Part 2 of my responses to reader comments on "Decolonizing Astronomy"

May 7, 2015, 11:50 am

≫ Next: James Baldwin on American Mythology

More reader comments in response to my recent post "Decolonizing Astronomy:"

Alma Ruiz Velasco writes:

Thank you for your article, I found it very interesting. I am an astronomer too and I find very annoying this argument of "building a gigantic telescope will benefit humankind" without really saying how. I hope the movement gets louder and brings up some consciousness about how damaging is really the white-patriarchy establishment.

You are welcome. Thank you for your kind words. I think that building large telescopes will benefit humankind, but only if all humans are afforded the great luxury and privilege of studying astronomy. Currently, that simply is not the case (see chart below). So the case that gigantic telescopes, such as the GMT, benefit humankind is pretty weak at present. I think it would be most accurate for people who talk about the benefits of giant telescopes would be honest about the fact that only a subset of humanity will benefit for now.

Michael Rich writes:

Professor Johnson,

Your raise some very good points, and I regret the comments made in Prof. Faber's letter, for which she has apologized. I spent many hours with Mailani Neal, an 18 year old high school senior whose opinion varies from yours. She has suffered death threats, yet she is firm in her support of the TMT project. She was deeply moved by a tour of the Keck telescopes, and impressed with their environmental sensitivity.

It is terrible that Mailani Neal has received death threats. This is deplorable and unacceptable.

I don't find it particularly surprising that Mailani has an opinion that differs from mine. There are Black people who disagree with my protests against police brutality (see Charles Barkley, or whichever Black conservatives Fox News is propping up in front of the camera these days). The power of white supremacy is its ability to infect the minds of non-white people, too. Hell, I even bought into it while in college (cf respectability politics). When you're young and only have the whitewashed history taught in high school, combined with growing up in a society that sends repeated messages about the inferiority of non-white people, its hard not to buy in.

Whiteness seeks to assimilate that which it can't destroy or displace. This is why there was an Indian College at Harvard. Those students were given a Harvard education, and then employed as ambassadors to their tribes, extolling the virtues of European culture and religion. I'm sure that there white people back then who pointed to their Native students as justification for all manner of deeds. An excerpt from Ebony and Ivy by MIT historian Craig Steven Wilder:

I am confident that Mailani is bright enough to eventually start putting the pieces together, just as I have done over the years.

She envisions a future of greater education and opportunities for all, partially enabled by the STEM education funding from the TMT annual grant.

Mailani's love of astronomy does not atone for our country's past actions. Also, sadly, her passion also does not make the field of science she wishes to enter any more welcoming to her than it does for any other person of color. Do you really care for her and her dreams of being an astronomer? Then read your history, read about racism/whiteness, and commit yourself to mentoring and supporting her. She's going to need a ton of support and help to earn a PhD in a field that is 90% white and generally refuses to acknowledge their country's role in the destruction of her ancestors' home. As someone committed to creating equal opportunities for students of color, I have watched how everyday racism, both systemic and interpersonal, wears people of color down. It's ugly yet unacknowledged by the people responsible.

I was moved to tears in reading accounts of the illegal takeover of Hawaii. Indeed Hawaii was a legally independent country with ambassadors; the UN of today would have condemned such an action.

Yup. I just really wish you had stopped right here. Sadly, you go on to say:

Yet we must also ask why such a sophisticated nation-state lacked a military sufficient to fight off a band of businessmen backed by a platoon of marines.

Really? We must ask ourselves this question? I strongly disagree! I do not need to ask myself this question primarily because I would be required to follow it to its logical end. "We must ask ourselves why Native Americans, who had extensive armies, fighting experience and advanced societies were unable to fight off a bunch of war-weary US soldiers and inexperienced settlers."

Hawaii would have fallen to some superior power. Likely, that would have been Imperial Japan. Witness the inability of the UK to protect the Commonwealth nations. Even Australia would have fallen were it not for the Battle of the Coral Sea. The history of Imperial Japan in the "coprosperity sphere" is pretty terrible, and I think virtually every historian will agree with the assessment that US control is the lesser of a range of possible evils that might have included occupation by a number of foreign powers.

Ugh! The Inevitability Argument. I've heard this so many times, and it never gets better. Again, follow your reasoning to its logical end and tell me about how some other country would have taken slaves from Africa, or exterminated the Native Americans, or invaded Poland. Jeez, dude.

Even if this reasoning were valid, you're trying to say that what our country did is bad, but it's better that we did the bad thing than for someone else to do it instead? What?! Would you have walked up to a slave in 1856 and said, "I know this sucks, man. But you know what? If we weren't doing this to you, someone else would."

The late Sen. Inouye was gravely injured in WW II; Governor Ige's father won the bronze star and the purple heart. I dont know how an independent Hawaii would speak to those resting in Punchbowl or at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.. their voices are not available for social media.

Yes, I agree that Native Hawaiians fought in WWII. I don't really see what you're getting at here.

An effort to turn back the clock to restore a Hawaiian monarchy would probably be opposed by a majority of the persons living there, who would lose their US citizenship and assets, and lose the protection of US law. The effect on the economy would be catastrophic as foreign investment would flee.

Who is advocating for turning back the clock and restoring a Hawaiian monarchy? This sounds an awful lot like a straw man argument. I've been hearing many of these types of arguments since I posted. I made no such proposal in my article. I did say that our illegal annexation of Hawaii "needs to be recognized, atoned for, and set right before we pursue something as frivolous as a damned telescope."

The TMT project is on hold right now. As an instrumentalist recently observed, "Instead of coming at this from a place of panic, come at it from a place of every instrumental project ever. This is a delay. There are delays. We handle delays by understanding the things we can fix, and adjusting to the things we can not." Nearly every pro-TMT person I have spoken to took one message away from my essay on historical racial/colonial injustice: "Oh noez! John said we should never build the TMT!" The responses are not, "Yikes, perhaps we should take this time for self reflection." No, instead it's "Let's get the Black guy who talked about US race relations!"

And how insulting must it sound to a Native Hawaiian person to hear that you have no faith in their ability to govern themselves without US law and foreign investment? This is an extraordinarily paternalistic thing to say.

