Here We Are: What Makes Us Human

67. Kam Yee [Equity in STEM Education]

• Joy Bork • Episode 67

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From a rocketry class taught by a health teacher to now being an advocate for equity in STEM education, Kam Yee is here to make a difference. Tune in to this week's episode to hear more of her story!

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Joy Blue:

Welcome to Here We Are, the podcast where we celebrate the beauty of being a nerd by learning about nerdy things from fellow nerds. I'm your host, Joy Blue. I feel like I say this a lot and I do, but it really just is the best thing-when I meet amazing humans doing the things they love in all the places that I go. Today's guest was one of the MCs at an event I worked recently and from the start, I knew I needed to have her on the show. The event was full of nerds of all shapes, sizes, ages, and countries of origin. She is one of their biggest cheerleaders. Without further ado. Here's my friend Kam Yee to nerd out about equity in stem education:

Kam Yee:

my name is Kam Yee. I live out in the great Pacific Northwest. And I was so psyched, Joy, when you asked me to come join your podcast. I started listening to it. Here we are is like the best name I think you can have

Joy Blue:

Oh, thanks.

Kam Yee:

Yeah, at first I was like, this is kind of vague, but then as I listened to it I'm like, oh my gosh, that just so encapsulate how I met you too. We, worked at an event and there's always high energy, tight schedule and stuff. And you were constantly a reminder of just well, just, this is where we are right

Joy Blue:

This is where we are. This is the present.

Kam Yee:

This is what we do and giving that reminder. So as I listen to a podcast, I'm like, okay, now I get it. Now I'm on board. It is the perfect name. It encapsulate what you wanna talk about, how you want to engage with people and just kind of like the general sense that you carry. So anyway, so yeah, that was my little fangirling moment to see you do something awesome. How should I identify myself? So I'm an immigrant. I moved here when I was 10. One of my other identities here uh, first generation college grad, first generation high school grad. My parents grew up in China and they had a seventh and a ninth grade education. So being able to pursue education, I think is a huge part of who I am, what I stand for, my values. And it's something that nobody can take away from you, right? Children grow up, partners can leave you, friends move through your life. Ebbs and flows were like the tide, but your education always stays with you. So regardless if it makes a income change or not. Learning things is just really fun. And what sparks me a lot is I crave new knowledge, right? I crave learning to know how it works, what's behind us, why does it work that way? And then as I got a little older, a little bit more sophisticated and my education taught me to ask, the more sophistication is not just how it works, it's like, why does it impact people the way it does and why does it impact certain people differently?

Joy Blue:

Yeah. You're asking the question beneath the question. It's not just the surface thing, but it's let's look at the system as a whole.

Kam Yee:

exactly. That's where I find a lot of my joy and where I have developed professionally is in STEM education and the equity within it. How do you make STEM education more inclusive, which then leads to the workforce being more inclusive? Right.

Joy Blue:

Yeah,

Kam Yee:

More open to different ideas and undoing a lot of the historical systemic filters.

Joy Blue:

Okay, so for starters, most people know what STEM is, but can you gimme a quick definition?

Kam Yee:

Sure. STEM is a real fun night buzzword that gets expanded and changes all the time. So STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and Math. And often you'll even hear steam with the a being art for it to be mixed in. I still like the term stem because I don't want art to be a separate category from science, technology, engineering, and math. I think art needs to be weaved throughout. So I like the term STEM a little bit better than steam. It's also a little less confusing.

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

so for stem, what we typically mean are it's a workforce based terminology, right? It's talking about the jobs that do science, technology, engineering, and math. Not necessarily your inherent interest or just what your hobbies are, or who you are in the way you learn. It's about jobs. Even though we talk about STEM education as an inspiration, as sparking interest, STEM education is about workforce. It's about who's going into the jobs. It's about the jobs that's gonna push our entire culture and civilization into all these new frontiers, but also established frontiers, right? Just look at robotics, for example, that's a technology. It makes use all of those things in there. But when we do STEM education, there's a lot of focus about inspiring. There's a lot of focus about how we get kids to kind of buy in and assimilate into this field. It's not just this pretty picture of kids learning cool stuff, but it's about where are the jobs, where are the opportunities so that people can gain that generational wealth, right? Because we know STEM industry tend to make a little bit more money. there's the systemic question. Why is that? Right? Why is that? Being a teacher used to make a lot more money until women started going into that field, then somehow it became one of the lesser pay industry. And there's a lot of thought that is actually gonna be what happens with coding as we

Joy Blue:

Really?

