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cwbullet

cwbullet

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Monday is MLK day. MLK made a huge impact on encouraging diversity. As a part of the ramp up, I am posting a link to list of the African-American Astronauts. There is also a page on Hispanic Astronauts.

NASA also has a page entitled Minories in Science.

Diversity is what makes our hobby stronger by allowing it to grow. On Monday, celebrate diversity and encourage others to join our hobby. The more we attract to the hobby, the stronger it will be.
 
Back in the Stone Age, the motto was " Unity is strength." Now it's "Diversity is strength." BTW, democracies thrive on consensus not confusion. With today's " # Me Too " movement, MLK's warts would be exposed to all.
 
cwbullet said:
Monday is MLK day. MLK made a huge impact on encouraging diversity. As a part of the ramp up, I am posting a link to list of the African-American Astronauts. There is also a page on Hispanic Astronauts.

NASA also has a page entitled Minories in Science.

Diversity is what makes our hobby stronger by allowing it to grow. On Monday, celebrate diversity and encourage others to join our hobby. The more we attract to the hobby, the stronger it will be.
Click to expand...

Thank you for doing and saying this. For various reasons the demographics of our hobby, especially in the United States and Canada, have traditionally been disproportionately white and male. But for all of the rocketeers that I know, that has never been intentional. A true sign of healthy growth for our hobby would be greater diversity in every way.
 
Steve Shannon said:
Thank you for doing and saying this. For various reasons the demographics of our hobby, especially in the United States and Canada, have traditionally been disproportionately white and male. But for all of the rocketeers that I know, that has never been intentional. A true sign of healthy growth for our hobby would be greater diversity in every way.
Click to expand...

When you only advertise to one demographic, you risk a death spiral. We need to expand our membership from the traditional grumpy old white males (myself included). This concept is just the blind truth.
 
BigRiJoe said:
Back in the Stone Age, the motto was " Unity is strength." Now it's "Diversity is strength." BTW, democracies thrive on consensus not confusion. With today's " # Me Too " movement, MLK's warts would be exposed to all.
Click to expand...

Unity and diversity are not mutually exclusive. Let's use Cleveland Browns fans as an example. They are a very diverse group in terms of race, religion and numerous other factors. But they are united in their fruitless hope that their team will be good one day.

Yes, MLK was a flawed man (like all of us), but he achieved great things and paid the ultimate price for his beliefs.
 
infinite diversity in infinite combinations?!
Rex
 
Thank you Chuck for posting this thread.
As I am of mixed heritage, the lack of diversity in many situations is always apparent to me. Sometimes painfully so.

I am not playing the blame game here, as there are a multitude of factors involved. Just say'n. Anyhoot, thanks again Chuck.

Peace.
 
I've never seen anything but an inclusive attitude in rocketry...
Everyone so willing and eager to help and share knowledge...

How do we increase diversity ??
How do we target advertising ??

No makey sence..

Teddy
 
Yes, Teddy has the appropriate question: how? Every person of every race is welcome at every MDRA launch. We have, probably, more a of a diverse attendance than many clubs, but still predominantly WASP. I have never seen anything occur at any launch that would make non-whites feel uncomfortable. But still, mostly whites show up.

I walk around my workplace wearing my MDRA shirt, and no one asks me what that's about. I use pictures of my bigger rockets as my wallpaper at work, but very few people express an interest.

I, personally, would not know what to do to make club attendance more diverse. It's not like we are advertising our club on "whites only" web sites or something. I don't know how the white people find out about us any more than I know how the blacks and Asians don't.

My guess is that Caucasian culture is, perhaps, more geared toward hobbies in general. Most of the black folks I work with are really into sports. I don't remember a black coworker ever talking about RC planes, drones, chess clubs, board games, or rocketry. Mostly I hear talk about football and basketball.

My kids like rocketry because when they were two or three years old, we bought rockets and launched them. It is a normal part of their lives. But how does a person who never did it as a kid, and who never walks into a hobby shop, suddenly, at 35 or 40 years old take an interest in rocketry?
 
Bat-mite said:
But how does a person who never did it as a kid, and who never walks into a hobby shop, suddenly, at 35 or 40 years old take an interest in rocketry?
Click to expand...
Hey, that's me! YouTube videos are what snagged my interest, which lead me to the forums. YMMV, but we have a sample size of at least one.
 
dhbarr said:
Hey, that's me! YouTube videos are what snagged my interest, which lead me to the forums. YMMV, but we have a sample size of at least one.
Click to expand...

They are a small group, but yes.
 
I am against diversity for the sake of diversity...

I am for inclusiveness, but not affirmative action...
 
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cwbullet said:
Monday is MLK day. MLK made a huge impact on encouraging diversity. As a part of the ramp up, I am posting a link to list of the African-American Astronauts. There is also a page on Hispanic Astronauts.

NASA also has a page entitled Minories in Science.

