DEI, ED, Smartypants, Lover of Baldwin, 90-00s Hip Hop, crochet pet stuff.
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Dr./She/Her/Hers
Apr 26, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Oh, so much scuttle on DEI content at veterinary schools & its relevance to practice. I love how folks think that critters have their own amex, make their own appts, drive themselves to the clinic & pay for their treatment. 🙄
Veterinarians provide care to animals in consultation with owners/caregivers who provide daily care to their pets. Intercultural communication skills are essential to reducing conflict, ensuring informed decision-making & medical compliance.
Jun 13, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Soo, the Idaho white supremacists...
I can't tell you the # times I've been invited to #VetMed things in Coeur d'Alene.
I always say no. Never been, no plans to go. I hear they are both gorgeous. I also hear that they are unsafe for folks like me.
Black woman, mom to a queer person. Nope not going to Idaho, tho I'm sure there are also lovely people there. A former dean discouraged stopping anywhere when I had to drive thru one time; that spoke volumes!
It's the no for me.
Jan 17, 2022 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
As you get to posting all the tributes to #MLK be sure to include the quotes that make us think & question the heavy reliance on the sanitation of his message that is used to make him more palatable in a white supremacist society.
This man was not nationally beloved at the time of his assassination. He was stalked by the state, blamed for Black & Brown folk not knowing our place, & seen as a national threat.
Jul 28, 2021 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
Ok, #VetMedEd...I want to talk about flipping mental frameworks for a minute.
As groups are developing recommendations for DEI in vet school, please spend some time thinking about the framework you're starting from.
I'm seeing a lot of, "We need to *teach/prep* BIPOC & marginalized identities to survive here, etc."
BAD TAKE. If I need to learn how to survive here, that is a a bad environment for everyone. Stop thinking that the CVM/Org doesn't need to change when it does.
Apr 7, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I'm so glad that so many veterinary orgs are working on DEI initiatives. That said, I want to give some advice for folx looking for referrals for help.
Be ready to COMPENSATE DEI folx.
DEI *professionals* are skilled ppl w/ degrees, credentials, research portfolios, & packed schedules. Create a budget larger than a fruit basket. Pay folx for their skills & labor. Don't expect free labor!
I've demurred invites to do a profile for many years. Despite being so visible in the veterinary profession, I've eschewed much personal attention. I focus on the work & let that speak for me & for the DEI progress that's been made.
The reality is that there are soooo very many folks who have been along for this ride (which at times has been bumpy, to say the least). Deans, Associate Deans, staff, students (who honestly have done so much heavy lifting all while studying) interdisciplinary colleagues...
Please stop acting like we do not know why this profession isn't racially diverse. Stop it. There is solid research on why BIPOC students are not represented in STEM, health professions & vet med.
BTW--even if there wasn't research, it's not really a mystery. But for the sake of education, here are the biggies:
A leaky educational pipeline that also pathologizes & criminalizes Black and brown students, thus removing them from the pipeline.
Feb 5, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This is so key to understanding financial decision-making. #vettwitter, when we talk about the need for financial assistance for URVM students, understand that this is sometimes what's going on behind the scenes.
It's not just that the student may be winging it on their own. It's that the student may be shouldering multiple financial burdens because the whole *family* is stuck in poverty.
Hopes & dreams are riding on success, but so is the light bill.
Jan 26, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Just a few thoughts on all the folks & corps that want to start new scholarships for URVM DVM students...
Scholarships are great; yes, they increase access.
The rub is that *everyone* seems to want their *own* scholarship program rather than pooling resources.
Hardly anyone of y'all have deep enough pockets to play this money game in a manner that really, substantially reduces $$ burden for a critical mass of URVM students. #realtalk
All these individual prgms do is nickle & dime the problem while we all sit back & pat ourselves...
Jan 20, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
After voting in 2008, sat in my car and sobbed because I had the opportunity to vote for someone who looked like me.
Me, the granddaughter of folks who survived Jim Crow, who paid poll taxes in order to vote, who made the decision to send my mother to integrate her HS.
I thought about my grandmothers, who were living at the time and how stunned they were that this option would be available in *their* lifetimes.
I thought about the work I do and how it contributes to a larger ecosystem of work that led to that moment.
Jan 18, 2021 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
Every year, I struggle with watching folks bastardize, sanitize & white wash MLK by sharing quotes that suggest he never called out white supremacy.
Well he did. He also had some critiques about capitalism's role in perpetuating racism & it's off shoot economic inequality.
The truth is, MLK was a radical. My goodness, the fact that he was so upsetting to white folks that he was jailed, beaten & assassinated speaks to just how disruptive to white supremacy he really was.
Folks seem to forget that he was legit KILLED for his work.
Dec 9, 2020 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Recommendations for how colleges should make lasting improvements in faculty diversity (opinion) insidehighered.com/views/2020/12/…
I get a lot of questions about increasing diversity among faculty. Most recently an inquiry stating that we should be shifting focus to faculty.
That's great & all, but where do you think new faculty come from? They come from more diverse student ranks.
Dec 8, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Currently reviewing applications for something & have observations...When folks say they have experience working on DEI issues because they worked in African countries and are really concerned about global health...
Listen, there is *great* value in those experiences & I'm sure that you learned some important concepts (hopefully a lot about the ill-effects of colonization), but please know that if that's the lens you are applying to localized DEI work...you have some addtl work to do.
Aug 7, 2020 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
A thread on #vetmed recruiting BIPOC students in the K-12 space.
In recent weeks I'm hearing so much excitement & energy around the long game of recruiting BIPOC students into vet med. I know many of us have dancing images of exposing littles to animals & animal docs.
I'm soooo supportive of this, but hear me clearly that these efforts already have HUGE blind spots that must be addressed if we want these efforts to even have a chance.
Sep 13, 2019 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
Heading home from a week in Portland and the #BanfieldIndustrySummit. Good trip and great discussions, but I want share some thoughts/observations with my colleagues...A thread...1/
Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) work is tough because it requires us to make value assessments about our personal beliefs. There is often so much dissonance between what you *thought* you knew about people and evidence to the contrary.