I do believe that the EIS running 2,027 pages does consider adequately respect for the cultural sites, none of which would be obliterated by TMT. Indeed, an extraordinary survey of the site is being conducted to restore it to its original condition.

Legal documents do not make one righteous. Also, why is it that pro-TMT people always point to the number of pages in their document as evidence to their sensitivity to Native concerns? What if you went to your doctor and said, "My arm hurts" and your doctor says, "Well, it shouldn't. I wrote a 728 page report on your pain!"

The vast majority of those individuals who spent tens of person years on the TMT project acted in sincere good faith; this approval process, I believe, should in my opinion be respected.

Just how many tens of person years make up for extinguishing the Native Hawaiian language? How many tens of person years justify the fact that 20% of Native Hawaiians live in poverty? Why does this conversation about historical injustice always end up focusing on the problems of astronomers?

Please bear in mind that I was Neil Tyson's thesis adviser; I cut my salary to pay his, and raised extra funds to support travel to 4 conferences and for his thesis observations; I even hired students to reduce data for Neil. One success does not make a trend, but at least I have done something.

Why should I bear this in mind? Are you looking for a merit badge? That you count this among your accomplishments as an astronomer speaks to the low bar set by your colleagues over the decades. "Lookit me! I helped a Black astronomer succeed!" he says to one of ~10 Black astronomy professors. Why do you feel this is relevant right now? Either your arguments hold water or they don't. If they don't, your helper-of-Black-people bona fides won't plug the holes in your logic.

Also, what have you done to confront your fellow astronomers about the reasons why it was so difficult for someone as brilliant at Neil Tyson to succeed in your field? What work have you put into learning the history and nature of systemic racism that continues to impede the success of people of color in astronomy? (Please answer these questions in your head rather than asking for cookies for anything you have done).

The deep societal problems that you raise so eloquently must be addressed. And in all fairness, Astronomy has addressed and largely solved the gender issues; it can and must do so for race. However, I believe that these problems are unlikely to be solved by cancelling TMT. It can also be said that Chile has a gulf between rich and poor more vast than the US, and it, too, like nearly all modern nations, has issues with its treatment of indigenous peoples. Therefore the other giant telescope projects must face these issues.

I'll let women astronomers address your claim, as a man, that gender issues are largely solved. Also, when you say women, surely you don't mean women of color, right?

I sense deep ambivalence in your writing. Overall, your comment sounds to me like, "I recognize that grave injustices have been committed. We have to fix these problems. But first, we have to build the TMT."

The way you and so many TMT supporters talk, it's as if the oppression of an entire people is equal in your minds to a astronomical tool. As an astronomer of color recently wrote, "Some TMT people see this as TMT vs. anti-racists and don't realize what that says about them." Is it even remotely possible for you to acknowledge the unjust theft of land from Native Hawaiians and the annihilation of their culture without promoting your telescope?

In my opinion, we as a society should address the important issues you have raised, but not by cancelling the TMT project.

I guess not.

Look, man, I'm speaking to you the way I am because I'm tired of teaching Racism 101 to ignorant Americans for no compensation. It takes time and energy away from my science, my students, and my family. So I save time by ditching the pretend-politeness used by white people. The history I know is available for you to learn if you can invest the same amount of time and effort as I have. You also said some ugly things that you need to reflect upon, but I believe you can unlearn what you have learned.

You sound sincere, yet clueless, like many of my colleagues when they attempt to discuss race, racism and colonialism. Honestly, it's not really your fault, personally, that you are struggling the way you are. As beautifully explained by the author of this article:

I am white. I have spent years studying what it means to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet is deeply divided by race. This is what I have learned: Any white person living in the United States will develop opinions about race simply by swimming in the water of our culture. But mainstream sources—like schools, textbooks, and the media—don’t provide us with the multiple perspectives we need.

Yes, we will develop strong, emotionally laden opinions, but they will not be informed opinions. Our socialization renders us racially illiterate. When you add a lack of humility to that illiteracy (because we don’t know what we don’t know), you get the breakdown we so often see when trying to engage white people in meaningful conversations about race.

The system that has left you ignorant has also damaged your basic humanity. I work with white people, I teach white people astronomy, I collaborate with white people, and I work with white people to fight against racism. I love white people and I hate what systemic racism has done to them, their world view, their capacity for basic empathy, and their capacity for love, every bit as much as I hate what it has done to harm me and other people of color. Underneath your ambivalence I see glimmers of recognition. Please follow those instincts and commit yourself to learning. Mailani's hopes and dreams may well depend on your action, and certainly the actions of other white people.

↧

James Baldwin on American Mythology

May 7, 2015, 2:20 pm

≫ Next: Diamonds in the Rough

≪ Previous: Part 2 of my responses to reader comments on "Decolonizing Astronomy"

One day I'll be able to say it as clearly and eloquently as Baldwin. Until then, I'll read and imitate until I can do him and his lessons to me proper justice.

“The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world's most direct and virile, that American women are pure. Negroes know far more about white Americans than that; it can almost be said, in fact, that they know about white Americans what parents—or, anyway, mothers—know about their children, and that they very often regard white Americans that way. And perhaps this attitude, held in spite of what they know and have endured, helps to explain why Negroes, on the whole, and until lately, have allowed themselves to feel so little hatred. The tendency has really been, insofar as this was possible, to dismiss white people as the slightly mad victims of their own brainwashing.”

― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

↧

Diamonds in the Rough

May 11, 2015, 12:35 pm

≫ Next: Oops, you did racism a favor

≪ Previous: James Baldwin on American Mythology

Every Black astro/physicist is a diamond in the rough. By making it to wherever they are in their careers, they are stronger than you can imagine. Many of them are the descendants of a long line of survivors, dating back to the cramped, death-filled hold of a slave ship. Many are the children of women and men who spent their lives in the newly-founded United States with their humanities systematically stripped, somehow holding together families despite forceful separation, distance and death. Others are the descendants of the survivors of the ongoing European and now American and increasingly Chinese colonial project around the African continent. They somehow kept the flame burning despite centuries of hopelessness, with no end in sight, with misery following misery, day after day.

How my ancestors came to America.