Kam Yee:

Democratize the way coding is taught, learned, and where it's practiced, because there will be so many. And as soon as you bring in more women and people of color in it, the pay scale also decreases, as we've seen in other industry.

Joy Blue:

Ooh, okay. We're talking about so many things here. Not only are we talking about stem, but we are talking about that question under the question, what is the system at play? I wanna talk about all of these things. What was the moment for you when you realized there was a thing under the thing and it wasn't what it seemed?

Kam Yee:

So the surface question that I would answer, like, how did I get interested in stem? Why do I like space so much? Cuz that's my thing. I have a master of science in space studies

Joy Blue:

That's so cool.

Kam Yee:

from the university, of North Dakota. I

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

I love that school. It's really great. They call it Harvard of the Sky.

Joy Blue:

Behold.

Kam Yee:

so the answer for the kids and for the inspiration portion, I was in seventh grade and the teacher said, Hey, there are not enough STEM learning opportunities for our students in this poor school that has a lot of immigrant students and English language learners in there. And this is our health teacher. Okay. He's not the engineering teacher, he's not the math teacher, he's the health teacher. He started a rocketry class, not a club, but an actual class as an elective. And I took that class. That's where that love for aerospace began in seventh grade with this nice middle-aged white man who, again, not even a science teacher, was a health teacher, was like, we're gonna do model rocketry. And that's just what we're gonna do. And we had all the decision making power, right? We just had to stay safe. He'll give us a budget okay, this unit, you can pick any of the rockets in this budget category, and I'll order it for you. Next unit, okay, we'll work on something bigger within this budget, pick whatever. And we had a lot of agency in it, which helped my learning and helped me establish myself to feel like, oh, okay, I can make decision within this. Now, the moment when I realized oh, there's a system around this was in, gosh, I was 19 or so. I was in community college and I, in my head I'm just like, I'm gonna be an aerospace engineer cuz that's what you do. Right? Right. You like space stuff, you like all the moon missions, you like the Mars missions that were happening at that point. I remember, as a teenager watching the Hubble Space Telescope on the news, the, all those big things. So, I didn't know there were other pathways. I was just like, okay, I'm gonna be an aerospace engineer cuz that is the pathway you go. And I was about 18 or 19 and I was in a community college counselor's office and they just looked at my grades and said, you don't have the grades to make it. You'll never be an engineer. And I remember walking out of that office feeling really confused because here's an authority figure who said, That this isn't gonna happen, like a diagnosis, the way a doctor might say Ooh, you've broken your knees that many times, you're never gonna be a marathon runner again. It was just a very fact stated to me. And I couldn't quite understand the whole system, I'm sure there were other things that had happened before, but that was the moment for me that go like, huh. I guess I can't do this, but yet it doesn't seem right. So I kept on trying to pursue it, but just one filter after another, I was kind of forced out of that feel a bit. And then life happened and I moved on and did some different things.

Joy Blue:

Wow.

Kam Yee:

But then I came back. I was 30 when I decided okay, you know what? I really need to pursue this And that's when I went to the University of North Dakota and said, we're just gonna make this happen. I'm gonna learn this.

Joy Blue:

And you did,

Kam Yee:

I did. It

Joy Blue:

and here you are.

Kam Yee:

here I am. Here we are.

Joy Blue:

Wow. There's so many questions I wanna ask. Okay, so I met you at a robotics competition and I knew right away that I needed to talk to you. First of all, I saw just initial visual, you were supporting LGBTQIA, which is not always a thing, especially in the state that we were in at that time. And so there's a part of me being queer and married to a woman that I was like, hi. There's something about when you see an ally, when you see someone who visibly is in support of who you are that just already ticked some boxes because there's parts of me I don't have to explain to you.

