I want to draw your attention to this carnival:

Diversity in Science #1: Black History Month Celebration

This is the first one, and this should prove to be an important blogospheric contribution.

I do recommend this to you because I think it is important, but I do so with some minor trepidation. I made a contribution to the carnival which, unfortunately, seems by my reading of the text to have been wrapped in a potentially inaccurate statement about me, which I shall endeavor to correct here. I’m sure the problem results entirely from an accident of wording.

Go read the carnival then report back, please.

OK. The implication could be that I’ve spent “a few days of my life” faced with issues of diversity in science. I’m sure the carnival writer did not intend this meaning, but the truth is that sometimes no matter how careful we are with our writing, meanings intended are not always the same as meanings transmitted.

As an educator, with a job, a career, a reputation, all that sort of thing, I see this as important enough to address. The truth is that I’ve been facing diversity issues (yes, as a white male … facing them as an ally) for a very long time, and in many ways. For many years I annually taught one of the few courses at UMN (a rather large school, so this is a bit embarrassing for the school as a whole) that explicitly addressed race and racism in full historical, biological, and cultural context, and the only course designed to address (and ultimately debunk, as it turns out) the biological basis for race based approaches. I taught a graduate class for teachers regarding diversity in the classroom. I’ve done all sorts of stuff like that. The particular story I tell in the blog post at the carnival, which by the way ran over three or four years time, was just one story among many. So the phrase “a few days in his life” is terribly inaccurate even in reference to that post.

Again, please go check out this carnival (and it’s later incarnations as they develop).