Today, we are stereotyped as being shiftless, lazy and not interested in education. Yet my ancestors, the slaves owned by white Americans, pursued education despite the threat of punishment by torture and death. They taught themselves and their children to read, huddled beneath blankets late at night by candlelight, dodging slave patrols (the precursors to our modern police force). They created culture, music, mythology and religion under the watchful eye of their masters. They had to steal their humanity if they were to be human. My ancestors did. That's why I'm here today.

Plantation overseer punishes a slave in Brazil, 1834.
From: http://www.brh.org.uk/gallery/slavery.html

Those Black slaves who were left alive in the South, when the slaves were "freed," were set adrift in enemy territory, with nothing but a shirt on their back, if that. They walked miles carrying their babies, they wandered roadless forests in search of their husbands, wives and children with no certainty that they were still alive.

When our ancestors finally managed to eke out a living, barely avoiding starvation as share croppers and seasonal laborers, they lived every day knowing that it could all be stripped away. Their children grew up "free" in a system of state-sanctioned terrorism known as Jim Crow. My grandfather knew never to make eye contact with a white man or woman. He knew how to step off of the sidewalk when white people approached. He accepted that a white man could mete out corporal punishment to his children on a public street, and all he could do was stand aside, staring at the ground. He knew that his life and his family were at stake as he walked outside in a "free" country. A lynch mob was always just minutes away from his home should he dare to act like an American.

My grandmother raised nine children in a house built by her eldest sons out of scrap wood. She taught her kids how to read, how to do math, despite only ever attaining a third-grade education. She pulled the family through lean times. Before she passed away, she told me stories of waking up to find the flour for breakfast eaten and defiled by rats. She fought through tuberculosis, losing a lung while leaving her family in the hands of my eldest aunt. She returned to them and stressed the importance of education, like her ancestors did before her.

White America: These are your forefathers and foremothers. If you claim
Jefferson, Washington or Betsy Ross, you must claim these upstanding
citizens of your country, too. These events were often attended by the
local police, and convictions were extremely rare, making lynching a
de facto legal American institution.

My father pursued an education in a university that constantly reminded him of his inferiority. He faced discrimination at every turn. Yet he became the class president and graduated with honors. He found a job, then another, and then moved to find another in St. Louis. The house he purchased, the first house owned in my family's history, lost 50% of its value when white people fled our neighborhood, six miles from Ferguson, in the 90's as Black families like ours moved in. He lost the rest of its value in the 2008 housing crisis. The suburban neighborhood I grew up in is today derided as the "ghetto" or the "hood" by white acquaintances of mine who still live in the St. Louis area.

Ta-Nehisi Coates detailed the recent history of housing discrimination after WWII that denied opportunities for Black people to build wealth by excluding them from FHA and GI Bill home loans, ownership of houses in "white neighborhoods," and the legal con game of "contract buying." All the while, white Americans purchased homes and built wealth. They used those homes to take out loans to send their children to school. The wealth they accumulated allowed them to lend or give money to their children to buy homes of their own. Those children carefully avoided Black neighborhoods and kept Black people out of white neighborhoods, right up to this day. Today there is a nearly 20-to-1 wealth gap between Blacks and whites.

There is a mythology among white America that there was a time after slavery when Black people had all the opportunity in the world and yet somehow squandered it, leaving them in poverty today. But this is historically false. There has been no sustained period in our history when Black people were ever given a chance, and certainly no time in history when we were able to benefit from the fruits of our forced labor. There is a new documentary about Nazi Germany seemingly every week on the History channel. But when was the last documentary about slavery, or Jim Crow, or Rosa Parks' 40-year struggle for housing rights, or the Civil Rights movement beyond standard clips from MLK's "I have a dream?" America has not faced down its history. But I know my history, both Black and white.

Our lives, stolen then, and stolen now. LUCAS JACKSON / REUTERSS

From what I've learned, I know America does not deserve us. Astronomy and physics do not deserve us. But Black astro/physicists love doing what we do. We do it better than most while working harder than most, for far less than most. We do it, always with a fraction of our brains processing cues from an environment that is allergic to us, dealing with the scars left by messages telling us that we are lesser. We face discrimination to this day, with daily reminders that we are not worth as much as white people. When we speak out against our pain, our pain is denied by our white peers and leaders. We learn our craft from professors who look nothing like us, who know nothing about us, who tend to spend as little time with us as possible. Yet we press on in their labs and classrooms. We are the daughters and sons of some of the strongest people and most determined survivors in American history.

But we are not full citizens in our own country, where we have lived longer than most of our white colleagues who judge us as lesser. Our colleagues explain within earshot, "We'd welcome them to our graduate program, if only we could find one good enough." With all due respect (and very little is due), we do not accept your standards of "good enough." Your standards of one-dimensional excellence are anathema to us. You will know nothing of true excellence until you are ready for the jazz we bring.

Make sure you bear all of this in mind the next time a Black person's application comes across your committee's desk:

We are all diamonds in the rough.

----------

Thanks, as always, to my colleague and social justice mentor, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, and to my brother in the fight against racism, Michael Martin.

↧

Oops, you did racism a favor

May 12, 2015, 11:59 am

≫ Next: "Wait, reverse racism isn't a thing?"

≪ Previous: Diamonds in the Rough

This is a guest post by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, my astro/physics colleague and one of my social justice instructors. Chanda is intelligent and insightful, and an important voice in the astro/physics community. Here is another essay by her in which she states obvious, but too-often ignored truths and breaks down for folks why defensiveness is the wrong response to being called a racist. In the past she has bravely and honestly brought my mistakes to my attention, yet I have too often been defensive, deflective, whiney, and generally acted like a male, cis-gendered-straight-privileged child on many occasions. I've don this while calling on others to stop doing the same to me when I attempt to call attention to racist acts in my life. I have been wrong. My oppression in one area does not excuse me for using my privilege to oppress in other areas. Chanda has always been there to help me on my path, just as I'm sure she is accountable to people in her circles. Astronomers, physicists, readers: Listen up when Chanda speaks, especially when she spits hot fire, as she does below. Do not take her for some conjurer of cheap tricks. Below I am reposting her original post, which is here. See also her essay on "Let Physics Be the Dream It Used to Be."

A few weeks ago, an email with racist language targeting Native Hawaiians in it was widely circulated by two very prominent members of the astronomy community. After public and private outcry, they both offered apologies of sorts, although in neither case was the apology to the people who were the victims of the offensive language.

