Aurelia Ball

I’m professor Aurelia Ball from the Chemistry Department at Skidmore College.  I teach Introductory Chemistry and Physical Chemistry and my Scribner Seminar is on science and film. I was drawn to Kendi’s book, How to be an Antiracist, because conversations about this issue have been happening more and more at Skidmore. Even in chemistry labs we’ve been having conversations about racism and antiracism and how to be a more inclusive community. Kendi’s book gives us a place to start on that. It gives us a common language and some common information that helps to facilitate these kinds of discussions. In my course on science and film one of the things we investigate is who is portrayed as doing science in film? Who are the scientists we see around us? How does identity intersect with doing science and how is that portrayed? What does it mean to be human and to do science? And how does science impact the lives of individuals? Racism, sexism, and other types of marginalization are continually reinforced in the sciences, and Kendi’s book gives us a place to start thinking about how we can bring antiracism to the sciences. It’s important to engage with these ideas in a science-focused course, the science classroom, or the research lab.