S02E11 | Being a Woke White Guy: Interview with Phil Burnham

PhDivas

If you have every kind of privilege, how do you #staywoke? The PhDivas talk to their physicist friend Philip Smith Burnham III, a white upper-middle class straight cisman who is a staunch ally. How do you offer support without being a self-important savior? We discuss how to listen, the long, slow process of awareness, and how privilege should be leveraged as an asset for change and not just a source of guilt. An aspiring astronaut who is sometimes mistaken for a frat guy, Phil talks about the relationship between Indigenous ways of knowing, Cherokee basket weaving, and developing better scientific access and education for underprivileged communities. This episode is for all our listeners -- or our listeners's friends! -- who have wondered what the next step is after checking their privilege. Note: when talking about American Indian blood quantum laws, Phil mentions that Cherokee people need a grandparent who is Cherokee. This applies to one specific band of Cherokee called United Keetoowah www.philipburnham.com Cornell CCMR Outreach: http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ Cornell O-stem: https://www.facebook.com/oSTEMatCornell/ http://ostematcornell.weebly.com/ American Indian & Alaska Native Genetics Resource Center (talks not only about the science but about the ethics): http://genetics.ncai.org/ Science Museum of Minnesota: https://www.smm.org/ One Laptop per Child: http://one.laptop.org/ Other stuff: Cherokee baskets - http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/Culture/CherokeeArts/CherokeeBaskets.aspx A piece on Phil's stepdad's basket weaving - http://indigeval.aihec.org/Shared%20Documents/2-WeavingTheBasket.pdf Phil's lab's website: http://devlaminck.bme.cornell.edu/ Wikipedia for blood quantum laws in case people want some background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_quantum_laws Book Phil likes about an innovative kid from Malawi who fell in love with physics: https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Harnessed-Wind-Electricity/dp/0061730335 And his TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/william_kamkwamba_how_i_harnessed_the_wind?language=en