Several of us came together to write a statement about the use of offensive and racist language in sociopolitical discourse within the astronomy community, with the hope that our professional society, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) would endorse and publish the statement as a message to all members, racial minorities especially, that AAS was against racism.

Some 50+ emails later, the President of AAS Meg Urry published a letter about the incident. The letter had some strengths. It had some weaknesses. Its most significant weakness was essentially suggesting that making general statements about “senior white astronomers” was equally harmful as racism toward minorities.

!!!!!!!

I pointed out the problems on Twitter and soon after many white women in the astro community joined me, tweeting at Meg directly, discussing it with her on a phone call and discussing on Facebook that this was a problem. Eventually, Meg altered the letter while publicly complaining on Twitter about the strong reaction people had to this problem.

Here’s the thing. Meg and others seemed to think we were nitpicking for theoretical reasons and overblowing the whole thing. But in fact, less than 48 hours later, a prominent astronomer wrote a statement (that is not publicly available) in response to the dialogue about Meg’s letter that many took as an attack on me (which is why I feel entitled to write about this private statement), another Black scientist, a Latina scientist and several of our white allies. In it this astronomer proclaimed that racism against white people is a problem and suggested that some people of color and their allies in the community had created a hostile environment for white people. This statement came as an empowered follow-up to Meg’s words and the words of other white leaders in the community who defended her, as if saying that she made a mistake was an attack on her entire existence.

In other words, Meg’s mistake (and the defenses which compounded it) had real consequences. Although it was unintentional, Meg’s letter had given energy to the concept that white people can be victims of racism.

So, even when you don’t mean to, you can be doing racism a favor. And when people call you out on your mistakes and ask you to fix them, they are often doing it because they know that these consequences are coming. People who have taken their time to learn about and respect minority experiences know that we have to deal all the time with comments like, “you are a reverse racist” and “you are engaging in anti-white racism.”

When the leader of a national organization says something that at best ambiguously sounds like it might mean that anti-white racism exists, or suggests that white people with seniority, tenure, and even equations named after them are suffering the way Native American and Hawaiian undergraduates are suffering, that leader has provided problematic leadership that harms people in their community.

We all make mistakes. Part of genuinely taking responsibility for them is to understand and own the consequences.

And speaking of consequences, here are some: when a POC calls a white person’s actions racist, the white person might feel bad and also people might look at them negatively. When a white person encourages and/or directly participates in racism, they are contributing to a large set of social structures that are not only psychologically dangerous for POC but are also physically dangerous, especially for those of us who are Black, Native and Latin@.

Honestly, if I had to pick between being called a racist and the genuine fear I feel when I walk by police, I’d pick being called a racist. In that scenario, there’s no chance I will die, which is excellent.

p.s. Notably, the American Astronomical Society as an organization never got behind an anti-racism statement. By contrast, within days of the incident, Sarah Tuttle and I wrote a statement that has since garnered around 200 co-signers.

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"Wait, reverse racism isn't a thing?"

May 13, 2015, 11:00 am

≫ Next: Homework for Those Seeking to be Allies

≪ Previous: Oops, you did racism a favor

As a quick followup on Chanda's guest post yesterday about unintended but real consequences of the words our leaders use, allow me to make one fact abundantly clear: There is no such thing as reverse racism. If you believe in such a concept, then know that you are falling into the same category as the dude (why is it always a dude?) who writes to you about how general relativity is wrong, or that the Sun is made of iron.

Racism is a system that supports and reinforces the belief that white people are superior to non-white people. It can be manifest through personal actions, but often more importantly it is systemic and undergirds the history and present nature of our country's society and culture. Here's one particularly useful sociological definition (see also Halley, Eshleman & Vijaya 2011):

Racism extends considerably beyond prejudiced beliefs. The essential feature of racism is not hostility or misperception, but rather the defense of a system from which advantage is derived on the basis of race. The manner in which the defense is articulated - either with hostility or subtlety - is not nearly as important as the fact that it insures the continuation of a privileged relationship. Thus it is necessary to broaden the definition of racism beyond prejudice to include sentiments that in their consequence, if not in their intent, support the racial status quo (source).

I like this definition because it is functional rather than theoretical; it's based on research rather than off-the-cuff opinion or personal motto. Racism is best seen and identified by looking for its consequences. For example, a University can claim to support diversity, but if it's faculty is only ~1% Black outside of the African American Studies department, the we can clearly see that it actually supports---passively and/or actively---racist mechanisms and policies. After all, race has no biological basis (Lewontin 1972; Barbujani et al. 1997; Sussman 2012). The number of Black individuals talented enough to be on your University's faculty should be equal to their representation in the population. Their underrepresentation must therefore be the result of a program of active exclusion rather than the result a meritocratic selection process.

Racist words and actions are not just rude interruptions to polite society, like a belch during a faculty meeting. Instead, these words actively support this systemic process by reminding non-white people that they are inferior to white people, that they are less than human, that they do not belong. This messaging starts at a young age for people of color in this country, particularly Black, Latina/o and Native people. Whether the speaker of racist words means to or not, their words reflect the economic, political and social power of white people and the lack of power for everyone else. This is why intent does not matter. The impact is real and felt daily by people of color. It is manifest in higher rates of hypertension in Black people, increased rates of depression in Black children, and lower performance in schoolwork and standardized tests.

Thus, it is ridiculous and perverse to accuse a person of color of being racist. How can people who have no power, and have never held power in this country systematically oppress white people? How can our words toward white people ever possibly communicate to them that they are inferior, when they are, in fact, systematically advantaged as a group in every aspect of American life?

It's perverse because the word "racism" is what allows us people of color to name the source of our pain. Having words to describe emotional and mental distress gives us a tiny bit of agency, a sliver of relief in a world designed to relegate us to a lower position in society. Otherwise it just feels like chaos. Accusing, say, a Black woman of racism turns the name of our pain back on us, redoubling our pain. It is like pulling a knife out of the victim of a mugging, and then promptly stabbing it back in, all while denying that they are in pain or need of help.

Accusations of reverse racism are cruel, and result in real pain for people of color. Actual racism and its consequences are nothing like the embarrassment and temporary bruised feelings of white people who are accused of saying something racist. Indeed, anyone with a modicum of curiosity and empathy can see that being accused of saying something racist is far, far less painful than being the target of racist words and actions. In short, accusations of reverse racism are a mechanism of supporting and propagating actual systemic racism. We need to move past the childish notion of "reverse racism" if we are ever to move toward social justice for all people in our country.