Kam Yee:

And I wasn't sure if... there's a line, right? There's that line of am I just doing Remember the whole safety pin thing where am I just doing a safety pin moment where I feel some accolade where I can feel like an ally and wear my ally ship, literally like a piece of jewelry to show off to people and be like, look how look I am. Right? Look how chill I am. But my my 15 year old who I came out to us as trans about one, two years ago? Through the pandemic, a lot of kids had time to really reflect on their identity. So, they were able to spend that time not in the classroom, but learning with their peers on how to have that language to talk. Right. Uh, Said that, look mom, when you wear something that tells me that you are safe, it lets me know I'm safe. And I thought, oh, okay, I can do that. So that was the necklace that you saw, that you referred to was a little rainbow necklace and little heart shapes. I was trying to find a way, I know that I have an opportunity to be a public figure at this event. So how do I represent in a way that A, is safe for me as a woman of color in a very conservative state that is at that moment, still is, going through a lot of questions about how they want to treat people, right? So, how is it safe for me professionally? So I was very careful. I didn't put anything that's a flag shape, cuz that adds a whole nother layer of political identity to it, right? When I wear hearts with the little rainbow colors on it, it's cute and supportive, right? If it's the same thing but in the shape of a flag, now it's a political identity. So I had to be careful with that. Cuz I like my job. I still wanna keep my job

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

it pays for my stuff. And I do pay for my food and I love going out to eat. So I had to be a little careful, but I wanted something that, basically passed by as acceptable, but is a a supportive thing for the kids who are there. And it's so funny that you said, just the way I've curated my look, I had so many queer kids come up to me to say hello to me. And part of my job when I'm not doing these big, huge competition is that, excuse me, I would go out to schools to visit where these students and robotics teams are working together at their school. So local coaches, the teachers and parents and stuff, they coach and I'm there as a support for them if they have questions about how the competitions go. So you have the officials on the back with their little clipboard to make sure, like everything is within regulation. That's my job with the robotics. Okay, so I make sure everything's written than regulation. Everything is fair across the entire world, but I, there are many of us, there's 20 some of us, and we all have like different regions that we serve. So I have a travel budget that I get to go visit some of these teams as they're working there as a community building activity to just say Hey, I'm visible. I'm here. Or sometimes there are schools that we need to keep an eye on because maybe things aren't fitting all the check boxes. But mostly it's an outreach for me. So local teachers at the school will be coaching the students and I just go visit and say Hey, you've been doing this program for five years, just wanna say hi. And with the way I manage my regions, I prioritize traveling to Title one schools and schools out in the rural area that we don't typically spend as much time on. Cuz you look at it like in a utilitarian sense, you go to the hubs where it has more program participants or you get more bang for your buck. You go one place, you can visit five schools. I would go to the rural areas. I literally went to a place in Oregon that I have seen more cows than I have ever seen in my entire life. I drove an hour through these like, and you know, woman of color traveling on a rural, you know, conservative area. I Was just like, there's no stopping. We just go. I drove an hour and it was all cows like nonstop. I've never seen, I've never seen so many in one day. So in these very rural community, and I would go and usually like. a couple of misfits at that school that, you know, you're like, wow, buddy, you're struggling here. You can't wait to get outta town. They're onto me like magnets every time. And it's just this sense of safety, right? Like I don't fit in here. I see you middle-aged lady.

Joy Blue:

Yep.

Kam Yee:

You probably don't fit in here either. So

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

I have a moment with you that I can feel safe with you and feel seen by you.

Joy Blue:

But I mean that kind of brings things full circle cuz what we started out talking about are the disparities in education and how it actually isn't equitable across.

Kam Yee:

no.

