Gigantic May Project Update

     So I worked at the YWCA under Ms. Amy Hunter, and helped her with some of the diversity initiatives she runs, such as witnessing whiteness, a program for white people discussing white privilege and other things that come with being white in the world we live in, so reel, a program of videos, and speakers addressing various topics of diversity, and I also helped with general updates to the YWCA website, cataloging information, and voicing my opinion in regards to certain topics.

 I am not entirely finished with my project yet. I still have some videos to finish for so reel, but so far I would describe my project as informative, but not really rewarding. I work with animals a lot which is why I decided to do something in diversity for my may project, and I did learn a fair amount about what diversity work looks like. I say my project didn't feel rewarding because sometimes it felt as though I wasn't really working at all. The day could have felt more like shadowing, or something like that. For example, my first day, I showed up to the YWCA center, and I went to a meeting Ms. Hunter had, but it turned out the meeting really didn't apply to either of us, and because of this it was just a couple of hours of my time not well spent. By the time the day ended I had been there about five hours, and really hadn't done anything. I felt bad because this was not the only day something like that happened. It happened my second day as well, and last Wednesday I went to a conference with her. I couldn't really help at all at the conference though, and ultimately just ended up watching her presentation concerning privilege defined by zip codes in Saint Louis. It was an interesting talk, but she gave it multiple times and there was honestly no point in listening to it again, so I ended up in the hallway without much to do given my lack of a laptop or anything to do other work. It’s just moments like those that made it feel as though I wasn’t actually doing anything productive with my may project.

I feel the other reason it did not feel rewarding is that the projects I do are all by myself, or without any people around. For instance, although I have talked with Ms. Hunter concerning the Witnessing Whiteness group, I have never been to a meeting concerning it because I have track practice everyday and still do. Therefore, I never actually see how the work we do applies to other people. I only see the process. With the videos, I won’t know how effective they actually turned out to be because I will be gone when they are used. And redesigning a website doesn’t seem to have much of an impact either. I guess I just expected to work with people more, rather than do work that people would eventually see.

Ms. Hunter and I did meet with some groups struggling to improve their diversity initiatives however. It was interesting, because many things I hadn’t actually thought of in regards to diversity in the workplace were brought to light, and seeing Ms. Hunter’s way of handling it gave me a better idea of what the work looked like. The main problem they had identified was getting people committed to the work they were doing in diversity. Ms. Hunter pointed out their ways of subconsciously excluding people despite the message of inclusion they were trying to emphasize, in addition to their lack of a clear goal or reason for even having the initiatives. It was brought to their attention that they seemed to solely be doing these diversity initiatives because they felt it was “the right thing to do” or because it “made them feel good,” and this was one of the main problems because they need to have a set plan and set goals so that they can work towards something, and know when they are and are not successful. She also brought up an interesting point, in that they were trying to “increase the diversity of their staff” far beyond the clientele they were serving. For example, one woman’s concern was not having enough transgender people in the staff. Even though only two percent of their clientele was transgender, and roughly one percent of their staff was. The point being that she was focused too much on doing things that made her feel good about her actions rather than things that were actually more crucial, such as the issues of race within their faculty, etc. Seeing this transaction actually helped my understanding of diversity work a ton, and that is why it is one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had so far.

In regards to the work I’ve been doing, I was mainly tasked with two so reel videos. These videos serve the purpose of starting a dialogue within whatever group wants to use it for whatever diversity work they see fit. There will be events showcasing the videos, but I believe they can be used later. This year the focus is more towards women as a whole. The two I was tasked with deal with racism in the LGBTQ community, and “Not in her name.” The first is self explanatory, but the second addresses the use of “white woman fragility” to justify racial violence, and the pushback by white women to declare an end to the using of them to justify heinous acts such as the charleston shooting, or Emmett Till. Designing these videos actually is much more difficult than I thought. Partially because want to make sure they are actually worth viewing and that they do the job they are supposed to. Mainly I read articles concerning the topics, and attempt to find videos online addressing the topic that I can weave together. They are supposed to be somewhere around 10 minutes, and especially considering my inexperience in creating videos it has not been easy.

I have also been charged with redesigning the YWCA website in regards to diversity. The website hasn’t been updated for years, so many of the things on it are outdated, and I need to find more relevant topics to add. It doesn’t help that the form I have to use for making changes is very hard to use, especially when there are as many changes as I am suggesting, which hinders the process significantly. Mainly I was told to focus on the resource section. So, I am partially just going through the resources, seeing which ones no longer apply, and deleting them, while also finding new ones. This means researching which books have been successful in the recent past, and also finding videos concerning various diversity topics, and finding some poetry addressing them too, which is honestly my favorite part because I like poetry to begin with.

I have been working from home this past week because Ms. Hunter is actually in the middle of switching jobs and working in Children’s hospital. She partially stayed an extra week just because I was supposed to work with her and she wasn’t aware of the job when we initially talked. It’s kind of unfortunate simply because I don’t work as hard from home, but it works. I can’t actually go into the YWCA really because she is the only one that does her job there. There aren’t really others in the diversity field to her extent, and that’s why I’ve just been at home finishing the projects I was given. That’s another part of why this whole experience hasn’t been all that rewarding. It’s just different compared to the volunteering I’m used to. Like at the Zoo I worked with animals and actually people, quite often, and it was very clear when you were successful educating people, and when you were actually helpful to the animals and people working there. In the Humane Society, seeing a dog get adopted was one of the best feelings given the level of celebration and what not when it happened, but that type of stuff doesn’t happen at the YWCA, because why should it? At the Humane Society, I could see the change I was making consistently, and it felt rewarding because of that. The same can’t be said of my work this May, and that is the main reason for my lack of fulfillment. Yah I might be helpful, but it doesn’t feel like my work is all that important, or impactful. Partially because I won’t get to see any impact. I know work of that kind takes time, but still there just wasn’t the same level of excitement or anything when I went there. It was more so just something I was doing instead of being at home. I enjoyed Ms. Hunter’s company, and I learned a lot from her, but the experience as a whole seems lack luster, and honestly like I don’t actually deserve to get all of my may project hours, but I also have reached a certain level of apathy where that doesn’t matter too much anymore, and I kinda just want to finish it and be done.