↧

Homework for Those Seeking to be Allies

May 14, 2015, 11:00 am

≫ Next: To the little Black girls with big names

≪ Previous: "Wait, reverse racism isn't a thing?"

Today's guest post is by Dr. Sarah Ballard, a Carl Sagan postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, and soon-to-be Torres Fellow at MIT. I am very much looking forward to her return to Cambridge, where she did her PhD studies at Harvard. Sarah is one of my closest allies, and one of my few true allies. This is because she is one of my most valued and closest friends. I can always count on her to listen and give thoughtful, helpful input. I try to do the same for her. She is also a collaborator of mine in the field of exoplanetary science. One of my proudest achievements is publishing an influential publication with her last year on the statistical nature of multiplanet systems orbiting red dwarf stars. My heart swells with personal pride to see my name next to hers on a two-author paper. Sarah is multidimensional excellent, all the more so because of her academic origins as a social justice major at UC Berkeley before switching to astronomy. But make no mistake, she has the chops as an observational astronomer, and as a teacher, advisor and mentor of the next generation of astronomers. Because of her all-round excellence, she'll no doubt be joining a faculty near you very soon.

The writer and activist Janet Mock describes the idea of an “ally” as more of an action, and less of an identity.“Ally” is something that we actively do, not something that we can ever passively be. I found this conception very helpful to hear because it posits “ally” within the context of hard work. Being an ally ishard work. It is similar to my other kinds of work (in astronomy and elsewhere) in that (1) improvement is not only facilitated by criticism from respected peers and colleagues, it relies upon this criticism, and (2) it’s characterized less by large leaps and bounds, and much more by constant and small day-to-day efforts.

I consider the ally process an integral part of my job that I simply must do in order to participate meaningfully in the astronomy community. I trained myself to allot time everyday to check arXiv, so I can train myself to be a better ally. These things are both “my work.” If it is helpful to others, I’d like to share my own process. In this particular article, I’ll focus upon my efforts to interrogate my whiteness. I reside at an intersection of many privileges, and this is only one of them. I’ve written before that I once thought I would devote myself to studying social justice, rather than astrophysics. Even though I’ve shifted careers, I’ve tried to bring that lens (newly and inexpertly formed as it was) into my current job as an astronomer. I’ll first describe my initial training, and then move on to my current strategies.

It was clear to me, even as an undergraduate, that academic STEM is very steeped in whiteness. This was evident simply from observing the races of the vast, vast majority of my professors and fellow students. My women’s honors society was one of the few places that I encountered women of color in a classroom during my years at UC Berkeley in numbers that reflected anything near the US population. My first taste of hard ally work (at age 19, my late age a huge privilege unto itself) came while I was a facilitator of a sexual violence awareness and prevention class on campus. Myself and the three other facilitators worked hard to change the curriculum to reflect the complex reality of violence against women. I learned from other women that violence against white women, while it gets the most airtime, manifests totally differently than violence against women of color (again, I emphasize that I am focusing upon race here. Violence manifests differently along other axes of identity as well). This applies to both direct and structural violence. I learned to observe the passive erasure of women of color that, when unaddressed, inexorably erodes the margins of justice movements.

The desert spreads even into carefully tended spaces. (National Geographic)

I remember sharing my frustration and sadness about the injustices we discussed in this class with an older white woman, from a generation before mine. I was overwhelmed by the inextricable links between poverty, race, gender, and violence (We had just screened Señorita Extraviada, related the disappearance of now hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez. Please watch this excellent film if you have the chance). Her response reflected the values of that outdated movement: “can’t you make it easier by focusing just on the basics? Why include race and economics in the discussion too?”

I think many white women from the generation preceding mine, but also many within my generation, perceive that these are things that can be meaningfully disentangled. Patricia Arquette just voiced such an opinion after the Oscars, saying that people of color had been parceled out justice, and that the time had now come for “women.” As easy as it is to dismiss a celebrity as being out-of-touch, I think that worldview is not an uncommon one among white women, even within spaces devoted to dismantling unjust practices. It’s even more salient in spaces where injustice is rarely discussed, if at all (such as academic STEM).

I think it’s very, very probable that more people are reading this article because I am a white woman, than if a woman of color were describing the exact same reality. In this sense, the task set before me as a white woman is twofold. I need to speak up about the injustices I see perpetrated against people who look like me. And I must be just as vigilant, if not more so, about making sure I don’t visit the same oppressions on people who do not look like me.

That sounds important in theory. But what do I do in practice?

Homework: I try to seek out the voices of people of color. If I waited for these voices to reach me in large numbers atop the academic ivory tower, I’d be waiting a very long time. Social media too is characterized by segregation. Furthermore, I know that it is not the job of my colleagues and friends of color to have these discussions with me. Instead, I go to the spaces (typically on the internet) where people of color are talking openly, and I listen. Twitter is a better platform than other social media: it’s demonstrably more diverse than other spaces. For example, I listen to podcasts like Black Girls Talking to hear what women very similar to me (bookish, ~30 years old, interested in culture) are talking about.

I’ll listen while I’m cooking, or while I’m on the bus. This is embarrassing to admit, but truthful: There have been many times that I’ve become defensive while listening, believing my own lived experience to be more reflective of reality than the one I hear these four women describe. I’ll freeze with the spatula in my hand and my eyes closed, realizing that I’m doing this.

This is my opportunity to reflect on my impulsive responses: dismissing the experiences of black women when weighed against my own. I ask myself why I feel the urge to come to the defense of a white woman being called out, why I imagine to myself that such-and-such “isn’t that big of a deal”, or why I tell myself that whatever topic being addressed “isn’t really about race.” Even in my own carefully tended landscape, the desert sand creeps in unless I do the hard work to push it back. I’m happy to share more of my own favorite podcasts, websites, and blogs with folks if they are interested. I note that I’ve already set aside time to read important work that others like John and Chanda have recommended, and will continue to do so.

Another of my favorite podcasts, "Call Your Girlfriend" is cohosted by best friends Aminatou Sou and Ann Friedman. Listen to them playfully brainstorm an intersectional intro to feminism.

