[334] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Affirmative Action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Mon Apr 30 02:13:44 2001
Message-Id: <200104300612.CAA29924@gold.mit.edu>
To: justin nelson <jmnelson@MIT.EDU>
cc: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>, Michael E Rolish <merolish@MIT.EDU>,
mit-talk@MIT.EDU, alsmith@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 28 Apr 2001 20:13:33 EDT."
<200104290014.UAA09668@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu>
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Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 02:12:16 -0400
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
OK, this is long as hell, but this is for all you people who don't believe
sexism or racism exists anymore:
> Aimee Smith
> >The gentlemen of 1/8 Cherokee decent makes me laugh. He feels it would be
> >"unfair" to get into MIT on the basis of his ethnic background. Was
> >it "fair" of the white settlers to genocidally remove almost all of
> >the indigenous people of North and South America, thereby CLEANSING
> >the playing field, rather than tilting it?
>
> just for the record, ive never killed a native american and ive never been
> genocidally removed because i had native american blood in me.
But whites *have* benefited extensively from the cleansing and the
project is not over yet. E.g. toxic waste sites are disproportionately
located on native peoples' lands and in African American communities.
Contrary to what the objectivists may tell you, exposure to uranium
ore, and other toxins causes cancer and a greater likelihood of death.
There is a class at MIT on environmental racism... the prof could tell
you much more and better than I can, but this is one of many examples.
And even more immediate tragedy is that relayed by the President of the
U'Wa people in Colombia who was here last Sunday and spoke in 10-250.
Occidental petroleum wants to drill on their ancestral homeland and
they are currently being affected by the massive "anti-drug" war that
includes massive plant irradiation programs with hazardous chemicals
such as Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. This blanket spraying
program does nothing to stop the government and military officials
who are involved in drug trafficking and does much to eliminate food crops
and the health of these people affected by spraying... but great for the
profits of Monsanto. The ethnic cleansing project still is underway
in the year 2001. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
> laugh all that you want, but it wouldn't be fair for me to beat out someone
> more deserving because of an irrelevant factor. I don't need a crutch or a
> handout based upon the skin color of my great-grandma.
>
> i would be very interested to know about the handouts that i have received
> because i am a white male. i come from a below-average economic
> background. my older brother will be the first person in my entire
> extended family to graduate college. i come from a small, rural, public
> school in texas. [...] where's my advantage?
Classism, is alive and well in the US as it has been since at least
colonization. Classism may have predominated your experience, but in
the US, racism keeps "class" status correlated with racial background.
Classism is aslo unjust and a means of keeping deserving people of all
races, religions and backgrounds from having access to opportunities
that they are equally deserving of to wealthy folks.
How do you define *deserving*? That is what it comes down to. My point
is that if you are a member of an under-represented minority, even
if your background includes wealth, you still have barriers of inclusion and
equal recognition for equal work. The latest case of the "epithet incident"
with ATO, if it went down as alleged, is an example of these performers
who are incredibly talented and skilled musicians who have obviously
worked very hard and learned the meaning of discipline at some point,
yet they can be treated with hostility on our campus... what if you are
immeasurably identical to another candidate who does not have this
potential for identification in his heritage? What if you have had to
face the absolutely racist teaching of history given in most US high
schools and elementary schools and yet you still did as well? The
problem with racism and sexism and homophobia and religious discrimination
and other forms of exclusion is that you don't need to overtly bar people
from access. It is a statistical process. Each woman or minority person is
a unique individual with their own ideas about what it means to be whoever
they identify themself to be, but statistically, they are more likely to
accumulate incidents of hostility, exclusion, and discrimination which
will perpetuate their under-representation. The actual incidents are
many and diverse, but they serve to create a pattern of bias, much as
drops of water make a stream. It is up to each of us to question
the biases that have been rooted in our own psyches so that we can
both LIBERATE ourselves from the *oppression* of the groups we may
be a member of AND equally importantly, so we can learn to be less
harmful to others. It isn't about being a vicitm or a victimizer.
It is about rethinking our assumptions, speech patterns, etc. to
make them as honest and harmless as possible to our community members.
It is about learning both self-respect and respect for those with
different backgrounds, experiences and appearences. The lazy way out is
to *blame* the victim, which is the long-standing tradition in the US.
(The "lazy" Mexican who is working his or her ass off in the blazing sun for
$4.50/hr doing agricultural or yard work that no "hard-working"
American wants to do... the woman who "asked for it" if she is raped
out at night or by someone she trusted... the African slave women
who were routinely subjected to rape by their owners as part of his
"property rights" were called "Jezebels" and deemed to always "want it"
by definition... )
> now if you think that your education was short changed because of your race
> or gender then i guess you have a case for affirmative action, but dont try
> and convince me whether or not you were realistically held back
> educationally because of race or gender. that is something that you should
> ask yourself and not answer for the sake of others seeing the answer.
