I sit on panels fairly often, and sometimes I’m clearly there to satisfy a diversity checkbox. Qualifiers used along with talk invites:
“We need a woman”
“It’s great to have an outside perspective” (on a panel of physicians)
“Can you speak to the Asian-American experience?"

Once, on what felt like my 100th panel as the token “Asian,” a wry moderator directed a question at me, saying, “and now Dr. Choo, representing all Asians, apparently.” I laughed, loudly, before answering.

It’s not always acknowledged how much being present on behalf of one’s race/ethnicity is both impossible and diminishing.

Impossible, because I could bring my best Asian (or woman) self and never represent the worlds within that category. And diminishing because by being up there as an Asian (or woman), I am reduced to only my race/ethnicity (gender), my individuality gone.

I am both inadequate and so much more.

I can never say this when I get these invites, of course. I hear the unspoken message: if you say no, the panel will be homogeneous, the students/residents will not see themselves in those role models, and you will let them down.

(tbh, I sometimes also feel the stereotype contained within the expectation: an obedient, compliant Asian female is always happy to accommodate a request.)

And still, I do it, because I am sick of the all male panel, the all white panel. And because when that’s what you see, that’s what you get used to, and then that’s what you get time and again.

The purpose of this thread is not to whine. I was just thinking of why my right eye tends to act up & twitch when people mention their diversity efforts.