Joy Blue:

Across all the lines, and you know that from personal experience and you've done the work to then internalize and empathize and process your own journey, which then does allow you to be a safe space when you go visit these places. Like when I meet people and I feel the right wavelength, I'm like, okay, there's something about you that I understand, that I think you understand about me, and we're on a similar playing field. And I would only imagine and assume that the students you're going to visit in these places feel the same thing because you are open and you are welcoming, which then is a huge hallmark for entering people into STEM education, which is your, your jam.

Kam Yee:

It is my jam and what I always try to talk to the students about, and teachers, and here's the hard one, the employers, is that inspiration, building dreams, that's the easy part, right? What keeps the kids in STEM education and in STEM pathways and adults staying in STEM industry? You know what keeps us there? Jobs. That's what keeps up there. Right? And who holds the power of that? Who decides? It's not necessarily, I didn't apply for that job, it's who is thinking that I qualify for that job. I fit into the culture of that job. So just thinking about, not just as an inspiration, but who holds the power. The other thing that keeps folks there is a sense of belonging, which is kind of what we're talking about now, right? Why see that person and say, okay, I know that here we are. The two of us at this moment can relate as human beings. That keeps people in STEM industries. That's what keeps keeps the kids in science classes, engineering classes, and continue to do, and pursue these kinds of careers. And hey, if they don't end up in these careers, they're still learning a lot of skill sets, right? In engineering and science, there's a lot of systems thinking. There's a lot of just going through the process using the scientific method. All of that is stuff that they're learning that can be taken elsewhere. But we get to that deeper sense of not just the individual. I can pursue my dream to be an aerospace engineer. I can do my dream job. We have to look at it because for most communities of colors or communities who have been marginalized, we are community thinkers. We think how is this job and my higher income and my proximity to power, my proximity to affluence? Gonna affect my community. How do I bring my community with me? Right? If I have a high paying job, then I'm supporting my community cuz I'm building generational wealth within my community that we can all rise. What is that phrase? Like rising with uh, with the rising tide.

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

Yeah. So for me, Getting students into STEM fields is not just a, wow, you're really good at this and you love it. Cuz I love space. Like I love the space missions, I love the idea, I like where it's taking us, how we're exploring things outside of this planet. I mean, come on, that's crazy science fiction stuff, but it's happening. But on a more grounded sense, in the system sense, is how is this moving our community so that they can have greater power? And when I say our community, I mean like people of color, women who are typically kept out of it. Cuz there are multiple studies that women are not, they're not quitting engineering jobs to go stay at home and have babies. That's not where it is. When engineers, female engineers quit. It's because they lack promotional paths. They have hostile work environments. And this is not just engineering, right? This is across the board. They leave and they go to a higher paying job at a different company, perhaps not even in their industry. And with engineers specifically, there's such good systems thinker that other industries will recruit them for their C-suite. For their executive level stuff, because they know these folks with engineering background training can handle very complex systems.

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

So they're not leaving jobs to have babies, they're leaving jobs for better paying jobs at places that treat them better.

Joy Blue:

Yeah. I mean, how many times have you heard the phrase like it's people stay based on their bosses? I mean, that's not the phrase, but I can't remember the exact one.

Kam Yee:

You stay for the people, which it should be, but it also shouldn't be. Like, it should be great that we build community at our workplace because it's where we spend the majority of our time. Like a lot of people spend more time at work than they do with family, but it shouldn't be that you could have a crappy job and poor pay, and you stay for. The people, right? Because I've worked in nonprofit my entire professional career. Nonprofit, not known to have good pay. And is what we call feel good pennies. Like, Oh, you've got a nice coworker. Or You really love your community, or you love your job cuz you know you're making a difference. Those are feel good pennies. Feel good pennies don't buy any shoes that I need, right? I wanna go on a vacation.

Joy Blue:

Yep,

Kam Yee:

Feel good pennies can't pay for that.

Joy Blue:

yep.

Kam Yee:

I need healthcare. Feel good. Pennies don't pay for that. So I like it when people stay for a job, for community, but it shouldn't be the anchor, if that makes sense.

