We’re joining today’s Strike for Black Lives as part of ShutDownSTEM — taking the day away from our scientific work to study, plan, and act against racism and police violence in the places we live and research. It’s a good day to join a protest in your city — look for your local Black Lives Matter group on social media, and make a plan — or to take time for reading and research on topics that are all too easy to put off when you’re chasing the next deadline. ShutDownSTEM provides a deep list of resources for people at all levels of engagement and familiarity with anti-racist work; here’s a few we at TME can personally recommend:
- The National Museum of African American History and Culture offers a detailed introduction to anti-racism, with links to lots of supporting material;
- Here’s a Twitter thread of articles from Science (available without paywall) addressing diversity and equity issues, and possible solutions;
- Angela Saini’s book Superior is an up-to-date, thorough, and highly readable history of the deep entanglement of race science with evolution and genetics;
- Britt Rusert’s Fugitive Science is a more academic, but absolutely fascinating, history of African Americans’ engagement with science during the nineteenth century, when the very concepts of “science” and “scientists” were still emerging
If you’re a PI or a leader in a workplace or campus group, consider selecting some readings to support an ongoing book or journal club. Whatever you do with the day, try to make it something that you can carry on, and build on, when you return to your lab, field site, or classroom.
