Let’s Talk Race and Racism (September)

The St. Louis Section of the American Chemical Society's Committee on Minority Affairs (CMA) has launched a new podcast listening series “Let’s Talk Race and Racism.” The series is designed to engage ACS members and the broader St. Louis community at large around fostering togetherness, developing shared language, and building comfort and courage to better discuss race and racism. The goal is to help people understand how to take personal action to build their own race consciousness and to move toward a more diverse and inclusive local section in response to many national conversations such as #BlackoutSTEM and in response to the cries for justice for the loss of unarmed Black lives.

In September, we will listen to an episode from the What Next podcast with Mary Harris. Mary has reported throughout the public radio system, for NPR, Marketplace, and WNYC. This short daily show is here to help you make sense of things when the news media feels overwhelming. This month’s theme will be the accuracy of American History and how we create American traditions that are in spite of racial trauma and pain. We ask all members and the community to come prepared to listen, learn, engage, be uncomfortable, and possibly abandon their own ideas for new ones as they hear vulnerable conversations from primarily people of color.