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“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”
― Angela Davis |
As human beings that live in today's society—a society that is plagued by hatred and bias—I believe it is our moral responsibility to address the systems that cause daily, repeated harm to our fellow humans, and to work actively to dismantle them.
I have known this hatred firsthand. I am disabled. I am an immigrant who left her home country at the age of one and has been moving ever since. I am a woman of colour. While I have been extremely fortunate to escape the trap of poverty, my grandfather was a bracero, so I know how precarious wealth can be. And yet I also know that my advantages have conditioned me to perpetuate hatred onto others: Black communities, Indigenous communities, low education communities, houseless communities, to name but a few. It is imperative that we each critically examine the social structures in which we exist, how we benefit from them and, conversely, how they harm us. For, in reality, if a system is harming a relative, then it is harming me it as well.
As part of my commitment to equity work, in 2016 I founded the Biology Department's Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Anti-Racism (IDEA) Graduate Committee. Our primary stakeholders are the graduate students, although we believe that our work will and does benefit many others. We have grown a lot along the way, but at our core we have aimed to tackle both structural oppression by pushing for policy change, as well as learned, cultural oppression through education of the members of our community. Our work has been recognised by Duke University through the Dean's Award for Inclusive Excellence, which we received in 2019. Our work and mission statement can be found on our website: https://sites.duke.edu/biodiversity/
Much of the work has also been personal education. I have engaged both in independent study as well as in discussion groups and book clubs around the topics of inclusion, equity, and anti-racism. To further my education, I am participating in the inaugural "Introduction to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Anti-Racism in Biology" course, taught by Ray Allen.
I have known this hatred firsthand. I am disabled. I am an immigrant who left her home country at the age of one and has been moving ever since. I am a woman of colour. While I have been extremely fortunate to escape the trap of poverty, my grandfather was a bracero, so I know how precarious wealth can be. And yet I also know that my advantages have conditioned me to perpetuate hatred onto others: Black communities, Indigenous communities, low education communities, houseless communities, to name but a few. It is imperative that we each critically examine the social structures in which we exist, how we benefit from them and, conversely, how they harm us. For, in reality, if a system is harming a relative, then it is harming me it as well.
As part of my commitment to equity work, in 2016 I founded the Biology Department's Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Anti-Racism (IDEA) Graduate Committee. Our primary stakeholders are the graduate students, although we believe that our work will and does benefit many others. We have grown a lot along the way, but at our core we have aimed to tackle both structural oppression by pushing for policy change, as well as learned, cultural oppression through education of the members of our community. Our work has been recognised by Duke University through the Dean's Award for Inclusive Excellence, which we received in 2019. Our work and mission statement can be found on our website: https://sites.duke.edu/biodiversity/
Much of the work has also been personal education. I have engaged both in independent study as well as in discussion groups and book clubs around the topics of inclusion, equity, and anti-racism. To further my education, I am participating in the inaugural "Introduction to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Anti-Racism in Biology" course, taught by Ray Allen.
Relevant publications
As much as possible I have also sought to transmit the knowledge I have gained. Below is a sample of some relevant publications:
- Sosa, Karla (2020): Disability is Diversity: Challenging perceptions about disabled people and improving our experience in academia. figshare. Online resource. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13513182
- Sosa, Karla; Noor, Mohamed A. F.; Notar, Julia; Eily, Ariana (2020): Some steps to create a more inclusive classroom environment. figshare. Online resource. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13360559
- Sosa, Karla; Notar, Julia; Eily, Ariana (2020): Fostering open dialogue in the classroom. figshare. Online resource. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13360547
IDEA members and Biology faculty receiving the Dean’s Award for Inclusive Excellence in 2019
