FIRST Experiences as a Person of Color

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS

It's definitely not any PoC's responsibility to educate white folk, but if anyone is willing, what are some ways we (non PoC) can be allies? What type of things would you like to see at events? Should volunteer coordinators try to focus on making a more diverse judging pane/volunteer crewl? Should we (the collective FIRST community) try to get more distinguished guests/speakers that are PoC at events?

The number one thing anyone can do in regards to race is to not worry about it. Most Problems occur when some assumption about someone is made based on race. Think of skin color like pit scouting robots. What good elim pick list is based solely off pit scouting data?

As far as the current level of diversity in FIRST? More external factors seem to be at play than internal. From my perspective (African American) FIRST and the general community aren't doing anything particularly wrong and my experience has been generally positive. #1 reason you will or won't see someone of color on a FIRST team is where it is located. Who goes to the school. #2 is media. How many African American engineers or female engineers have you heard of? More importantly how often are they mentioned? If you never see it you won't think of it as an option. Then you're flooded with examples of every profession but engineering to seal the deal (mostly sports & entertainment).