Diversity is what makes our hobby stronger by allowing it to grow. On Monday, celebrate diversity and encourage others to join our hobby. The more we attract to the hobby, the stronger it will be.
Click to expand...

Well said, Chuck. Thanks for posting.

You too, Steve.
 
I think Bat-mite's response pretty much nails it. Most of us grew up with the hobby. If you didn't grow up with it you're not likely to jump into it as an adult, although that does happen.

I think the best way to get more people into the hobby is to do outreach events. Our club gets great interest from a wide variety of people when we do maker fair type events or the club goes to museum. These events draw all sorts of people. However, the one key to getting them interested is kids. If they have kids you can at least start the conversation with them.

Static displays at museums (STEM events, USAF museum for my club), especially with big rockets on display, will get people to come over and talk to you. However, many of the people will say I used to do that as a kid. Which means you are right back at the demographic we see all the time, old white guys.

The best are the build and fly events that my club does. We do these at both schools and museums. School events will get you a lot of kids, but few adults. Obviously there are teachers there, and usually a few parents show up too. But without parents involved O don't think the kids will sustain interest, at least not in the short term. They may fly again years later, but there is no immediate payoff. With schools you get all races. And from personal experience I can tell you a little black girl's scream of joy as her rocket lifts off is just as loud and annoying as her little white girl friend's scream. I have learned to take ear plugs to school events (not kidding).

My club gets invited the USAF Museum each summer to do a build and fly with 500 donated rockets and motors. We also go to the Waco Air Museum and the Neil Armstrong Museum for smaller build and fly events where we sell inexpensive kits and motors. These events attract families, so you get the little kids and the big kids (I'm referring to dads). Again, we see a lot of diversity at these events and we encourage anyone who shows the slightest interest in rocketry to build and fly a rocket. We hand out over 1,000 business cards a year inviting people to our launches and our weekly build session. That turns into a handful of people we see again.

We are helping a TARC team this year and they are mostly Indian and Chinese descent. The kids on the team are really into it and the parents are very supportive.

If you are in a club try to do some outreach. I think build and flys are the best way to get people interested. I know eRockets has some inexpensive kits that are easy to build and fly well on A8-3 motors. I'm sure other vendors do too. And we use the smallest recommended motors so that the kids get those rockets back so they can fly them again.
 
cwbullet said:
Good points all. I want to clarify that I not saying that we need to discriminate against grumpy old men. We need to be more accepting of all and avoid chasing off new members.
Click to expand...
Thanks Chuck. Sign me a "Grumpy Old Man"....:D
 
This thread is just one of many in a constant refrain over the years. Someone makes a sincere effort to acknowledge inherent racist and sexist differences in society and encourage equal exposure and opportunity, then other people can't help but chime in with "whattaboutism" and racist/sexist apologetics.

I think our club of 100+ has maybe five people who aren't old white guys. This doesn't even remotely match the demographics of the population at large, even in our relatively rural area.

I'm an old white guy but I've seen plenty of the world to know old white guys alone don't make the world go 'round. How come it's mostly old white guys that are involved in rocketry?

Free time? How come people who aren't old white guys don't have the free time?

Disposable income? How come people who aren't old white guys don't have disposable income?

Scientific interest? How come people who aren't old white guys don't have scientific interest?

Why does it seem like only old white guys have the free time, disposable income, and scientific interest to pursue rocketry?

I think it's only by thinking about these questions that we stand any chance of moving forward.
 
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Guys,
This is not meant to be a political thread so please stay nice. It is about being inclusive and celebrating diversity. I don't know if people are drinking tonight and taking mean pills, but it is spilling into other threads.
 
People do what their friends do.
If they do something else they get picked on.
So they do what their friends do.
 
cwbullet said:
Good points all. I want to clarify that I not saying that we need to discriminate against grumpy old men. We need to be more accepting of all and avoid chasing off new members.
Click to expand...

You cannot have a push for "diversity" without discriminating against the group you have too much of. The push for diversity is inherently discriminatory and exclusionary as you cannot quantify the diversity of the hobby without first assigning individuals to a group - as you just did here by labeling the group predominantly grumpy old men. Nevermind the fact that the push for "diversity" suggests that the make up of the group of hobbyists has been evaluated as bad because it has too much of one group in it, and not enough of another. That idea is counter to everything MLK stood for.

Painting the group as predominantly belonging to one race or ethnicity ignores and minimizes the differences that do exist, and I reject being treated as part of a group or class and expect to be treated as an individual regardless of my heritage. The hobby has been relentlessly unbiased in its treatment of individuals as individuals, so there is no inherent discrimination in the hobby that needs to be "corrected" by devoting resources to making sure the group looks the right way.

This concept of diversity is inherently political, there's no other way to label it. If politics is discouraged on this forum - as it should be - then this post violates that rule, written or otherwise. This forum is supposed to be a safe refuge from the politics of race, but it looks like that line has been crossed here.
 
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