Inclusion

The since-locked thread on MLK Day got me thinking about inclusion. I think the thing that really hit me on that thread was the statement that if you try to make a club more diverse, you’ll end up discriminating against white men. I can understand that argument (though I disagree with it) where there are a limited number of positions available, but last time I checked, there aren’t limits on how many people you can have in your rocketry club.

Rather than making an appeal that would sound good to my (admittedly liberal) ears about justice and inclusion, let’s look at this from a cold-hearted accountant’s perspective. Imagine for a moment a rocketry club in the Kansas City, MO area that has 36 members. They all happen to be white men. What would that club look like if it still had those 36 white male members but was representative of its metro area both in terms of gender and race? It would have 36 white women, 12 African-Americans, 8 Hispanics, 2 Asians, and 4 other/mixed race, for a total membership of 100. Do you think that the club president would be pretty happy to have 64 more people in his club? And that’s what it looks like in a relatively white area. In more diverse areas, the differences would be even more significant.

If you’re concerned about the long-term health of the hobby, it’s an awfully good idea to broaden the base beyond white guys. I am squarely in the white guy over 40 demographic, so I’m not a good person to ask about how to do that. I did ask my daughter about appealing to/not turning off women, and can report on that in the comments if people are interested.

Please keep this civil and relatively rant-free so that it doesn’t get locked.

boatgeek said:

The since-locked thread on MLK Day got me thinking about inclusion. I think the thing that really hit me on that thread was the statement that if you try to make a club more diverse, you’ll end up discriminating against white men. I can understand that argument (though I disagree with it) where there are a limited number of positions available, but last time I checked, there aren’t limits on how many people you can have in your rocketry club.

Imagine for a moment a rocketry club in the Kansas City, MO area that has 36 members. They all happen to be white men. What would that club look like if it still had those 36 white male members but was representative of its metro area both in terms of gender and race? It would have 36 white women, 12 African-Americans, 8 Hispanics, 2 Asians, and 4 other/mixed race, for a total membership of 100.

Click to expand...

I appreciate the opportunity for a civil discussion on this topic, and to be fair, I am the person who made the argument that trying to make the club more diverse necessarily discriminates against the group you already have. The conversation was abruptly cut short, so I will attempt to elaborate on my point(s) in a respectful and rant-free way.

First, the argument for "diversity" is based on the idea that a club or company or organization is less good unless its composition looks a certain way. More importantly, the word "diverse" has been used to describe groups that are homogenous in composition - schools that are comprised of all black or hispanic kids are often described as "more diverse", so the word has become corrupted to mean simply "not white". Even if you charitably assume the goal is to have a group proportionately look like the population, there are problems with trying to classify each individual in the group so that they represent your target demographic - that's just not possible unless you arbitrarily classify individuals as belong to one group when they may represent two or three. The argument for "diversity" is a solution in search of a problem. The rocket community is based on one common interest - trying to establish a second goal of attracting people because of the way that they look is deviating from the commonality that drives the community.

Second, I agree there aren't limits on how many people you have in your community - but we do have limited resources for conducting our hobby. Diverting resources (time or money) to try to diversity the community does impact that people who have already dedicated their time to the hobby. To be clear, I think a broader base in the rocket community can only be a good thing, but we're talking about the difference between growing the hobby organically and diverting resources to artificially grow it with the primary goal of making the hobby's population look diverse. That's a cosmetic and superficial goal.

Third, I'd like to see a definition of "diversity", "inclusion", and "justice" from a proponent of those three goals. Justice has a fairly concrete definition that doesn't have anything to do with rocketry, but I believe you are referring to "social justice" instead of "justice", which must be defined as something other than justice if it requires a modifier.

Fourth, to your point about membership looking like Kansas City - I'm all for more enthusiastic members of the rocket community, the more the merrier. I don't care what you look like - the only requirement is that you be interested in launching rockets. Why do you think the community consists of the membership that it has now instead of a more diverse looking group? The answer is not that the rocketry community discriminates against certain groups - nobody recruited me to join the community - I found it based on a common interest, and I didn't bother to check or care what the group in my area looked like before I joined it.

