Can you believe it's already WEEK 8?
For our third meeting of the quarter, we discussed Black-led research in COMS and shared our experiences with diversity in the classroom. Thank you for everyone who was able to make it our call; it was an intimate and serious space, and we truly appreciated all of our attention during the meeting!
Additionally, thank you so much for our presidents, Shelby and Michelle, for leading the discussion and bringing their perspectives as women of color in the COMS classroom.
Meeting Recap
We began our meeting with some housekeeping! There's so much to look forward to from the COMS community this quarter:
COMS Club Black History Month Fundraiser (Last Week to Donate!)
COMS Club Executive Board Recruitment (Applications opening end of Winter Quarter) - Join us at next week's COMS Club Social: Origami and Tea for MORE INFORMATION (3/3 from 11:10-12)
We then started out by reflecting on our experiences in COMS Classrooms: our emotions and thoughts during topics about culture and race, and the time and effort of POC in these conversations (burnout!), and tokenism of marginalized students and faculty at Cal Poly and in COMS.
The definition of tokenism is "the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce" (Oxford Languages). We asked our attendees their thoughts about tokenism as well as where they may have seen racial tokenism in their life in this discussion.
Resources
One of the resources shared during the presentation was the textbook Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity by Brenda J. Allen, Ph.D. Dr. Allen is Professor Emerita of Communication and retired Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Communication at the University of Colorado Denver (Wikipedia).
Our group watched a Ted Talk by Nita Mosby Tyler. Watch the full video here: https://www.ted.com/talks/nita_mosby_tyler_want_a_more_just_world_be_an_unlikely_ally
Reflection
Some of our takeaways from the video and meeting were:
Stop stereotyping
Collective work, everyone needs to be called in
Be careful! Of savior complex [don’t speak for others, support others; NOT “Don’t treat her like that, do you know how you’re making her feel!?” IS “Don’t treat her like that, that is not okay”
Support what people are saying & back them up; but don’t speak for them
Get in more spaces that talk about these things, watch more, read more, meet more people just to be friends! Thats how you can feel more comfortable engaging in these conversations
The burden of parents of color (mothers of color) in discussing difficult topics about race and injustice
Change happens gradually, but working together could make the process faster/more actionable
We are all part of an unjust system; we need to come together to constructively critique and fight rather than divide our efforts
Tips for engaging in the conversation
When being mindful of our race in conversations regarding social identities, sometimes it's hard to know when to join the conversation, or when to turn on your mic. Here are a few tips from Shelby on how/when to speak up in class:
Usually I'll wait a bit and if no one else has something to say, then I'll turn my mic on.
Even if we're speaking on an identity where I have privilege, I'll then talk about my personal experience with this identity being mindful of the privilege I hold—remember to speak from the "I" perspective; do not speak on behalf of other groups or for your "diverse" friends!
+ Add a disclaimer at the end! "... but this is my experience with "x," and I know that it's not the only reality that exists. Is there anyone else that would like to speak to this?" or "I'd like to open this up to anyone else who's experienced a different perspective than mine." Remember that everyone's input holds value.
Silence is awkward, silence is neutral—better to say something (constructive and mindful) than not at all; start the conversation if no one else will! This is calling others in!
The discussion was powerful and reflective! Again, it was a pleasure to chat with everyone about this video and topic. COMS Club definitely hopes to host more intimate and brave spaces for our community to gather.
Our next meeting (and last meeting of Winter Quarter) will be Wednesday, March 10th from 11am-12pm! For Meeting 4: Sports COMS (Hosted by Dr. MLB). More details to come soon! Find our meeting details and bi-weekly schedule here! Subscribe to our Google Calendar to never miss a meeting!
As a reminder, we will continuing our COMS Fishbowls this quarter (we've changed the name to Virtual Student Study Hall). Join COMS Club Executive Board members every Friday from 1-2pm to do homework with a buddy, have some company in the background as you work, or stop by to say hi.
As always, take care and we hope to see you at our next event!
The Cal Poly SLO COMS Club is the official Communication Studies club for Cal Poly SLO. We celebrate communication studies, supporting mentorship and professional development for the Cal Poly COMS community. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at calpolyslocomsclub@gmail.com.