You Dont Look Like A Scientist
what kind of box
do you live in i’m not talking about an
actual box
like a shoebox or a cardboard box i mean
when i say things like get out of the
box or
think outside of the box what does that
mean for you
for me growing up i wasn’t even aware
that boxes
existed all i knew was that i loved
science
and i pursued science probably
at the expense of the irritation of my
mother
i would go around the house mixing
things that did not belong together
like baby powder with nail polish with
sugar
just to see what would happen and
eventually
my sights turned towards the sky and i
decided that i wanted to become an
astronaut
and i was one of the fortunate kids to
earn a scholarship to attend
space camp and space camp was awesome i
learned so many things
i learned about all of the careers that
work together
to get somebody into space and to study
space they were physicists
geologists chemists anything you could
think of
and that was great to know because i
ultimately found out at space camp that
i was afraid of heights
which meant that my dreams of being an
astronaut
probably not a great career for me
but there were so many other careers to
explore
and i did my love for science grew
over the years and eventually i earned a
bachelor’s degree
and a master’s degree in biology and my
specialty
was in molecular biology which means
that i
study how molecules interact with each
other to generate life processes
and i loved science so much that i
wanted that to be my job title
and i made it so i actually graduated
with a master’s degree on a saturday and
started my career that very same monday
as a corporate cancer researcher and
i was going to do science that was going
to be my job title is going to get paid
to do what i love to do most
and i wore that with a badge of honor
i was so proud and i would come to work
every day
i’d do the science i’d go home with a
smile on my face
but over time i realized that
something was off something was
different
my experience as a corporate scientist
was much different than my experience
as a student scientist
i was lonely
i was incredibly lonely not
only was i just doing the science but i
was doing it alone
where other scientists were running
their experiments in the lab
having chit chat talking to each other
getting to know
their values beliefs what they do
outside of work
sometimes making plans with each other
outside of work developing friendships
and bonds
i was never a part of that i was being
left out
and i was alone and
i also noticed that i was
the only person who looked like me there
but nevertheless i continued to do the
science after all
i loved science but over time
it was wearing down on me eventually the
lab did hire somebody who did look like
me
they weren’t a scientist they were a
janitor but
still i was happy that they were there
and
that day i’ll never forget because my
co-worker turned to me and said
you should be happy that you’re not the
token black anymore
and that crushed my spirit
i couldn’t believe that she said that to
me and
one of my greatest fears was confirmed
and
that fear was that even though i was
coming to do the science
and i loved science and had spent my
whole life loving science
that even though i was coming to work
with this passion and joy
and what i did it wasn’t enough and that
other people
were still seeing me as different and
not equal
and that i was actually a token um
and so when she said that to me i cried
she left she wasn’t
aware that she had hurt me so deeply but
i went back to my desk
i cried silently wiping the tears from
my face
in pain and i had experienced that pain
for the months to come there would be
other occasions where
i would be treated differently than
everyone else and it would hurt me
and i had to make the decision to leave
and i’m really fortunate to have
multiple interests
in that not only do i enjoy doing the
science
but i love teaching the science and i
was lucky enough to obtain a position
teaching science at a community college
in my city and that was one of the most
rewarding experiences i’ve had
as a scientist and i think that it was
not only rewarding for me
but also for my students we loved
interacting with each other
and not only were we teaching each other
things but we were also engaging in some
really awesome teamwork
and we learned so much from each other
but let me tell you what happened on my
first day
on that job one of my co-workers decided
that
because i couldn’t find my mailbox in
the faculty mail room
that she was going to call the police on
me
and have me arrested and ultimately the
conversation between she and i went
like this she saw me entering the mail
room
physically blocked me from entering the
room because she didn’t think i belonged
there
once i got into the room i was looking
for my mailbox i wasn’t sure where it
was it was my first day of work
and she asked me for my photo
identification which i provided
it was my faculty identification that
had my photo
the school name the year my position and
the department
and even after all of that she still
decided that
the identification was fake and it
wasn’t mine
and i didn’t belong and ultimately she
told me that i didn’t look
like i belonged in the department
and that i could work there so she was
going to call the police and have me
arrested
and at this point
i was frustrated because i was noticing
a pattern
of me coming into the workspace whether
it be in the lab
or at a college where people are doing
science
teaching science and my co-worker is