Fifth, characterizing the group as homogenous because they are all old white guys is no different than stereotyping any other group. My club has a substantial number of women and younger flyers. The group comes from diverse educational backgrounds, different areas of the country, different economic backgrounds, and different religions, different political views, etc. The fact that the group can come together in a common pursuit despite all of those meaningful, fundamental differences indicates that there are no barriers to entry for individuals who have the interest and the desire to spend their money on rockets.

I will also say that I have seen the consequences of companies diverting resources to push for diversity, inclusion, and social justice, and the results of those goals have been discriminatory by definition. Engineers get awards for the way that they look, hiring preferences, requirements to interview certain candidates of certain races before a position can be filled, etc. Let's keep all of that out of the hobby and just enjoy launching rockets.

Jason,

I agree with a lot of that. I go to rocket launches to launch rockets, and I don't care what the other people look like. I found out about the clubs in my area because I needed a bigger field and was tired of losing rockets in neighborhood trees. I never sought out my club because I wanted to hang out with people my age, my sex, or my skin color.

As it turns out, my club (MDRA) has attendees of all races, and active fliers of both sexes. Yet and still, the majority are middle-aged white men.

About the only thing that I could think of at an MDRA launch that might be off-putting to non-whites is the music that is played over the loudspeakers: classic rock and country. Other than that, everybody shares a spot-a-pot, everybody is welcomed and greeted warmly, everybody is encouraged to fly, and the vendors charge the same prices for motors regardless of the ethnicity or sex of the customer. (One of our vendors, Ken Allen, is black, BTW, though also male and middle-aged.)

We outreach at the Udvar-Hazy center, and at the Bay Bridge Airport's Wings and Wheels event. We occasionally do STEM outreaches when and where we are invited.

I honestly believe the imbalance comes from culture, and that some cultures don't embrace rocketry as readily as some others. I honestly believe that if I walked into a large room full of a wide variety of people and gave a talk on rocketry, and invited everyone to a launch, that we would get mostly whites, some Asians, and a very few blacks. After the cost of the hobby was discovered, many of the younger would drop out, and you'd be left with the middle-aged white guys.

I have invited friends to launches, and some of them have come. And they have a great time and say that they'd like to come again. Bu none have. I think the lack of running water and bathrooms is a turn-off. Or, there is always something slightly more important to do. Or the kids liked it but the parents really didn't.

It seems like rocketry is either something that is in your blood, or it isn't. I wish I knew how to make it more appealing. To anyone.

Boatgeek, I for one would love to hear your daughter's thoughts about broadening our hobby's appeal to the fairer gender.

I just want everyone who wants to learn about rockets to feel welcome to join in. How do we that?

jmuck78 said:

I appreciate the opportunity for a civil discussion on this topic, and to be fair, I am the person who made the argument that trying to make the club more diverse necessarily discriminates against the group you already have. The conversation was abruptly cut short, so I will attempt to elaborate on my point(s) in a respectful and rant-free way.

First, the argument for "diversity" is based on the idea that a club or company or organization is less good unless its composition looks a certain way. More importantly, the word "diverse" has been used to describe groups that are homogenous in composition - schools that are comprised of all black or hispanic kids are often described as "more diverse", so the word has become corrupted to mean simply "not white". Even if you charitably assume the goal is to have a group proportionately look like the population, there are problems with trying to classify each individual in the group so that they represent your target demographic - that's just not possible unless you arbitrarily classify individuals as belong to one group when they may represent two or three. The argument for "diversity" is a solution in search of a problem. The rocket community is based on one common interest - trying to establish a second goal of attracting people because of the way that they look is deviating from the commonality that drives the community.

Second, I agree there aren't limits on how many people you have in your community - but we do have limited resources for conducting our hobby. Diverting resources (time or money) to try to diversity the community does impact that people who have already dedicated their time to the hobby. To be clear, I think a broader base in the rocket community can only be a good thing, but we're talking about the difference between growing the hobby organically and diverting resources to artificially grow it with the primary goal of making the hobby's population look diverse. That's a cosmetic and superficial goal.

