FIRST Experiences as a Person of Color

[Bgreen1591]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

I think the diversity is much better in naturally diverse places. In lower NY we are naturally very diverse and the teams are by result.

The only "naturally" diverse place in "lower NY" as you put it would be, New York City (Correct me if I am wrong). That being said, the reason why it is so diverse is because the event hosts "inner city" and international kids. Many of the student participants are minorities, i.e African America, Hispanic/Latino, Asian etc. many of whom are mentored by minorities as well. In my opinion, the problem comes when you see the staff working the events and competitions. It even surfaces among the invited speakers or guest. Many states may vary and have minorities represented but i have yet to see it on a larger scale or with consistency.

Originally Posted by jeser#1772

This is a very interesting discussion

In Brazil we do not differentiate people, we just have Brazilians in Brazil

I remember answering the FIRST questionnaire about the percentage each ethnicity within the team and not actually knowing what to do...

I ended up spending a long time thinking what to answer and at the end I just ticked "other” and put "people" in the box, I also requested that FIRST did not ask me that again.

I am glad to see that racism and prejudice does not exist in Brazil, maybe U.S should take some notes. But as humans, we try to avoid conversation that we are not comfortable with. In society, we demonized such issues so much that people avoid having meaningful conversation about it.

Originally Posted by FrankJ

Not that many people make a big deal of his ethnicity, but Lonnie Johnson (inventor of the super soaker) is a supporter of First. I not sure if he is a judge, but he gave substantial speeches at the Peachtree & Georgia Southern Classic regionals. (past tense because we are going to districts next year.) He also hosts one of Georgia's DE fields at his research facility.

It's great to hear about things like this. It should be spread on a national/international level. Any participant of FIRST should be able to look at a flyers or listen to guest speak and say, "I want to be like her/him" or "He/She looks like me" creating possibility for that student to aspire.




I saw a TED talk a while back where the speaker said, “Scholars have created this term "color blindness" to describe a learned behavior where we pretend that we don't notice race. If you happen to be surrounded by a bunch of people who look like you, that's purely accidental. Now, color blindness, in my view, doesn't mean that there's no racial discrimination, and there's fairness. It doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't ensure it. In my view, color blindness is very dangerous because it means we're ignoring the problem.” Mellody Hobson TED 2014. According to the “FIRST Program Evaluation” done by the Center for Youth and Communities, at Brandeis University, only 27% of participants in FRC are non-white. Out of 60 people in “leadership” positions at FIRST only 6 would be considered non-white based on research done on the FIRST website. Information also gathered from the FIRST website also shows that only 7 State Senior Mentors would be considered non-white. A lot of times we pretend these issue don’t exist in our homes, our schools, at our job, in our grocery stores, even within FIRST. We need to bring more awareness to these problems, so that we can as NYC FIRST says, “Discover the genius in every kid”

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Bgreen1591

The only "naturally" diverse place in "lower NY" as you put it would be, New York City (Correct me if I am wrong). That being said, the reason why it is so diverse is because the event hosts "inner city" and international kids. Many of the student participants are minorities, i.e African America, Hispanic/Latino, Asian etc. many of whom are mentored by minorities as well. In my opinion, the problem comes when you see the staff working the events and competitions. It even surfaces among the invited speakers or guest. Many states may vary and have minorities represented but i have yet to see it on a larger scale or with consistency.

When I refer to lower ny I am referring to New York City, and Long Island.

On my team it is pretty much an even split between indian, white, and Asian people. Even though my school is pretty much all white people. I wouldn't call any of those races poc but it is worth mentioning.

I will also mention NY is very segregated area and school wise because of the public school system. If you didn't known in NYC you actually have to apply to High School and you fight against other top kids in the city to get in the top school. If your not a top kid you end up at a bad school for the most part unless you are lucky and are zoned for a decent school.

Teams like Stuypulse, and the Steel Hawks come from specialized high schools that are very difficult to get into unless your top of the class.

Because of this in Ny you see entire Poc Teams and entire white teams. Same thing goes for long island.

I must also say that many of the people who work the events are poc. One of the refs on long island that goes to every event is a poc and in NYC there's just as many Poc working the events as competing in them.

But, regardless racism in Ny, and Long Island isn't as prominent in the South, and the west. I've noticed from traveling people out of cities who haven't experienced different cultures are extremely racist.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

But, regardless racism in Ny, and Long Island isn't as prominent in the South, and the west. I've noticed from traveling people out of cities who haven't experienced different cultures are extremely racist.

This statement... there is just...

I've LIVED in the south and most of the folks I met down there were not only more accepting but far kinder than anyone I've met in the Northeast. So, do me a favor and stop it with the stereotyping of anyone outside a city as some sort of redneck yokel.

