This was y'all last night at the @AAS_CSMA #ShutDownSTEM Town Hall lol
On a serious note, thank you to everyone who was patient as we fought to screen everybody waiting to get into the meeting. We took extra precautions to protect the Black astronomers breakout room from racist attacks.
As far as I could tell, all the Black people who registered for the meeting were able to gain access to the room and had a pleasant time. My sincerest apologies to any Black folks who were not able to access the meeting.
Now that we've cleared that up, I have a few things to say.
First, a clarification for anyone who does not know how the AAS is structured: The CSMA has no voting power in the society. We are a team of volunteers, mostly people of color, and we skew heavily junior.
We wanted to address the community during the very important #ShutDownSTEM #ShutDownAcademia strike, and with what little energy we all had left from the previous few weeks we organized the town hall.
I've been serving on the CSMA for the past four years, and I've been co-chairing for the past two years. In that time, we have led countless initiatives to support Black and Brown astronomers. But not ONCE have I had inquiries from white folks wanting to support our work.
We get plenty of requests for work, to be sure. Requests for our members to serve on other committees, requests to review documents for "inclusivity," requests for information, etc. We do this work for our own survival and the survival of others like us in astronomy.
We do it because we know that if we don't, there are precious few white people in astronomy who will actively support Black and Brown people.
Now I understand that the meeting was scheduled for 4 pm EST and some of y'all were waiting for quite a while in the waiting room so you were probably confused. I got plenty of polite emails asking if they had the time right or if something had gone wrong.
However, there were also emails from people who felt entitled to the space, and had the *gall* to make demands and respond with snark for having to wait so long. One person in particular, Paul Green from Harvard, was especially rude.
Just so y'all know, I was responding to these emails during the town hall to make sure people understood the reasons for the delay. While also helping my team sort through the registration list and leading people in the white room through a journaling exercise.
Not everybody knows this, but I started my own business helping STEM departments foster cultures where marginalized people can thrive. That is my job. So the space we held for white astronomers last night was professionally facilitated, for FREE.
And again, I have good reasons to volunteer my time with the CSMA. But at the end of the day, please understand that y'all are not 👏🏼 paying 👏🏼 us 👏🏼 for this.
One person had the nerve to complain during our session yesterday that he and his colleagues had been in the waiting room for 45 minutes and some were still waiting there. So you're saying that you have a right to the space and it was unfair that you were kept out of it? Hmm.
I don't know about y'all but that sounds...vaguely familiar to me. Can't quite put my finger on it tho 🤔
In the end, we had some fruitful discussions in the white astronomers room. People were surprisingly vulnerable and willing to listen to what we had to say.
But don't get it twisted. The rest of us have been here for years while y'all are just now showing up.
A big shoutout to @That_Astro_Chic for facilitating the healing space for Black astronomers, @Kate_Daniel_Gxy and Audra Hernandez for holding down the room for non-Black POC, Carlos Vargas and Irene Nava for managing the operator room, and @eblur27 for co-hosting with me.