Third, I'd like to see a definition of "diversity", "inclusion", and "justice" from a proponent of those three goals. Justice has a fairly concrete definition that doesn't have anything to do with rocketry, but I believe you are referring to "social justice" instead of "justice", which must be defined as something other than justice if it requires a modifier.

Fourth, to your point about membership looking like Kansas City - I'm all for more enthusiastic members of the rocket community, the more the merrier. I don't care what you look like - the only requirement is that you be interested in launching rockets. Why do you think the community consists of the membership that it has now instead of a more diverse looking group? The answer is not that the rocketry community discriminates against certain groups - nobody recruited me to join the community - I found it based on a common interest, and I didn't bother to check or care what the group in my area looked like before I joined it.

Fifth, characterizing the group as homogenous because they are all old white guys is no different than stereotyping any other group. My club has a substantial number of women and younger flyers. The group comes from diverse educational backgrounds, different areas of the country, different economic backgrounds, and different religions, different political views, etc. The fact that the group can come together in a common pursuit despite all of those meaningful, fundamental differences indicates that there are no barriers to entry for individuals who have the interest and the desire to spend their money on rockets.

I will also say that I have seen the consequences of companies diverting resources to push for diversity, inclusion, and social justice, and the results of those goals have been discriminatory by definition. Engineers get awards for the way that they look, hiring preferences, requirements to interview certain candidates of certain races before a position can be filled, etc. Let's keep all of that out of the hobby and just enjoy launching rockets.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

1. I understand your complaints about the use of the word "diversity", which is why I deliberately used "inclusion" as the thread title. I see the value of diversity being bringing in different viewpoints. In the narrow sense of rocketry, I think most people can agree that it's useful to cross-pollinate ideas from people with other specialties (LPR vs. HPR, for example). I think that is important in the broader community as well.

2. I see your point about limited resources. If your club had a booth at three science fairs, are they all at schools where members' kids attend, or do you go across town? If you only advertise to the people you already have in the club, you'll only preach to the choir. Again, I'm going back to the accountant's argument--if you only work to attract a certain demographic, then you will only get those people into your club.

3. Diversity: organizations have membership and leadership that is reasonably representative of the community at large. Inclusion: People from every background are welcomed into the organization. Justice: That people of all backgrounds are treated equivalently by the organization. Justice isn't really in the purview of rocketry clubs, but it is hard to pay attention to the news and believe that people of all races are treated equally by the society at large. Just as a very basic example, last year I plotted % nonwhite students and % receiving free/reduced lunch for the 11 high schools in our school district. The r^2 on that was 0.95. It doesn't mean that there are no wealthy Hispanics or poor whites, but there's an extremely strong correlation between race and poverty.

4. That's true, but it may also depend on who you communicate your existence to (see 2). I had no idea that the hobby of high power rocketry existed until the high school club that my kids later joined presented at a school board meeting that I happened to be at. There's also at least anecdotal evidence that people don't tend to join groups unless they feel like they fit in, including on diversity issues. Here on TRF, I'm often struck by how every three months there's a thread where people talk about how much rocketry expense they have to hide from their wives/balls and chains, then another thread about every year wondering why there aren't very many women posting here. Even though I don't think anyone on the "my wife hates my hobby" thread intends to make the place unwelcoming to women, that's a practical effect.

5. You're right, there are many ways in which people can be diverse. I don't think that negates my discussions above. I think the fact that you have a lot of women active is both a good thing and reinforces my point. I am quite sure it is easier to recruit/retain women given the number of women already active.