Real-time check in: When I am engaging in a conversation related to race, I run through a checklist in my mind.

Am I saying something that a person of color has just said? It is very easy for white people for slip into this toxic pattern of behavior. We’ll be heard more clearly, and even lauded, for saying the same idea that was ignored when expressed in another voice. If I’m repeating an idea that I heard a person of color express first and they are not present in this scenario, I make sure to direct others to them rather than taking ownership of the idea myself.
Am I responding because I feel “attacked” in some way? This lesson is important in every sphere of my life, and I bring mindfulness practices to bear here just as I do elsewhere. Responding from a place of unexamined anger is unfair to myself and unfair to others. Like every person who navigated her 20’s, I know that taking 10 deep breaths, taking a walk, etc., is a much better idea than responding impulsively in anger.
Am I doing something that I’ve been called out for doing before? This check-in is drawn from a history of having messed up in previous interactions and been approached and checked by friends and colleagues.
Am I behaving toward others the way I want to be treated when I’m trying to point out an injustice? I say this cautiously, because the ways in which I am treated unjustly differ in quality and quantity from the injustices experienced by others. But I do know how awful, frustrating, and vulnerable it feels to be speaking from my lived experience and articulating mistreatment. But it’s far, far worse to have that vulnerability met with disbelief or dismissal by others. I want to treat others the way I wish I were treated. How do I wish these critical folks had approached me?
Am I asking something of this person that I wouldn’t ask a person who looks like me? For example, it’s often very tempting when engaged in a conversation about racial injustice to ask for references or context. Google is my friend. For example, I never ask white women I don’t know to explain to me where they are drawing their statistics: I look it up myself!

Daily observation: Just by virtue of existing in the world as a person, I bear witness to the erasure and distortion of images and experiences of people of color. I’m not going to live a hermit lifestyle, and this means I’m going to consume problematic media: the very least I can do is consume it with awareness. Often in the books I read, the magazines I see on the newsstand, the TV I watch, black and brown voices are absent or pushed to the background. In majority white spaces (which are almost always the spaces I inhabit, being a white astronomer in Seattle), media that prominently features people of color is rarely discussed in the same way as media featuring white people. I scan the images I am fed, in advertising, for example (Here’s a blatant example in Cosmopolitan). I look for complex and humanizing depictions of people of color (I do the same for depictions of women).

These are often negative portrayals or absent altogether. I am ingesting a steady diet of garbage, just by virtue of living my life, that lacks accurate and decent portrayals of people of color. This is especially important in spaces set aside for discussions of justice. In a room reserved for women in science, are there any women of color present? And if not, rather than shrugging, I ask myself: what should I be doing differently to make this space welcoming?

I’d love to hear the practices of other folks who are trying to live “ally” as a verb! Do you have practices for checking yourself?

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To the little Black girls with big names

May 15, 2015, 10:00 am

≫ Next: When should we stop listening to oppressed people?

≪ Previous: Homework for Those Seeking to be Allies

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When should we stop listening to oppressed people?

May 17, 2015, 12:16 pm

≫ Next: Reader Feedback: Whither Kanake in (white) Astronomy?

≪ Previous: To the little Black girls with big names

On the Astronomers Facebook page, Dr. David Spiegel asks a very straightforward yet, to date, unanswered question regarding the TMT debate:

On the one hand, there are some people (whether a fractionally small minority or not), whose land was colonized and whose culture is disappearing, who think of Mauna Kea as a sacred location that should not have more ground broken on it for giant new telescopes.

Then, there are some astronomers who say, essentially, "We really ought to listen more to these marginalized people who are objecting to the plans to build a giant new telescope."

And finally, there are some astronomers who say, essentially, "Nope. We had a very listeny process already. The time for listening is over; the time for pouring concrete has arrived." And some high-profile astronomers who take this position have used some offensive, insensitive, and, yes, racist language in making this argument to several hundred of their closest friends.

Am I right that the dispute among astronomers is basically between those who argue, "Let's listen more to the colonized people who are objecting to our plans to build the world's largest optical telescope on their sacred mountain, find out whether compromise solutions are available, and, if not, take a whole lot more time to figure out whether ignoring the complaints of victims of colonialism in order to build a big telescope is the right course of action," and those who are arguing, "Let's go ahead and build right now because our process already involved 7 years of listening and we'd rather build the telescope than listen more."?

If I'm wrong in this understanding, which part of it is wrong?

If I'm right in this understanding, can people help me understand how the latter argument makes moral and logical sense? In other words, what are the steps of moral logic that go from (A) "We've already listened a whole lot." to (B) "We should go ahead and build the telescope despite the complaints of some victims of colonialism who think that we'll be desecrating their sacred mountain by building it."?

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Reader Feedback: Whither Kanake in (white) Astronomy?

May 26, 2015, 12:00 pm

≫ Next: On Chilean Astronomy and Observatory Conflicts

≪ Previous: When should we stop listening to oppressed people?

Watching the way that the debate about the TMT has come into our field has angered and saddened me so much. Outward blatant racism and then deflecting and defending. I don't want to post this because I am a chicken and fairly vulnerable given my status as a postdoc (Editor's note: How sad is it that our young astronomers feel afraid to speak out on this issue? This should make clear the power dynamics at play in this debate).

But I thought the number crunching I did might be useful for those on the fence. I wanted to see how badly astronomy itself is failing Native Hawaiians. I'm not trying to get into all of the racist infrastructure that has created an underclass on Hawaii, but if we are going to argue about "well it wasn't astronomers who did it," we should be able to back that assertion with numbers. Having tried to do so, well I think the argument has no standing. At all.

Based on my research, it looks like there are about 1400 jobs in Hawaii related to astronomy and the telescopes, meaning that 0.1% of Hawaii residents are astronomers (we could say only 50% of these astronomy-related individuals do research if we wanted to, but I'll start with the 1400 number).

In contrast, in the US, there are about 6000 astronomer jobs (0.002% of the population, or 50x smaller representation than in Hawaii). Okay, if you take the representation of Native Hawaiians amongst the US population and figure out how many astronomers you should have of Native descent, you should have about 3 nation-wide. But note that this is probably not the right determination. If you live in Hawai'i, you are already 50x more likely to be employed in an astronomy-related field. And of course, Hawai'i is where the highest concentration of Native Hawaiians live. Thus, I argue that we should focus specifically on the state of Hawai'i.