And, on the topic of more volunteers as PoC, allow me to show you an example of what we see in VMS...

Jonathan Wimms L

So, you tell me, PoC or not?


For more fun, what gender is this person?

Alex Jones M

The point is, if that's all you know about the person it's pretty hard to guess. Not saying that judges and refs should all be older white men, but definitely saying, cut the VC's some slack, they are working with who volunteers. If you want to see more PoC or other underrepresented group in the volunteer pool, help us by asking them to volunteer.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

This statement... there is just...

I've LIVED in the south and most of the folks I met down there were not only more accepting but far kinder than anyone I've met in the Northeast. So, do me a favor and stop it with the stereotyping of anyone outside a city as some sort of redneck yokel.

And, on the topic of more volunteers as PoC, allow me to show you an example of what we see in VMS...



So, you tell me, PoC or not?


For more fun, what gender is this person?



The point is, if that's all you know about the person it's pretty hard to guess. Not saying that judges and refs should all be older white men, but definitely saying, cut the VC's some slack, they are working with who volunteers. If you want to see more PoC or other underrepresented group in the volunteer pool, help us by asking them to volunteer.

There are exceptions to the rule obviously but I disagree. Tennessee imo has some of the most racism I have ever seen. What I've seen in the south hasn't always been direct racism but I have seen a lot of condescending attitudes towards poc which is worse imo.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I've LIVED in the south and most of the folks I met down there were not only more accepting but far kinder than anyone I've met in the Northeast. So, do me a favor and stop it with the stereotyping of anyone outside a city as some sort of redneck yokel.

+1
As someone who was born in Selma AL, and raised in the suburbs of New Orleans, I see more racism when I travel to the northeast than I ever do at home. In old southern cities especially, you will find thoroughly mixed neighborhoods, people of African and Italian and Irish and Jewish and Vietnamese and Middle Eastern descent all living on the same block, and mansions a block down from shotgun doubles. The suburbs and small towns are more sorted, though by income rather than race. In most cities from DC northward, there seems to be a line in town (often a set of railroad tracks) which marks the territory between races, and other lines that mark territory between national origins. When I go into a restaurant or store and for some reason decide to look around for it, I rarely find in the south that there are only white people, or that I'm the only one. It seems to happen far more regularly in the Northeast. I haven't spent enough time on the west coast to comment.

[GreyingJay]

As a person of Asian descent I'm not sure I really feel the same types of discrimination, per se, that other PoC might, but I definitely feel stereotyped. People feel free to assume by my looks that I'm an engineer, computer nerd, etc. OK, so it's true, but...

Living all my life in one of Ontario's major cities with a healthy multicultural population, I never really give it much thought, though occasionally I do get reminded that stereotyping exists. I was interviewing real estate agents recently and one (white) guy made a comment about how much different "the Oriental people" are now -- "used to be you couldn't work with them, they only wanted to deal with other Oriental people". I wasn't really sure whether to be offended by that remark, but it did factor a bit in my decision not to hire him.

Then there was the time, not that long ago, I was an adult leader for a youth retreat at a camp in rural Ontario, and I met a couple of teenage boys who had apparently never met an Asian person before. They were visibly apprehensive at first, but relaxed and we became friends after they realized I wasn't going to be "weird". I found this out after the fact in chatting with one of their parents. If only I had known, I could have really messed with their heads... So yes, those people do still exist, though I think it's more simply not knowing than it is outright stereotyping or blatant racism.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

There are exceptions to the rule obviously but I disagree. Tennessee imo has some of the most racism I have ever seen. What I've seen in the south hasn't always been direct racism but I have seen a lot of condescending attitudes towards poc which is worse imo.

And I see a lot of condescending attitudes from you towards people from a different region. Are you seeing my point yet?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

I haven't spent enough time on the west coast to comment.

I'll speak up for the west coast,at least my area.

I can't say for sure that I've seen much racism--admittedly, I'm not a PoC, so I probably am not as attuned to it as many PoCs are. Are there some "wrong side of the tracks" areas? Yep. There most certainly are. Do people tend to stick together by race? Sure, to a point. But by and large, I can't say I see as much as some folks might assume.

[mrnoble]

I sure hope this doesn't devolve into a regional argument, or a bunch of us saying "I haven't experienced racism". A thousand people here can speak for this: I've been south, north, east, and west, within the United States, and I have seen racism manifested in the rural and urban areas of each region, sometimes in different ways, sometimes more or less subtly, but it's there. Racism exists in our culture. Okay. But we're not going to solve the problems of American society here; we are talking specifically about the culture of FIRST, and how it is experienced by persons of color, per the OP. I realize I'm setting myself up as an arbiter here, and I promise I'm stepping right down, but I'm pleading that we not go where it seems we are going. Please.