I'll leave with one more anecdote about unconscious bias. The high school students I mentor scratch-built a 3" carbon fiber rocket last year, including rolling the tubes. My daughter was the project manager for the project. Students did about 95% of the work. Our local rocketry club has regular meetings where people bring rockets to show off and there's a short talk about technical issues. At one of those, I brought my Falcon Heavy downscale and she brought the HPR project. After showing off the rockets, people gathered about to talk about the projects as they always do. I had pretty much an even split of people saying the Falcon Heavy was really cool and asking about how I addressed technical issues. She had about a third each of people talking about it being cool, people asking technical questions, and people telling her how to build rockets. The difference in those responses really stuck out, particularly since it wasn't a planned project, it was sitting right there in front of the crowd.

[edit] I was typing this while the last two responses came in. One issue is pointed to in my last paragraph. I'll give a more thorough response later--right now I have to get back to work.

It’s really funny how the university level rocket programs have absolutely zero correlation to the diversity of NAR and TRA clubs. University’s are filled with members from multiple nations religions and genders. I’m thinking the reality is many of the nationally organized clubs just aren’t very inviting and are generally filled with paranoid men who put down the passion and motivation of tentative members. I’ve personally encountered a never ending supply of rocketry enthusiasts who laugh at young people’s dreams and ambitions while simultaneously telling us to find a mentor among a sea of people who don’t want to mentor. As a result you get universities doing dangerous projects with almost zero guidance.

UTC proudly had two African American males on its 2017 and 2018 student rocketry teams. They had never touched a rocket in their life nor knew the hobby existed. In 2018 the team included a student from India. The minorities were chosen because they showed up with a desire to learn about rocketry and they had the nerves to try and just do it. The Indian guy told me “When I heard the professor say this year we will place first because the last year team placed 3rd nationally. He looked me in the eyes and said that was the kind of challenge I wanted.” This was done at professor level with students voting on projects they wanted. None of the females picked rockets in our engineering group. It frankly scared them. Rocketry is inclusive to all that want to learn regardless of race, sex, disabilities ,or gender. The school is looking to start a NAR chapter in Chattanooga and file FAA waivers locally and all of the 2018 members got an L1. What started as engineer students only has expanded into including all students through the Rocketmocs club. When I left UTC as a alumni, I thought damn I left a little legacy there by founding a high power rocket team and doing some design work.

I was proud that we included others. If you know a minority introduce them to rockets. They may love it. More members is better for this hobby than less.

TimothyG said:

It’s really funny how the university level rocket programs have absolutely zero correlation to the diversity of NAR and TRA clubs. University’s are filled with members from multiple nations religions and genders. I’m thinking the reality is many of the nationally organized clubs just aren’t very inviting and are generally filled with paranoid men who put down the passion and motivation of tentative members. I’ve personally encountered a never ending supply of rocketry enthusiasts who laugh at young people’s dreams and ambitions while simultaneously telling us to find a mentor among a sea of people who don’t want to mentor. As a result you get universities doing dangerous projects with almost zero guidance.

Click to expand...

The RSOs cleared the projects to fly bud. You need to stop stereotyping university launches. I was on one and mentored another one as a student. You got a bone to pick? Yell at the competitions with lose oversight and not providing mentors to inexperienced teams. Nobody set out to do a dangerous project. They don’t know the basics and people on TRF get a VERY snarky attitude. When you don’t have experience you have to fill the bag with experience by earning it before the bag of luck runs out. Even if the competition mandates zero to L-1 multistage or zero to L-2 IREC/SLI. Go blame the damn rule sheets saying no experience necessary and not mandating the teams have all members certified first. I personally had the hell of going from a D motor Estes to an I to H motor L-1 min diameter multistage. We understood the kinetic energy while supersonic or under boost was lethal. I’ll praise this forum for helping us be successful. We had two assigned mentors bail. The hobbyists we asked had never done multistage. I strove to get an L-1 and mentor future teams. We encouraged passing ALL of our flight experience knowledge from senior project to project groups as they graduated. The problem with student launches is students graduate and knowledge is lost from team to team. You start again fresh with zero experience.

It irks me to no end... Some RSO’s don’t bother opening your rocket before clearing it to fly.

