How Inclusive is Your PLN?
Walking the talk on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion can start with our own self-selected networks
As we head back to school, I’m thrilled to see Diversity, Equity and Inclusion trending in Education conversations. What a few short years ago felt like a fringe topic is growing into an imperative. Educators are moving beyond needing to know what DEI is all about and are ready to learn how to lead change in their communities.
It is great that this work is being prioritized by our institutions at institutional levels. And, at the same time, there’s plenty that we can be doing at the personal level. One place to start is with this question posed by ℳąhą Bąℓi: “What do you do to ensure you are listening to diverse voices in your field?”
In her post, Inclusive Citation: How Diverse Are Your References?, Maha pushes us to examine our inputs. Who wrote the articles, blogs and books you read today? Who were the hosts and guests on the podcasts and interviews you heard? When you check your Twitter feed, your likes and retweets, who do you see?
When you look at your PLN, do you see a diverse, inclusive and representative cohort, or a mirror that shows you people who look like your own reflection?
If you’re anything like me, you see a lot more people in your PLN who look like you do. You see more people who are, as Maha says, “dominant” than “marginal in some way.”
After taking her suggestion to assess who I listen to, I took her up on her challenge to do something about it. I started building a list that I called Start Here. It’s a Twitter List that follows people from an array of backgrounds (save straight white males) and it’s where I try to start my media consumption each day.
The list has created a bit of a filter bubble that is divergent from my natural bubbles. I see hashtags and story lines and entire movements about which I would otherwise be oblivious. I learn about niche youtube categories I never knew existed and find myself using the dictionary (sometimes Urban Dictionary) more over the last few months than in the previous ten years.
The Start Here list has, until now, been a private thing for me. Today, it’s public and open for anyone else to follow.
I have no illusions that this list is comprehensive nor a self-satisfied sense that my need to learn and grow in the DEI space is complete. True to the name of the list itself, I regard it as a place to start and I approach it with hope.
I hope that it will remind me to be intentional. I hope that it will lead me to more connections to amazing geniuses with whom I would have never collided in a pre-internet world. And I hope that when someone asks, “Who do we know for this opportunity?” efforts like this will lead me and others like me to share that opportunity with a PLN that is more inclusive than it used to be.
UPDATES
I really value the feedback and want highlight it as I see it. These tweets from Antero Garcia, who lives in 2173 but visits us a few hours each week in 2018 are particularly great:
and this, from Maha Bali:
Please do keep the feedback coming! I’ll continue to update as I’m able and appreciate the opportunity to have space for these conversations to learn and grow!
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As always, your own thoughts, ideas and pushback response posts are appreciated and valued. Helping me to better understand and process this and be an advocate is especially appreciated!
In addition to following Noah Geisel here on Medium, you can find him at SenorG on Twitter.