Roughly 10% of Hawaiian residents identified on the census as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. This means that about 140 of those astronomy jobs (10% of 1400) in Hawai'i should be filled by Native Hawaiians. Are we even close to that? Can anyone name more than two native Hawiian PhD astronomers?

Not sure if this helps the debate at all, but at least to me, this was the way I could sit down and say "we as astronomers are failing Native Hawaiians. Terribly." These are the hard numbers. Because Hawaii has such an overpopulation of astronomers, one should expect that if the demographics were that being any resident of Hawaii led to the same exposure and same chances to pursue astronomy, we are off of the ideal situation by...2 orders of magnitude?!

Can you imagine how this TMT debate would be proceeding if 140 of our Hawaiian astronomers were native Hawaiians?

SOURCES:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/15000.html

https://aas.org/learn/careers-astronomy

http://www.uhero.hawaii.edu/assets/UHERO_Astronomy_Final.pdf

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On Chilean Astronomy and Observatory Conflicts

May 27, 2015, 12:00 pm

≫ Next: I am one of the "antisocial seven!"

≪ Previous: Reader Feedback: Whither Kanake in (white) Astronomy?

The following guest post is brought to you by Joshua Tan, who I met on the Equity & Inclusion in Astronomy and Physics Facebook page. Joshua is a FONDECYT postdoctoral fellow at Universidad Católica in Santiago and he earned his PhD was from Columbia University last year. He works with Andreas Reisenegger and Julio Chaname. Recently, Joshua participated in a heated discussion about my recent Decolonize Astronomy essay (otherwise known to TMT supporters as the "anti-TMT" essay). One of the FB posters insisted that I write an article about similar injustices related to the GMT project and other Chilean astronomy projects. I told him that he should not feel entitled to direct my writing interests, but invited him to do the research, write a post and I'd be happy to post it to my blog. As I said in the intro to my Decolonize post, "Thus, I recognize that many will interpret what I write as simply anti-TMT. This is as unfortunate as it is inevitable. The truth is that I am pro-social justice."

While that commenter didn't take me up on my offer, Joshua did put in the work and wrote the following. Thank you Joshua!

The history of astronomy in Chile is in part tied into neo-colonialism, and the problematic character of that can be seen in certain ways in which foreign countries, international and transnational corporations, and wealthy astronomy departments in the West have taken advantage of the preferential treatments they have received from various Chilean governments. Observatories in Chile are all basically foreign-owned and operated, though Chile is a consortium member of CTIO. Connections between the academic astronomy departments in Chile and between their foreign counterparts seem to be growing, but it is important that the astronomy community acknowledge the unbalanced history that comes with this story.

Flag of the Mapuche, via Wiki Commons

Lately, an explosion of new projects and giant segmented-mirror telescopes (GSMTs; observatories that cost upwards of a billion dollars) has made Chile the focus of worldwide astronomical attention. One of these GSMTs is the Thirty Meter Telescope, and for a time Chile was in contention as a possible site, but the decision to build it in Hawaii was made with at least one consequence being that this decision is being opposed by Native Hawaiians (Kanaka Maoli) and allies who see the new project and existing telescopes on Mauna Kea in part as an affront to their indigenous rights. With other GSMTs either being considered or definitely being built in Chile at various stages (ALMA, LSST, GMT, E-ELT, and CTA), a question could be asked, to what extent do Chilean sites have similar issues as the current conflict over the TMT?

The issues with indigenous rights in Chile have a long and sordid history stretching back to the invasion of the Spanish in the sixteenth century and arguably coming to a head with the Chilean Occupation of Araucanía in 1860 where the independent Mapuche people were invaded and had their lands forcibly integrated into Chile. The Mapuche people today comprise 85% of the indigenous people of Chile and the struggle for indigenous rights has resulted in a decades-long conflict known as the Mapuche conflict. This conflict is largely happening south of Santiago and is, as far as I can tell, mostly (but not completely) removed from the northern part of the country where the observatories are. Of course, borderland arguments are false consciousness colonial fantasies, but there does not appear to be any direct connection between the Mapuche conflict and the observatories. This does not mean that such concerns don't exist in the same way that the concerns of certain Kanaka Maoli over the TMT were not recognized by many in the community until recently, but there has not been a lot of work done to answer this question.

Image from the excellent film, Nostalgia for the Light, about the grim geographical connections between astronomical observatories and the gravesites some of the disappeared from Pinochet’s rule. Reproduced from the New York Times

There have been conflicts with workers and Chilean nationals and various observatory projects. One famous story involves the construction of the VLT at Paranal where a clever lawyer figured out that according to Chilean law the site was owned by a military family. He went and found the family and filed suit stating that the government had signed the land over to ESO illegally. The request was for financial remuneration -- the family and the lawyer were perfectly happy to have the observatory be built as long as the money was paid for the land rights use. The suit was either dismissed or settled.

One thing that should be acknowledged is the problematic relationship the observatories had with the military junta that took over Chile in 1973. For the most part, this coup d'etat was considered a matter of "local politics" by many of the foreign observatories who tried to make no political waves in order to keep their special statuses. It is undeniable that Pinochet used the same geographies as where the observatories are located to help cover-up his crimes against humanity. Nevertheless, being neutral in the face of evil is itself a banal form of evil (c.f. Eichmann in Jerusalem).

http://strakul.blogspot.com/2013/08/astronomy-alma-observatory-on-strike.html

I would be remiss if I did not mention the seventeen-day strike of the workers on ALMA in 2013 which was resolved apparently to both the union and AURA's mutual agreement. This highlights the rather large footprint that observatories have and can have in Northern Chile where many of the consortiums act as de facto (and in some cases de jure) mining companies -- the corporations who are arguably most guilty of exacerbating worker problems and trampling on the rights of the indigenous. To the extent that these giga-observatories have a lot of resources at their disposal, it is not always possible for people who are working for justice and the rights of the people to distinguish between them.

Resources:

Telescopes, Red Stars, and Chilean Skies

Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics

Vol. 39: 1-18 (Volume publication date September 2001)

Reaching for the Stars? Astronomy and Growth in Chile

by Javiera Barandiaran

Mapuche International Link

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I am one of the "antisocial seven!"