The fact that I have done much of my work on Sheri's Saturn V at a local Starbucks has brought me in contact with hundreds of people who come in and see this monolith in the middle of the shop. I have been fortunate to give away complete starter sets to kids while others have been given just a model rocket. My point is, if you show interest in what I'm doing I just may have a little something to give away. I gave one fellow a new in box Estes 1257 Saturn V who just finished painting it. I believe he is a school teacher and has been building it at the school.
Now this isn't targeting any 'group' or another. It's blind to that. In one way I have given the means for a teacher to give his entire class the inside scoop to build one of these by starting off on something easier. One of the starter sets was given to a handicapped boy who did manage to fly the thing. Alas, they lost it in a tree. I enjoy treating people to this sector of the hobby by gifting them with something to get them started. My reward for coming here was not something I foresaw. It's easier to have a large, diverse playing field outside of the launches because that's where diversity lies. This is where we as rocket modelers can reach out. Don't knock it. Find a little public venue where you could actually bring a project to work on and watch them come. You're killing two birds with one stone. Everyone wins.

Andrew I’m not in disagreement with you at all. My bone is with people posturing about inclusion while those very same groups actively put down young interested parties. Our club grew thankfully with a large bag of luck without mentor ship involvement. And thankfully after we had some measure of success other parties finally became willing to helPaul.

TimothyG said:

I’m thinking the reality is many of the nationally organized clubs just aren’t very inviting and are generally filled with paranoid men who put down the passion and motivation of tentative members.

Click to expand...

Now there's a divisive and discriminatory statement! Your assumption is that it is "paranoid men" that make this hobby not welcoming for some. Instead of individuals within the hobby that may or may not be paranoid men or more importantly have a genuine concern to justify your criticism.

Steve Shannon said:

I just want everyone who wants to learn about rockets to feel welcome to join in. How do we that?

Click to expand...

Steve I agree, outreach is one way... Having worked in technology for years, and even in my college career, I observed that minority participation in these fields was low, as was female participation... it all starts with programs at a young age. Which is why programs like TARC and OCF are not only important to our hobby, but in general getting everyone regardless of demographic exposure to engineering and math...

mpitfield said:

Now there's a divisive and discriminatory statement! Your assumption is that it is "paranoid men" that make this hobby not welcoming for some. Instead of individuals within the hobby that may or may not be paranoid men or more importantly have a genuine concern to justify your criticism.

Click to expand...

They are rightfully paranoid about the longevity and safety of their hobby. But it is without a doubt 100% white males of middle age to senior age which have put down students ideas and interest in this hobby by either directly ridiculing youthful ignorance and passion or by indirectly preventing access out of fear. In fact every woman I have encountered in this hobby has been supportive inviting and helpful.

Edited to add that this is my experience not my assumption.

A couple of quick things on the afternoon break:

First of all, I'm not in the business of telling people how to act. I can control me and my reactions to things. You can do you. You can't control how someone else reacts to what you do. That said, if someone says that the way you're acting is [fill in the blank]ist and you don't think that you are [fill in the blank]ist, then you might want to think about what you are doing and whether you want to change.

OK, onward. I really like Steven's suggestion about coming in contact with a wide cross-section of humanity. That's a really good idea. I also appreciate what Andrew and Timothy are saying. SLI mandates L2 mentors so they can head off some of the problems. My older kid is in an IREC team, where most students go from LPR direct to student-designed O hybrids. Success is really hard in those competitions.

Something I see here a couple of times a year--when someone with a Middle-Eastern-sounding name asks questions about HPR (especially research propellant), a bunch of people immediately assume they're a terrorist. People with "American-sounding" names don't get the same response. I understand the thought process that we don't want to give rocket fuel information to Hamas, but assuming that everyone from S or SW Asia is a member of Hamas is putting it a little too far.

Some things my daughter said about attracting/retaining women to your club:
I kind of touched on this earlier, but think about how you talk about women. If it's always "the wife wants..." then the club may not be very welcoming. Likewise if you start every email with "Gentlemen, ..."

