Outsiders

Diversity in STEM is all the rage these days, with Women in Physics groups and activities, and other subgroups as well (though those are not so well attended); all intended to make it easier for minorities to become comfortable in the group.

I can empathize. I've been in large groups where everybody knows everybody else, I've been the only one of my skin color, and the bulk of the crowd was not friendly--though not unfriendly either. It feels stifling at best.

There are simple and obvious ways to address this "stifling:"

1. Make sure everybody is told that they have to welcome strangers. Um. Icebreakers are one thing, pre-scripted "acceptance" is another. Granted, the population of scientists and engineers is somewhat enriched in the socially inept, who might need some reminders.
2. Make sure there are people who look like the newbies. I know what my natural tendency would be--hang out with the folks like me. I gather that tends to happen in the Women in Physics groups, but I haven't studied them in detail.
3. Forget yourself

Self-forgetfulness may sound very Zen, or like a Christian saint's humility, but I think it may be the best option.

At a church where you're the only one who doesn't know the drill, concentrate on Who you are worshipping. You are in communion with the others who are also concentrating on God, and that's a good place to be.

At a party where you're the odd duck, games can make the connections between people. Concentrating on the play (whether you are participating or watching) gives you something in common with the others: a connection. It's ephemeral, but it works.

In a science team, concentrate on the problem. Maybe it is too hard for you alone; ask for help. Forget about your past, or your hair (or lack thereof; I'm often the oldest one in the group)--look at the problem and you become a scientist, engineer, mathematician, doctor--along with the rest. You become by doing, and become part of the group of doers. Maybe you won't be in the "cool crowd." Meh.

Look at it from the outside. Only hopeless tribalists care about the PC beancounting--everybody else wants to know "What have you discovered?" or "What did you make?" or "Can you cure her, doc?" A gratuitous rainbow on your press release tells people you've been spending time doing something other than the research you were paid to do.

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Those "hopeless tribalists" are deadly when they get hold of power. I'm reading my one-time supervisor's book The Soviet Atomic Project, and the account of what happened to harmless researchers when Stalin's purges swept through is pretty grim. One theorist wrote an article explaining (before the discovery of the neutrino) that conservation of energy was a bourgeois concept that had no place in Soviet lands. His loyalty didn't save him from execution.