It's not wokeness - it's human rights

"Early in her career, evolutionary ecologist Maydianne Andrade was frequently asked to participate in equity work. As a Black woman in academia, she was initially reluctant, sensing that her presence on such committees was just ticking a box. At conference sessions on women and people of colour in science, despite often hearing anecdotes echoing her own experience, the lack of empirical data analysing collective experiences frustrated her."

"Then, about a decade ago, Andrade was challenged to take an implicit association test. The test revealed that she had a moderate to strong tendency to associate positive things with whiteness and negative things with Blackness. These results shook her, prompting her to take a deep dive into the social-science literature on discrimination and bias, and spurring her into advocacy."

"Now, alongside her research career at the University of Toronto in Canada, where she studies the reproductive behaviour of black widow spiders ( Latrodectus), she is co-founder and former president of the Canadian Black Scientists Network, and founder and co-chair of the Toronto Initiative for Diversity and Excellence (TIDE), a cross-disciplinary service group that supports equity and inclusion at her university, Canada's largest. These groups engage with Canadian parliamentarians, organizations and university employees to stimulate sustained change."

Maydianne Andrade, an evolutionary ecologist, often declined equity committee invitations early in her career because she felt tokenized as a Black woman in academia. Conference anecdotes echoed her experiences but lacked empirical analysis of collective patterns. An implicit association test revealed a moderate to strong association of positivity with whiteness and negativity with Blackness, which prompted her to study discrimination literature and become an advocate. Andrade researches black widow spider reproduction at the University of Toronto, co-founded the Canadian Black Scientists Network, and launched the Toronto Initiative for Diversity and Excellence to drive sustained institutional change.

Read at Nature