Joy Blue:

well, it's what you were talking about earlier, what is the cost and who pays the cost? I've worked in a lot of nonprofit jobs where the cost was me. So I got to a point where I just decided I will no longer stay when the cost is me. So, Part of what I'm hearing you say is the pathway to these jobs is not just brain. It is influencing all of the levels along the way. And this is what we're fighting for in general anyway. It's to say everyone deserves a seat at the table and when somebody else has a seat at the table, that doesn't mean there isn't room for you.

Kam Yee:

Right, exactly. The zero sum game. Like it's the, it is not zero sum. Right? We kind of make, we made up how many spots there were. Okay, so this is where I nerd out. I love looking at data. I love looking at the numbers behind things. And not just this cliche of oh, I don't like feelings. I like looking at numbers because, Numbers is another language. Numbers and how that data represent what you're seeing, it creates a narrative and, statistics like this is an older study, it's like a mural study called Stemming the Tide and it's about specifically women who have engineering degree. Okay, I can't remember the exact number, but it's something like, Only 25% of them are still in the engineering workforce after five years. So you look at those numbers, those numbers tell you a story. So that's why I like numbers. Whenever I struggle with things, I always like, I always hit the books. I'm like, I have sleep apnea. And for a while I felt really bad about it and then I looked, I'm like, oh, like one in seven people probably have it or have it and don't have it diagnosed. So numbers make me feel better. Like,

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

okay. I'm just part of the norm. I'm

Joy Blue:

You're finding validation.

Kam Yee:

Right, right. So in STEM education, this is something where I did my master thesis on. It's something that I continually work on in my professional career to just ask these questions of what we're measuring. Cuz what you'll find is that a lot of STEM education evaluation ask student belief. They measure the student in believing if they can do. Engineering, right? So a typical one would be you do a one year program for, kids to build robots or make rockets or whatever. They build an app.

Joy Blue:

Sure.

Kam Yee:

So what a typical evaluation cycle would be at the pre-program, so at the beginning when the kids, you'll ask'em a set of questions of. Yes, I believe I can be an engineer. I do plan on taking calc or all these things about what they believe in themselves. Do you want to, do you desire to have a career in computer programming? And then you measure them at the end of the program. You work with the kids for nine months, they've learned all this stuff. They gain all this confidence about what they can do in their computer programming. At the end of the program, you measure like, how confident do you feel on it? It's all about their beliefs in themselves. Do you want to go get this job in, whatever tech company and you measure it and then you do the pre and the post and you compare and say, oh, this program has moved these kids from feeling not confident, to confident. Boom, we're successful. It's fair, right? It's fair to make that, but what it doesn't measure is will the employers look at this student and say they're employable. We don't ask that question because then that puts the responsibility and the solution on the people with power. We keep trying to fix the individual but not the system. So that's where I like to look at data a lot, and I like to encourage data collection in a different way so that you're measuring the thing with the power or the system instead of the individual, because you can only change the individual so much. If you throw someone in the ocean, they don't know how to swim. There's only so many floaties you can put on them. And even if you teach'em to swim, at the moment, they are in the ocean. They can only swim so long without more support.

Joy Blue:

Right.

Kam Yee:

So that's the harder question, right? That second level question that you ask. And boy, there is a lot of resistance, a lot of resistance to measure that.

Joy Blue:

Yeah, because that means accountability and accountability is wonderfully terrifying.

Kam Yee:

And it's work. And I think there's a fear that accountability means that certain people will lose out. And that's where that zero sum thinking comes in, right? That there's only five spots, and if I'm gonna let you have it, that means I lose a spot. And that's not always the case.

Joy Blue:

Yeah. It's interesting too, to listen to your process of how you're getting here because you're starting, like if this was instructional design, you're starting with the end in mind and you're working backwards. Where I'm hearing you say a lot of processes start at the beginning and build it from there and it's so true. Looking out into the world, there aren't a lot of places that are truly open and welcoming to all.

