I'd now like to direct your attention to this video:
When discussing race, there are a few questions that are bound to come up.
- Why are there so few people of color in STEM fields?
- Why are crime rates among Blacks and Latin@s so high?
- If white people can realize the American Dream and make successes out of nothing, why can't POCs?
I've heard several times (mostly from older white men) that women and POCs aren't very present in STEM fields because they just aren't interested in STEM. I'm sorry, what? You mean to tell me, old white dude, that entire demographics of people are significantly less interested in science and math than you are? I gueeeeeeess that could be it.
OR, could it be that we (the women and POCs) are taught practically from birth that we don't belong in those fields? My mother is a hardcore feminist, but even she gave me dolls to play with as a young child instead of trucks or toy rocket ships. I watched Star Trek and Contact and Star Gate and countless other space-themed things growing up. And you know what I learned from them? I learned that, unless I was lucky enough to be the ONE black person in a cast of about 100, I didn't really belong in the field. All of that worked together to make it so that I didn't actually believe I could make it as an astronomer until last summer. LAST SUMMER!! That's absurd.
I've talked to people who believe that Black and Latin@ communities have higher crime rates than white communities because there's something about those racial groups that makes the people in them morally inferior to whites. Now, I feel the need to make it abundantly clear that I'm not condoning (most) crimes. But (ignoring the fact that Black and Latin@ people are more likely than whites to be persecuted for identical crimes, source here) perhaps there's a reason more Black and Latin@ people feel it's necessary to turn to a life of crime? Could that reason maybe be the fact that most roles in movies and on TV for Black and Latin@ actors revolve around crime? I think it might be.
And finally, I've literally had people say to my face that white people can work their way out of poverty because they work hard and Black and Latin@ people are lazy. I don't know about you, but there's just something about characterizing entire races of people like that that doesn't sit right with me. Instead, I wonder if it might have something to do with the fact that most AMerican Dream movies are about white people. Maybe, if POCs saw people who look like them succeeding just as often as they see whites succeeding, they would start to see it as a possibility. Because I guarantee that there little Black and Brown children in this country who don't even think success is something they should dare dream about.
This might be the point in the blog post where you say, "But Moiya, what about all those great Black and Brown athletes and singers? Aren't they good role models?"
Yeah, sure. Of course there are a few bad apples **cough cough** Chris Brown **cough cough** but for the most part, Black and Brown performers let young Black and Brown people know that they could make it big one day. There's just one problem: They're only performers. I'm not saying that to belittle those professions, but what about the little Black boy who wants to grow up to be a lawyer, or the young Latina girl who wants to be a marine biologist? Who are their role models? They don't have any, and that's truly heartbreaking.
I'm not saying that all of the prejudices in the world would disappear if Hollywood and other major film and television institutions suddenly decided to cast POCs, but it sure would make a hell of a difference
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