telling me that i don’t belong
that i’m a token or that i don’t look
like
i should be there when i had the
qualifications
and i deserve to be there just like
everyone else
and so i took a period of reflection and
i looked at why was this happening to me
there has to be a reason for this
pattern
and during this time of reflection i
started a doctorate in science education
and i found out in my own research that
there are decades and decades and
decades
of researchers asking this question of
what do you believe a scientist looks
like
and what i found in other people’s
research is that
when they ask people to draw or describe
what they believe a scientist looks like
the most frequent was
the most frequent response is that a
scientist
is a white man
and i am not a white man
i am a black woman um
even in the media scientists researching
the media representation of scientists
find the same
perpetuation that scientists are white
men
and there’s nothing wrong with being a
white man
there’s nothing wrong with being a black
woman
but the issue becomes when these
messages are perpetuated from the media
into real life so much so
that when i enter a workspace where
people are doing science and teaching
science that people can’t connect the
dots and understand
that i do belong and that i am a
scientist
and we also know from research that the
media does
impact our real-life perceptions of the
world around us
so with that in mind i set out on a
journey to redefine
the image of a scientist and diversify
that image
and that is how big old geeks was born
periodically i can like an enzyme and we
cutting it up
proteins in the gel and we’re running
them up see i’m a chocolate girls in
reese’s
pieces i run this thing like
electrophoresis
so you might ask first of all how did i
get my three friends
to do something like that with me that’s
a different story but today
i’m gonna tell you that what you just
saw was
my rejection of any box i’ve ever sensed
that someone else has placed me in and
not only the boxes that other people
have placed me in
as a scientist but also boxes that i’ve
placed myself in
believe it or not making that was hard
for me
even though i wanted to represent myself
authentically this was one of the first
times that i had let go
and said you know what i don’t care what
anyone thinks
i should be doing how i should walk how
i should talk how i should talk about
science and do my science
i’m just gonna do it and that was hard
it was uncomfortable but i knew it
needed to be done
and i knew that other people needed to
see that
and so i put it on the internet
crossing my fingers hoping that it was
not going to be the end of my career
that the sky wasn’t going to fall and
crash on me
and instead that i would inspire people
around the world
to do their science as their
unapologetic selves
and not only did the video get hundreds
of views it got hundreds of thousands of
views
and it spread around the world
and i began receiving messages of
support messages
that really showed me that people needed
to see this
and so i centered my doctoral study
around the video and i wanted to study
the impact of the music video and
continue the research
that has been done for decades on the
representation of scientists in the
media
so i collected data from 50 black women
half of which are in stem careers
science technology engineering and
mathematics
and the other half who are in careers
that are not stem related
and what i found was in agreement with
what was found in previous research in
that 98 percent of my participants
also said that the most common
representation of a scientist in our
country is of a white man
but also that they don’t relate to these
images that when they see these images
of these scientists that they’re not
connecting with them
they don’t see it as them
on the other hand when i showed them my
music video
they did connect they did
feel like they could do science women
who had stem careers
felt like they had the strength to
continue on they felt represented they
felt included they felt seen
and honestly one of the most exciting
findings of my research was that
the women who did not have stem careers
said that they most likely would have
pursued a stem career if they had this
type of representation
the type of representation that they saw
in my music video
years before they began their own
careers
and this is all because i decided to
step out of my box
one day so i want to ask
you all what kind of boxes
do you live in what kind of boxes are
you perpetuating
with your thoughts with your actions the
way you walk talk dress
the way you speak is it really who you
are
is it what you think other people want
you to be
are you being your unapologetic self
maybe you don’t do what i do i’m not
asking you to make a rap music video
professing to the world that you love
science but
maybe it’s a little thing every day
maybe it’s speaking up for yourself in a
time where in the past maybe you
wouldn’t have because
you were afraid that someone would
perceive you as a stereotype
or as something that wasn’t you
maybe you should say that one thing that
makes somebody just a little bit
uncomfortable
which is the truth maybe
it just means that you take that red
dress out of the back of your closet
the one that’s work appropriate and wear
it
fearlessly unapologetically because you
bought that dress
because you liked it it’s the little
things
that count i challenge you to get out of
your box
every day and if you’re like me
you’re going to tell the world that
you’re a big old geek too