[Alan Anderson]

I'm not sure what some of you are responding to, but it doesn't seem to be relevant to what Samuel said about isolation contributing to racism. He notes that people from places without a lot of diversity tend to show racist attitudes, and the objections to his comment seem to say "I have experience with muticultural neighborhoods all over the place and the people there are not racist." That's not a contradiction. If anything, it lends support to his observation.

I see the same thing he does. The most strongly racist people I know grew up in a highly homogenous environment, where everyone looked like they did and came from where they came from and went to the same church they went to. A lifetime of experience with a "they aren't like us" mindset is not easy to overcome.

I myself struggle with prejudice against people who speak using a variety of English that I can't easily understand. Although equating intelligibility with intelligence might not be appropriate, it's something I find myself ready to do if I'm not careful. But I'm pretty confident that my upbringing hasn't given me a tendency to look differently at people based on their skin color, or eye color, or hair color, or body shape, or any such superficial quality.

[tab1a]

If you are white, please do not comment on how little racism there is in your region. There's no way for you to have experienced it first hand. This thread was made for PoC to talk about their experiences in FIRST as PoC.

[Mykey]

Originally Posted by tab1a

If you are white, please do not comment on how little racism there is in your region. There's no way for you to have experienced it first hand. This thread was made for PoC to talk about their experiences in FIRST as PoC.

You should be very careful about assuming a "white" has no experience with racism.

I can guarantee that racism is alive and well in this country.

In high school (Booker T. Washington/HSEP in Houston - Go Leopards!) I met some of the most wonderful people on this planet and received a first rate education. I was also was nearly killed by a group of three people who beat me to an inch of my life while yelling racial slurs at me. This did not drive me from the school or make me drop my friends (and girlfriend) because of the actions of a few idiots who superficially looked like them.

If you want open and healthy discussions about race then you must invite all people to participate.

The team I am running is over 90% Latino/Hispanic, ~5% white, and 100% the same race. We need to start with our similarities and minimize our differences.

So I look forward to hearing from those who wish to speak up. I am always wanting to have my horizons expanded.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by tab1a

If you are white, please do not comment on how little racism there is in your region. There's no way for you to have experienced it first hand. This thread was made for PoC to talk about their experiences in FIRST as PoC.

I'm not responding directly to you tab1a.

But can we stop with the discussions about whether or not certain things or people are racist and get back to discussing minority POC experience within FIRST?
Maybe some suggestions about how to beter represent the diversity in our home areas? Or if we think a concerted effort to increase the amount of POC judges/volunteers at an event will have a positive impact on minority perception of what we do?

[Madison]

..

[Katie_UPS]

Originally Posted by Mykey

You should be very careful about assuming a "white" has no experience with racism.

I can guarantee that racism is alive and well in this country.

In high school (Booker T. Washington/HSEP in Houston - Go Leopards!) I met some of the most wonderful people on this planet and received a first rate education. I was also was nearly killed by a group of three people who beat me to an inch of my life while yelling racial slurs at me. This did not drive me from the school or make me drop my friends (and girlfriend) because of the actions of a few idiots who superficially looked like them.

If you want open and healthy discussions about race then you must invite all people to participate.

Alright, just in case I'm putting my foot in mouth, I'm assuming you are white. If you aren't, then I'm making a complete arse of myself- a risk I guess I'm willing to take.

What you experienced was awful and I'm not trying to minimize the pain and suffering you went through. But it's not racism. Racism is the systematic oppression of PoC by white people through a social structure where white people have power and privilege over non-whites. Racism is not just someone making a racial slur, but the problem where applicants with "black" sounding names are less likely to get hired than John Smith with the exact same resume, or a whole host of similar situations (black people being followed inside stores by staff more frequently than whites, etc).

Did you experience bigotry/prejudice/hate based off your skin color? Yes. That's wrong. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm sorry you had that experience and I understand that you won't be happy with me saying that's not racism. I am saying it was still wrong, I want to make that clear.

The team I am running is over 90% Latino/Hispanic, ~5% white, and 100% the same race. We need to start with our similarities and minimize our differences.

I just... This is white-washing your students. They aren't 100% the same race. Their racial identity has -in both negative and positive ways- shaped their life experience. To say that they're all the same is to deny them their experiences. I know what you're trying to get at, that you're one team and race doesn't affect how you view your students: that's great! But that wording feels off.


White people want to walk about racism, but we really have little to add to the conversation especially when PoC are a part of the conversation (which they should always be). In these conversations we should focus on listening because we don't experience systematic racism.

(I realize I'm writing a bunch while also saying we -myself included- need to be listening more)

Reading: explaining white privlidge to a broke white person
8 things white people should know about race (I'm not particularly pleased with the click-bait title, but the article brings up a lot of good points and links to further reading. It's also easier to read/digest than a more scholarly article)