I asked myself and I asked women in roughly 7 different countries apart
from the US in the field of physics. The question is important on a personal
level, but the answer is very important for assessing what role discrimination
still plays in excluding women's voices from science and thereby what
needs to change about science and the way we do science to include women.
Although their was a range of cultural experiences, such as India and
Turkey having much better representation than the US in Physics faculty,
there were certain patterns of exclusion that could be found in each
country. Discrimination against motherhood is a big deal. (My advisor
"advised" me not to have children while in grad school-- no conflict
of interest here, no discrimination here...) Sexual harassment is a huge
deal. One of my interviewees had recently been accosted by a
colleague. She was terrified. People don't often talk freely about
these problems since fear of retaliation is great.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V109/N51/anony.51o.html
http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v12/12-01/postering.html
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V112/N10/harassed.10n.html
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V113/N48/harass.48n.html
But these problems are extremely prevalent and if you are born with
a y chromosome, you are much less likely to have to face these things.
What I will do when I get more time is make a list of the many many
things that happen to women that serve to alienate women (so far
as I have seen or heard) and since I am white, I can't really do
the same adequately for people of under-represented minorities,
but I would encourage folks who could to think about doing so. It
is just incredible all of the BS I had to put up with at my nice science
undergrad school and then here at MIT. From the scary guy who had a life-
sized poster made of me --yeah, really flattering-- to the two
TA's that asked me out during the course of the class, to the third that
propositioned me, to the man that threatened to punch me in the face and
the admin did nothing about b/c "he claimed he was only stretching and
you misinterpreted it." So much for the two buddies that hauled him
away... to the harassing phone calls, things written in the school paper,
to all the organizations/clubs/groups that just seem to be taken over
by men, to being the only woman in the meeting and being asked to take
notes, to being the "emotional laborer" to all the men who were too cowardly
to share their problems with their men friends, to all the men who pretended
to be my friend in the hopes that they might get a piece of ass, to
the nice man who said I "would be a lot more attractive if I spoke
less" (yeah, I was put on this earth to entice you, sweety, my sole purpose
in life--- maybe you could just get the inflatable version of me
and be done with it) to the men who said I got in b/c I was a woman (yet
I was in the advanced, i.e. above ave math classes?), to the two occasions
where I woke to find a man trying to climb into my dormroom window, to
the TA who told some students that "most women at Caltech are ornamental,"
(I would say alleged, but he did admit doing it to me) to the grad students
with "girlie" pictures in our office, to the nice man who pulled me into
his lap and wouldn't let me go and said "you love it" when in actuality,
I did NOT love it and was terrified, and passers by just laughed, to the
prof here at MIT who showed images of naked women, one with her fingers
inserted in her anus, in lecture to demonstrate the need for website-
blocking software, to the nice colleague who told me that I didn't need
to worry about getting a job as my husband is very smart, being at a
conference and having a giant attendee that I knew only slightly come up
after he had had several beers and give me a bear hug- he didn't do that to
my advisor or other colleague, and these two saw no problem with it, I
felt terrified and pissed-off that I couldn't figure out a "polite" way
to get out of such a violation of my space in time, oh yeah, and every
year with out fail here at MIT, the cheesy flyers have to start up with
naked, nearly naked, headless and many other manner of images of women
designed to say "women are objects for sex, not human beings," being the
*only* woman presenter at consortia meetings, being ignored in study groups
when I was doing as well or better than the boys in the class... believe
me, this is by far a partial list, and I have accounts from friends and
people I have interviewed, and much that has been collected and published
that shows that it adds up to a *pattern* of behavior that
serves to *drive* women out of these fields. Each incident is one small
drop of the water dripping on your head, but the shit adds up.
So, you all want to talk about "fair?" B/c this shit is far from fair. And
you can try and convince yourself that you don't do any of these things.
But what do you do to stop/prevent/stand in the way of these things?
If you benfit and aren't trying to change the bias, then you are part
of the problem and there isn't a damn thing *fair* about it.
> i applaud zhe's attitude (and her mom's advice) about working harder. i
> have no basis for knowing whether or not the "10X hard work" factor exists
> but thank god someone has abandoned the "i'm a victim" attitude. i still
> believe that hard work can overcome any barrier. perhaps i am foolishly
> ideal, but i shall never abandon this belief for it has served me well so
> far. i also believe our entire american generation as a whole has been
> softened by prosperity and are too quick to claim helpless, victim status.
By all means work hard, we have lots and lots of work to do for ourselves
and for eachother... and many of us do have extreme access to wealth
compared to most of the planet, but rather than "softening" us, I think it
has made many complacent and willing to take theirs at the expense of
others. But then, many of us are not so content to do that anymore...
> "It is only through the struggle that I find the strength to be great"
I am all for the struggle!
> "If life isn't fair to anybody, then isn't it being fair to everybody?"
Let's say it gives unfair advantage to some at the unfair expense of others...