Work to truly treat women and their projects the same as men and theirs. I don't think anyone at the meeting I mentioned above thought that they were treating my daughter differently than me. The funny thing was that her rocket had three successful flights and is lined up for more this year. Mine turned into a flaming wreck. That said, I don't think that launch personnel (LCO, RSO, etc.) treated either project noticeably differently.

If you have presentations on "the history of..." do you talk about the Rosalind Franklins as well as the Cricks and Watsons? [Crick and Watson received the Nobel prize for discovering DNA. Franklin took the pictures that made that discovery possible but was basically absent from history for a long time]

Do you have women making presentations at your club meetings, NARCON, etc.?

Think about your acronyms and names. I love a good acronym for a club or a launch. LDRS, WOOSH, etc. are awesome. BALLS is a joke, but maybe not as welcoming. Again, I'm not saying you have to re-name BALLS, but you might want to think about whether it's the message you want to send.

There is a really fine line between wanting to diversify your hobby and making it look like you want women to join so you can get a date. I do not have the interpersonal skills to advise on how to manage that line. Women in your life can probably help with that.

A couple of other ideas from me:
If you can find STEM related groups for women/minorities in your area, maybe try to give an informational presentation to them. If possible, the presenter should match the group you are presenting to. They probably don't know that rocketry exists and might be interested. Again, an untapped group of potential members.

Science fairs at elementary and middle schools are usually looking for people to hold down a booth or table. You can expose a lot of people to the idea of rocketry at those events.

There's a lot of change in gender perception and use of pronouns, particularly among young people and particularly in more liberal areas. I look at it like this. If someone introduces himself as "Daniel" and you keep calling them "Dan," it's kind of a jerk move. Same with Jennifer and Jenny or any other names. Likewise, if someone is wearing a "they/them" pin or says that they prefer those pronouns, you're seen as the same kind of a jerk if you keep using he or she pronouns. I'm not saying it's easy, just that it's something you will run into more and more.

TimothyG said:

They are rightfully paranoid about the longevity and safety of their hobby. But it is without a doubt 100% white males of middle age to senior age which have put down students ideas and interest in this hobby by either directly ridiculing youthful ignorance and passion or by indirectly preventing access out of fear. In fact every woman I have encountered in this hobby has been supportive inviting and helpful.

Edited to add that this is my experience not my assumption.

Click to expand...

Ah I see you had to double down and now add race into the mix. Did your parents not tell you that when you judge people on immutable characteristics such as race and or sex that you are in fact making racist and sexist comments. Or do you somehow feel emboldened to make these comments in a public forum because you feel safe in numbers as this seems to be the narrative of the day.

What this forum our hobby and our world doesn't need is people like you who discriminate against entire groups because of your limited experience and perspective. I can only assume that if you were involved in trying to attract "white, old paranoid men" to your efforts that your attitude may have contributed to your lack of success.

mpitfield said:

Ah I see you had to double down and now add race into the mix. Did your parents not tell you that when you judge people on immutable characteristics such as race and or sex that you are in fact making racist and sexist comments. Or do you somehow feel emboldened to make these comments in a public forum because you feel safe in numbers as this seems to be the narrative of the day.

What this forum our hobby and our world doesn't need is people like you who discriminate against entire groups because of your limited experience and perspective. I can only assume that if you were involved in trying to attract "white, old paranoid men" to your efforts that your attitude may have contributed to your lack of success.

Click to expand...

We have had plenty of success. And how I grew up has very little to do with who I am as an adult thank god. It’s not discriminatory to say that the people in rocketry who have been in the way of our groups projects have so far all been Caucasian males between 50-75. Just is what it is and I’m not sorry if pointing this out offends you as that’s your problem not mine.

TimothyG said:

We have had plenty of success. And how I grew up has very little to do with who I am as an adult thank god. It’s not discriminatory to say that the people in rocketry who have been in the way of our groups projects have so far all been Caucasian males between 50-75. Just is what it is and I’m not sorry if pointing this out offends you as that’s your problem not mine.

Click to expand...

