IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020 - 19

particular institutions, the needle
representing the proportion of white
women and women and men of
color who are engineers has shift-
ed only slightly [2]-[4]. Indeed, we
anticipate that this exhortation for
increasing the diversity of engineers,
engineering students, and faculty is
a familiar one to readers.
We situate this work strongly in
the United States context. Because
our scholarship is informed by Criti-
cal Race Theory, which takes as a
core tenet race's social construction
and the persistence of racism in
the United States, we recognize
that conceptions and outcomes of
race differ across countries and
cultural contexts. Some contexts
may involve a systemic form of
racialization that, although not vis-
ible or acknowledged, continues
to permeate the social fabric of
those communities.
Race and racism are often em-
bedded in the everyday actions of
many societies - not only those that
were influenced by race-systems cre-
ated by colonialism and slavery - as
a result of situational and context-
dependent discourses, including
" pigmentocracies " [5]-[6]. In the Unit-
ed States, colonialism is portrayed
and taught to some as the exodus of
persecuted religious minorities from
England to a land where they could
worship freely. But that exodus came
at the expense of Indigenous people
who the European colonists subject-
ed to genocide, and this too forms
part of the United States story of
race. Similarly, slavery in the United
States is overwhelmingly the story of
white people forcibly and violently
kidnapping people from various
countries in Africa, and constructing
a series of laws to institutionalize the
enslavement and ownership of peo-
ple, and their children, and their chil-
dren's children. But the forced labor
of Chinese or Mexican immigrants is
also part of the United States' racial
DECEMBER 2020

effects somehow will make it
story, as are the immigration laws
more " real " ;
of the 19th century that privileged
■ The fact that learning about
immigrants from northern Europe
one's own personal racial privi-
over those from southern Europe,
lege can be painful, and people
and other parts of the world. This is
try to minimize their own pain by
only a snippet of the complexity of
avoiding these confrontations;
race's production and maintenance
■ The outcome of conversations
in the United States. To understand
about race and privilege end-
race in the United States context
ing in people seeing the need to
more fully, we strongly recommend
shift from a passive beneficiary
reading Omi and Winant's Racial Formation in the United States
[7], Kendi's Stamped from
the Beginning [8], or Bell's
Faces at the Bottom of the
In the U.S., with some small
Well [9]. Analogous works
are important to read to
exceptions over time, the needle
understand how race func-
tions in other parts of the
representing the proportion of
world - but let us state here
white women and women and
we know of no country or
culture that is immune: race
men of color who are engineers
still always does function in
some way to hierarchically
has shifted only slightly.
order people based on the
interests of a ruling group.
of racism into a stance of anti-
We urge people outside the United
racism, and that can be uncom-
States context to read the rest of this
fortable and difficult; and
paper in light of this disclaimer: that
■ The undue spotlighting or dis-
while we are sure race as a social
comfor t that conversations
construct operates in some way
about race can bring to the small
where you are, its specific manifes-
numbers of students of color or
tations and consequences are likely
faculty of color in our schools,
different than what we illustrate here.
without recognizing the respon-
Nevertheless, it is important to figure
out what is equivalent to color-blind
sibility that white students and
racism where you live.
faculty have for creating a sup-
Before continuing, we want to
portive climate with respect to
acknowledge some challenges that
race, and this is problematic.
might make reading this paper that
is explicitly about race and rac-
Readers might experience some
ism difficult for many (particularly
of these in reading this paper;
white) people:
we urge you to continue reading
anyway.
■ The belief that conversations about
In this paper, we aim to describe
race are themselves racist, and
and illustrate to engineers and engi-
that having a conversation about
neering educators a different frame
race would make them racist;
for thinking about race in engineer-
■ The belief that because race is
ing education. This frame has its
a social construct, that means
own technical terms, and support-
it is imaginary, and that conver-
ing evidence in the field that we will
sations about race and its real
reference. We will then connect it to
∕

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