Kam Yee:

So I'm in Seattle tech town, right? And it amazes me that we don't have like a substantial woman owned consulting firm that would do programming for folks. I cannot believe we don't have one. We have one school in this area called ADA Academy and they help women do career change into computer science careers. But I'm just so surprised, and maybe it exists out there and I don't know, like why is it that we don't have a woman owned business that is specialized in computer science. I have a few guesses why we don't have that, and I'm sure you have a few guesses. So why we don't have that, and I am going to assume that it's been attempted,

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

but they're not getting the champions and the support or the loans

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

or the investors to, to believe

Joy Blue:

Yeah. Well, it comes back to who has to pay the cost.

Kam Yee:

Right? Yeah. Who has to pay the cost and who's willing to be that champion? If you look at some jobs carefully when they hire for diversity stuff, the word risk is in there. So if they hire for a diversity manager within a place, you'll see the word risk and you know, like, why is this in here? Just search for it. You'll see it. It's really weird. I started noticing that a few years ago. Like I've seen it, but it didn't really click in my head that wait, other program management jobs don't talk about diversity as a risk, so how are employers viewing having to make their place more inclusive? They see it as a risk.

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

is that? Right? Risk for who? Because it's not a risk for me to be Awesome. So whose risk is it?

Joy Blue:

right.

Kam Yee:

Yeah, that would be, that will actually be a really cool study to just look at job postings for anything that's like a lead in any kind of diversity, and how often, like what percentage of them mentions the word risk?

Joy Blue:

Yeah. What I'm hearing you talk about now is so closely tied to what I hear in your voice when you talk about space. Is there's so much more possibility out there. And what I hear you lead with is curiosity.

Kam Yee:

Right.

Joy Blue:

I hear you lead with is empathy and wanting to fight for that equity. Because I mean, in an ideal world, it shouldn't be hard. Because we're all human.

Kam Yee:

Right. It shouldn't be hard, but you know, having an equitable world, if it's easy, we would've done it before. Like in a way it's easy, but it's also not easy. It's easy in that the steps to do it. Like I hear this from, Great allies all the time. I just don't know how to do this. I don't know what steps to take. I'm like, no, it's not that hard. Like how do you keep women and people of color in STEM workforce? You just have good management, basic management stuff, right? Basic clear pathways to promotion, fair compensation, pay transparency, good healthcare, flexible work, and accommodations when you have life events. Those are all basic things that nobody is hurt by them, but it retains people and it retains women and it retains people of color. But it's hard because there's resistance. So like the actual mechanism of how to make it better isn't hard. But there's resistance. And there's also willful ignorance to it too. So, another thing we talk about in STEM education, and this is. A subset of folks, right? It's the folks who are like trying to move the needle. We're trying to make progress and do the work to make it more equitable is you have programs that work really well that started out with a well funded school, and mostly boys participate in that program and they take that exact program and try to replicate it at a school that is not well funded, that might be co-ed and might be very Diverse in composition based as far as racial identity or religious identity, that is a mixture. And surprise. That program doesn't quite work for that population. And then they go, oh, these kids are so interested. They're just not as good at it. Right? It's well,

Joy Blue:

Are you blaming the kids or are you blaming the program?

Kam Yee:

Well, there's, it's usually saying the kids aren't interested. We don't know why they don't come to this program. Well, it was set up in a way that doesn't work for them. Right. And

Joy Blue:

to know your audience.

Kam Yee:

and then the, then the next step is, oh, we gotta meet them halfway. So I hear that all the time. Meeting halfway. And I like to take that out of people's language when they talk about STEM education and outreach in that way. Because meeting halfway implies that you have this gold standard of the white boys with money or with access, not necessarily even with money, right? There's, I've met some really awesome folks with humble beginnings because they're white and male, or in tech, asian and male. East Asian specifically, they fit in really easily and they can pass those hurdles. And myself, as an Asian woman, I am seen as fitting into the tech world because you do see some of us as not great, but you know, there are not a lot of us and we hit a lot of barriers, but you at least see a couple of them up there, right? So. When you develop programs that work there and it doesn't apply to students that have different just not necessarily less, but just a different set of resources available to them. We think meeting it halfway as if we have to lower the standards of.