I had no doubt that you would feel that it is my problem not yours. I don't have to live with your "it's everyone else's fault but mine and somehow it has to do with with white males between a certain age" attitude. Just keep your discriminatory posts off the forum.

Never once did I say that it’s everyone else’s fault but mine. This posting was asking about diversity in this hobby and I offered what I have seen at my level in the hobby. You want to twist what I say fine but don’t put words in my mouth.

TimothyG said:

Never once did I say that it’s everyone else’s fault but mine. This posting was asking about diversity in this hobby and I offered what I have seen at my level in the hobby. You want to twist what I say fine but don’t put words in my mouth.

Click to expand...

Timothy I have no issue with anyone relaying their personal experiences and observations. What is inappropriate is when you start to take your individual experiences and attribute them to groups.

Having said that and in an effort to find some common ground, I won't argue that there are some individuals who are not welcoming or have the best bedside manner, I had a bad experience with my first couple of posts on this forum and still have the odd one. However they were with individuals where we either miscommunicated or simply had different opinions, but as individuals. I would also agree that as a hobby we could do more to make new individuals feel more welcome, however to break this problem down based on groups can only lead to discrimination.

To be honest you where just a prime example of an unwelcoming individual in this hobby. This is a discussion partly centered around the fact that this group is predominated by a single group. Just because you can't discuss it without screaming racism doesn't make it somehow my bad. And you literally did so by assuming my up bringing as well as my experience in life and this hobby.

This is gonna' get locked again.

Any rocketry programs for intercity middle and high schools in prodominantly poorer minority proverty stricken areas? (Not all minorities are poor). Trying to think of a new target audience. The classes that got me interested in engineering for college were high school physics. I grew up in the wealthier suburbs and had a chance to go to decent schools. I do worry about those less fortunate that do not have any hobby exposure because their families can’t afford hobbies. These kids would likely cherish even launching an Estes A motor. It would be a new experience for them. I mean think some kids grow in their whole lives never playing with a toy rocket once. They never knew this world outside of what they see on their streets exists. If we could introduce more minorities to rockets at a younger age I don’t see any foul in that. Maybe if NAR or Tripoli could partner with a non profit org then the rocketry groups could reach new target audiences. Scholastics has a trap shooting organization for schools to expose youth to clay pigeon shooting. Why couldn’t they sponsor small Estes rocketry too? To be honest I think rocketry would be cheaper than the amount of shotgun shells we went through. Ducks unlimited helped sponsor stuff for trap teams.

There are kids out there growing up with a lot less, families on food stamps, crime ridden bullet hole stricken housing projects, and they don’t even have access to the internet. But if you want to tap new members, those communities would see rocketry as a positive thing for their children compared to all the horrid stuff around them. I’ve heard the airsoft and paintball communities tapped into places like this to expand members. Memphis, Detroit, Chicago, Bronx. Etc. Those downtown places most people don’t feel like visiting unless working a job to live.

Timothy obviously my attempt to reach some common ground fell on deaf ears and you just have to keep doubling down.

Feel free to ask anyone who has personal dealings with me just how exclusive and unhelpful I am. You picked the wrong guy to portray as unwelcoming. There is an old saying, when you point your finger there are three pointing back at you.

You might want to stop playing the victim and reread my responses and more importantly yours. I have no issue with discussing this or most topics, just keep your discriminatory comments off the forum.

Steven said:

This is gonna' get locked again.

Click to expand...

Conversation should move to fb.

Well this thread will certainly...

Help with diversity...

Lol...

I think Tim here was trying to stereotype our age group, gender, race, and etc by what he has seen at his local flying field by the most active flyers. Then people start screaming. Maybe he made a generalization that just came out negative. There are minorities and females in rocketry but they are fewer. We need to ask ourselves why? How can we increase memberships? Just think if everyone’s wife or daughter got a Level 1 for a brief second. You’d nearly double the memberships.

In college mechanical engineering I remember classes with twenty nine males and one female if that.
Why?

