropped one in the chat. Tyvee, one of my colleagues from UTSA, hey girl says she's excited to print this book. I'm in great conversation, Like what would you say is the most important message our children need to hear? And I'm guessing it's within the context of the work, the work that you do, but also maybe within the context of the book.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if this is an ideal story, but you can do STEM and change the world at the same time. You do not have to think of those things as separate right. However, STEM is not the great equalizer so many people say you know, I'm going to go on STEM and get rich. A Black PhD in science and engineering PhD is making $30,000 less than their white counterpart. Y'all, believe me, Go to the National Science Foundation indicators $30,000. So we definitely need to be fighting for equity, right, it's part of that, but the real message that I would want to leave students and younger people is that you can save the world via STEM. You are the ones we're looking for.
Speaker 3:Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. And so we got another question in the chat and I think this is interesting, right, Because we've talked about this money pieces like where does Black philanthropy come into play in terms of funding Black institutions and thinking about this in addition to Black engineers, Black STEM PhDs making $30,000 less but also having more debt? So where does philanthropy come into this as we think about funding Black HBCUs?
Speaker 2:Black philanthropy is great, but let me tell you something about the racial wealth gap. Right, I make good money. When my family member dies, I have to pay a lot for that because you know it may not be anybody else to have it, which reduces my ability to gain wealth, to give wealth to my HBCU. Right, I'm trying to take care of my cousin back in Chicago who just got COVID, et cetera. But the racial wealth gap the white medium household is making has one hundred eleven thousand dollars in wealth.
Speaker 2:Do you want to know what the black medium household has? Seven thousand, right, so we assume that black people aren't doing their part. They ain't got it to give. Just stop blaming us. And you know I say that as I send my little $150 a month check to North Carolina A&T. You know, that's all I got right now because I have other responsibilities that I'm trying to take care of through my family, right. So we got to stop blaming black folks. But you know, send $50 for this and we got to put the blame where it's supposed to be, which is the government. It is our money that we pay the government that should be going back to feed and educate us, and it's not happening.
Speaker 3:Dr McGee, you on point. You say that and it reminded me One of the biggest one lesson I learned when I was at Washington State because I was in between my nine month contract. I was working at the University Foundation Right and here at Alcorn, the foundation was one office right, and here at all corn, the foundation was one office. At washington state university in pullman, washington, eight miles away from idaho. The foundation was in being rented in a three floor building. They had multiple offices and it was folks who hadn't even graduated from washington state university making who were being listed as benefactors and the benefactor mean I didn't gave 150 000 it000 at some point right, it's not like one time because you know and I think about, like how I didn't even graduate from the school and I got $150,000 a year.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So I think you definitely I'll point around what does this thing look like, around making sure that the government plays, but also think it's not. If we ain't got it, we ain't got it. So, especially now. Also, what is it? Brittany Cooper just finished talking before you got on Like listen around like Black women got, like maybe got $5 to their name, right, because we always giving money, sending money back home to take care of folks.
Speaker 2:We are philanthropic, it's just we giving it to our families and our friends and meeting their immediate needs first. So don't say we don't give. All we do is give Lord, you know. Yes.
Speaker 3:Okay. So one more question. It says, dr McGee, what is your advice for the bruised who may have wanted to stay within academia but after the bruise and want to go into non-academic careers to attempt to help change the system and better the experiences of incoming Black STEM students?
Speaker 2:If you are working for yourself, that is great. If you are going into industry or something non-academic to think that there's a better life there, I'm sorry, it's not. It's reproduced. This kind of toxic environment is reproducing non-for-profits. It's reproducing think tanks. It's reproducing so many. You know different levels, different devils, y'all. I'm just here to tell you. So people leave the academy thinking that they're going to go to this, you know, kumbaya industry or kumbaya company, and it's either the same or it's worse.
Speaker 2:I also think that we as faculty don't do a good enough job talking about the benefits of being a faculty member. Like, I'm getting a couple of months of summer salary this year that's extra money on top of my paycheck, right? I don't have to go into work even before COVID. You know you have to take a walk around the office, you know, just because you're the Black person and people are going to be checking for you. But you know, I did that maybe like once a week. You know I could be in Jamaica right now having this conversation. I'm not, I'm in Nashville, but you know, you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of benefits and I think we as Black faculty members that sometimes we salivate over the things that are wrong and we forget to tell people the things that are right. The reason why I think this is so important is because a small cohort of Black STEM faculty can change STEM. We are the ones who teach the Microsoft founders. If they see us and we're able to instill a different narrative with them, they might go and do better things with their stem and stop surveilling us and trying to control us through these damn cameras. That's another story for another day, but listen.
Speaker 3:Yes, we got one more question. I think what you said is a reminder. You know, structured systems are maintained by people, and so the reality is, whether it's higher ed, k-12, government, it's the same kinds of people, they cousin, they related, just maintaining some of the beds, and so the follow up was it's at. Whoever this brother or sister is, I'm with you, I can share on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:That is the way to go and I'm glad that somebody who we need is going to be in that space.
Speaker 1:Thank, you for listening to today's show. As I mentioned the introduction, this episode is part of a special series featuring voices from historically Black colleges and universities. This is part of a larger effort to support the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, an effort that I co-founded with two friends of mine who are also on their doctoral journeys. If you would like to support this effort, please review the show notes to make a donation to the endowment. Thank you, you.