Re-organizing the taskforce in the light of #BlackLivesMatter

[hturner]

As we have been considering our response to #BlackLivesMatter, it's become clear that we need to change the way we work as a taskforce to give more voice and responsibility to Black, Indigenous and People of Colour. Here we can collect ideas for how to do this, both our own thoughts and any suggested by others elsewhere.

[hturner]

One issue we have is that new members can find it hard to work out how they can contribute, especially when they don't know other folk on the taskforce very well.

I suggest running an "August All Hands" meeting with the main objective to get everyone involved and get to know each other better.

Format:

• 4 x 1 hour sessions, 6 hours apart
  • No one goes to everything, but should be a time to suit everyone (of course day might not be good for everyone, but hopefully get most people involved)
• Everyone has the opportunity to talk for 10-15 minutes
  • Should be low stakes: slides optional, does not need to be technical
  • Any topic related to taskforce: work/study topics, R, community, diversity, allyship
  • Ideally something the person has particular knowledge of or interest in

[hturner]

A general problem of diversity initiatives is the need to include marginalized groups in the process without burdening them with work that distracts from their goals. Ideally being on the taskforce helps to raise people's profile in the R community, what else can we do to support our own members?

Maybe we can use 1-to-1's with team leads to find out what people's goals are, to align actions with these goals.

[hturner]

Many of us join the taskforce out of a general desire to support a welcoming community and/or an interest in lifting up identity groups that we belong to. However, we may not be that knowledgable about diversity and inclusion work or the history/views of identity groups that we do not belong to.

We should aim to support continuous learning on the taskforce, e.g. via a monthly discussion group based on a topic or reading. (This idea inspired by this blog post that @DragonflyStats shared, which is important for us to take on board: https://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/245710-underrepresented-minority-considered-harmful-racist-language/). As well as improving the way we work, this would also give a personal benefit of belonging to the taskforce, as we learn and grow.