On a college student team I almost felt if we were the youngest adult ages on the flying field if you want to leave gender and ethnicity out of the age group. There were little kids with parents and us. Their weren’t inbetweens. Teens were missing. How do we get more teens involved? How do we get their parents to give the kids a hobby? I’d guess you could ask one hundred people about rocketry randomly and none would mention NAR or Tripoli. I didn’t even know high power rocketry existed until a STEM course in college offered it as a senior project. There were no launch sites around us locally. It wasn’t something locals mentioned. Nobody said oh you go here and watch rockets fly. Nobody knew. Just average ordinary people you meet in life.

Side tangent.

In that dreaded politics word... You went to people and doors then knocked on and discussed face to face a message. They either loved it or hated your guts. Sometimes they had mixed feelings. In rocketry we have the opportunity as members to tell schools and get them involved. Or doing what Steven did and expose ordinary people to rocketry.

What is the message of rocketry and how do we get it out to all?

In my situation, I don't go to them, they come to me. Men, women, kids, young, old and differing races. And I have every reason to believe I have sold the hobby to many customers. I mean what more can you ask for?

boatgeek said:

Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

I understand your complaints about the use of the word "diversity", which is why I deliberately used "inclusion" as the thread title...

Click to expand...

Both the words "diversity" and "inclusion" have become loaded terms. The inclusion definition already applies - the rocket community openly welcomes people from all backgrounds to launch rockets. The diversity definition applies to the rocketry community as well: "Diversity: organizations have membership and leadership that is reasonably representative of the community at large." The community in this case, however, is the rocketry community, not all of society at large. I don't see a case for including people in rocketry organization leadership based on the color of their skin or any other characteristics besides their commitment to the rocketry community.

"Justice isn't really in the purview of rocketry clubs, but it is hard to pay attention to the news and believe that people of all races are treated equally by the society at large."

I do pay attention to the news, and its hard to escape the reality that there are large groups of people who demand to be treated differently based on their particular group, but that's a subject for another discussion.

"The r^2 on that was 0.95. It doesn't mean that there are no wealthy Hispanics or poor whites, but there's an extremely strong correlation between race and poverty."

Are you suggesting race is the cause of poverty? The correlation != causation caveat applies here, and misconstruing the idea that because a large percentage of a group is poor means the cause of their poverty is membership in a group is the cause of a lot of discord in the country. Individuals should be treated as individuals, that's the only way to treat them fairly.

"There's also at least anecdotal evidence that people don't tend to join groups unless they feel like they fit in, including on diversity issues."

I don't know what a "diversity issue" is. The fundamental issue here is that we should not have conceded that it is ok for a member of a minority group to argue that they don't belong simply because they don't feel comfortable. That rationale is ultimately self defeating, and justifies people self-excluding themselves from activities based on nothing but the fact that the group doesn't look the way they want it to look.

"Even though I don't think anyone on the "my wife hates my hobby" thread intends to make the place unwelcoming to women, that's a practical effect". I seriously doubt that men posting about their wives on this forum is the cause of women not posting to the forum.

"I am quite sure it is easier to recruit/retain women given the number of women already active." We don't recruit women, and we certainly don't recruit women just because we feel that launching rockets needs to have a certain number of women present or the rockets don't go as high. We don't recruit middle-aged white males, either, but they still show up.

"She had about a third each of people talking about it being cool, people asking technical questions, and people telling her how to build rockets. The difference in those responses really stuck out, particularly since it wasn't a planned project, it was sitting right there in front of the crowd."

The implication, of course, is that people felt the need to give her advice because she's a girl and not because of her youth. It's interesting that on the one hand, we complain that we don't mentor the younger members of the hobby, but at the same time, when we do, its considered condescending - and if the young flyer is female, she immediately assumes advice is given because she's a girl. Men, of course, know that their advice to young female flyers is going to be taken as sexist, and at the same time, if we give advice only to younger, male flyers, that's also sexist. I have had no shortage of older members of the rocketry community give me advice as if its my first time flying, but I take it for the good-hearted intent with which it was intended instead of scolding them for condescending. Frankly, the catch-22 that young women are able to create when they want must be addressed as well here.