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Kam Yee:

Of your, the white boys who have access to things or are given access or giving the benefit of the doubt through their learning journey. Right. I remember talking with somebody who works at a state government level helping minority owned business and trying to get them contracts with government. Cuz the government gives us solicitation and oftentimes minority owned businesses don't know how to go through the process to bid for them. So he helps them to walk'em through the technical aspect of okay, this is how you do an application. This is how this is how you navigate the system there so that they can be empowered to do that and bid on different kinds of contracts. And then we're talking about contracts like being a food service provider at a courthouse, things like. That any business can pretty much fulfill. Right? He said that the biggest hurdle he has to convince is actually people doing the hiring, not seeing minority owned business as an inferior business or with a lesser quality. And I get to be on scholarship panels, sometimes, I get to be with interview panels and that comes up again and again, that when it's a woman or any kind of historically marginalized group, immediately, well, we gotta meet them halfway. But what does that mean? That means you're assuming what they're bringing is inferior and a lower

Joy Blue:

looking, You're looking down. Like you're automatically saying, oh, you're so below. I mean, that is woven into our culture

Kam Yee:

Right, right. And

Joy Blue:

And it's not okay.

Kam Yee:

So working, corporate America stuff and gosh, I don't even wanna say corporate America, just in America because I've faced this in nonprofits too. It's in small orgs and small businesses. You hear that rhetoric and you have to just kinda start being a little subversive and sometimes it's outright, Hey, not cool, don't do that. And other times it's just, I'm gonna start saying it so you're comfortable with the way that we should talk about this. So a little combination of that.

Joy Blue:

That's beautiful.

Kam Yee:

So that's what I try to do.

Joy Blue:

one final thing.

Kam Yee:

Yeah.

Joy Blue:

What do you want my listeners to know and take away from this conversation?

Kam Yee:

I want your listeners, everyone, specifically men, white people, start having these conversations. Have space, safe spaces, and talk to each other about it. Right? I know it can be kind of scary and intimidating to go find like people that you may not know very well and say, let's talk about race. It's okay if you have a conversation and you don't really learn some big aha moment. But just having that conversation, Having the conversation with people who are just like you, that's okay too. You don't only wanna do it and become an echo chamber.

Joy Blue:

Right,

Kam Yee:

Right, which is what we see on social media now. Or you curate it and you only talk about it, but it's okay to practice those conversations before you take it to someone that maybe is a little bit different than you. Have a couple of practice round first, and that is okay. You are totally allowed to talk about race and talk about gender equity within your group of whatever privilege you have. So please practice those and then have the bigger conversation with other people too. And then I think second thing is whatever change you're trying to make, just find your nearest woman of color, preferably a black or indigenous woman. Do whatever she tells you to do.

Joy Blue:

Yep.

Kam Yee:

Just find your nearest woman of color, follow their direction, and they will lead you to where you want to be, and you will like yourself more.

Joy Blue:

Amen. All of us are worth being at the table. Thank you so much for your time, Kam. This has been amazing.

Kam Yee:

So fun. Thanks for listening to my soapbox and it's just so fun to talk with somebody else who's yeah, I can feel safe to be like, I just be my full self.

Joy Blue:

That's right.

Kam Yee:

Aww

Joy Blue:

So here we are. What a delightful time I had with Kam during this interview. I love how she approached this conversation in such a meta way. She came to the table with curiosity, just as she is also asking us to move into the realms of discussing race and equity in the same way. I am so grateful Kam exists in this world, and I'm looking forward to seeing where our friendship goes from here. Thank you again, Kam if you've got a flavor of nerd that you want me to celebrate, I would love to hear all about it. So go ahead and email me at herewearethepodcast@gmail.com and tell me everything. I love taking time to sit and make space for nerd to be celebrated. If you really liked this podcast and want to financially support what I'm doing, head on over to Patreon.com, search for here we are the podcast and sign up for one of the many beautifully written support tiers. So until next time, don't forget the curiosity wins and the world needs more nerds. Bye.