May 31, 2015, 9:30 am

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≪ Previous: On Chilean Astronomy and Observatory Conflicts

I am a member of the "antisocial seven" who were recently labeled as troublemakers in the astronomy community. If the "social" in antisocial refers to the current culture and societal structure of astro/physics, then I am most definitely anti. I stand opposed to the deeply harmful way we, as a community of scientists, treat each other, marginalize minorities of all kinds, and in so doing stifle our full scientific and intellectual potential. 

Academia and science in particular were built upon and still rest on a cartel framework, in which a minority group (namely white men) have banded together to artificially raise the value of their intellectual contributions, while excluding women and men of color, LGBTQI individuals, white women, and the physically disabled and those with cognitive disabilities (or differences). This cartel system has been hugely beneficial to white men, whose portraits adorn our hallways and buildings. 

To be sure, they were given huge advantages, and many of them made the most of their starting conditions. This is not to discredit or minimize their work. But I do want to raise awareness that their opportunities were not universal, and we are far from realizing equal opportunity and social justice within the sciences, astronomy in particular. 

I will push for equal opportunities. I will agitate for justice and corrections for past wrongs. I will be loud and not always polite. I am antisocial and proud of it! I now wear it as a badge of pride in my profile pic. Feel free to take it and wear it yourself. Let's tear down the current structures that serve as barriers, establish the first, true meritocracy in science, and in the process learn more about the Universe than we ever previously imagined.

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Why Don't You Care?

June 1, 2015, 12:00 pm

≫ Next: Guest post by Dimitri Robert Dounas-Frazer on Learning How to Be a White Anti-racism Ally

≪ Previous: I am one of the "antisocial seven!"

This guest post is contributed by a UC Berkeley student who requested anonymity, not for fear of the faculty in their department, but because of fear of reprisal from her fellow students. This fear needs to be grappled with: How is it that a community that prides itself in critical thinking, free expression, curiosity and problem-solving can so quickly come together to stifle debate on a matter as important as racism in our community, the colonialist history behind the TMT, and the needed reform in our science community? Well, the answer is simple: Those who benefit from the status quo have much to lose, and what they stand to lose was taken from (or denied to) others. But as this brave, young student demonstrates, there is a revolution underway. Change is coming. It's time for people to decide which side of history they want to end up on. Today's guest author took up my call for white allies to stand up, speak out and take an active role against racism in our scientific community. Remember: a passive stance in this struggle is an active support of the status quo. Anti-racism (and other anti-*ism) guest posts are always welcome!

Image from Nashville: The People’s Anti Racism UnConference

When I first read the e-mail authored by Dr. Sandy Faber and sent out by Professor Alex Filippenko regarding the TMT protests, which described protesters as "a horde of native Hawaiians who are lying," my heart sank. Within seconds, I was cycling through anger, sadness, and disbelief. After the initial emotional reaction, I backtracked. Wait, I am not a native Hawaiian. In fact, I do not belong to any Native group. I am a white, cis-gender woman. Yet, that e-mail affected me. It enraged me. It motivated me to speak out publicly in front of several senior faculty members, including Filippenko, as an undergraduate. Why?

When an instance of offensive language, oppression, and marginalization like this occurs, it reflects a greater problem in our community. It affects the marginalized people who are directly targeted most strongly, certainly, but it also affects us all. With every statement like the one in that e-mail, the dysfunctional aspects of the culture of astronomy are communicated and reinforced.

The infamous email

Although both Filippenko and Faber issued apologies, their sentiments were lacking in many key ways. In the words of Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, "the apologies themselves were problematic, at points reproducing some of the discourse that made such a comment seem perfectly normative in the first place" (cf Dr. Jessica Kirkpatrick's essay on proper apologies). The authors seemed to apologize for letting racist sentiments slip through into the public sphere instead of apologizing for holding those sentiments in the first place. They also failed to directly address those who experienced the most harm as a result of their actions. Furthermore, none of the apologies acknowledged that the mistake of writing and forwarding this e-mail was more than just a singularity, but rather a result of systematic faults in the culture of astronomy.

As a white woman, I read that e-mail and thought, "This is language that my superior, the professor I admire, a brilliant lecturer, researcher, and astronomer, condones?" I thought, "This is not something I want to be a part of." I read that e-mail as an exposition of views held by some people in power: historically ignorant, racist, condescending views. I doubted my place in this field, a field that all too often excludes, oppresses, and silences others. I expected each and every one of my peer undergraduates and my higher-ups to react similarly. I expected us to agree unanimously that a racist characterization was used, that the e-mail should not have been sent to the department mailing list, and that it did not express attitude we wanted for UC Berkeley Astronomy or for astronomy at large. This was quite far from what I found to be true.

UC Berkeley: Colonialist stronghold or bastion of academic freedom?

Why is it that so few members of the astronomy department attended the meeting that followed this e-mail, which included white astronomers, Native people, and, notably, Native astronomers? Why is it that when discussion about this thread broke out among undergrads, there was so much support and defense of the statement, and criticisms of those who were hurt by it? Why is it that some were more concerned about protecting Faber and Filippenko than they were about protecting the people who their words attempted to crush? Why is it that the entire community did not feel what I felt: shock, disappointment, and a desire to change the culture of astronomy?

The astronomy community needs self-reflection, and a recognition that our normative culture is not conducive to an inclusive pursuit of knowledge. The culture of astronomy needs to change. We need to come to the consensus that it is absolutely unacceptable for any group of people to be systematically put down, silenced, or hurt. We need for all of us to agree on that, in each and every instance. And that consensus is not just among those of us who most identify with the people being harmed; it needs to include white people, too. Until we reach that point, astronomy will continue to exclude, isolate, and push away people who are not a part of, or refuse to participate in the culture we repeatedly display and reinforce. Until then, we continue to miss out on opportunities for greater talent and brilliance in our field.

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Guest post by Dimitri Robert Dounas-Frazer on Learning How to Be a White Anti-racism Ally

June 2, 2015, 12:00 pm

≫ Next: What to do when you hurt someone: Stop talking, start listening

≪ Previous: Why Don't You Care?

Today's guest blogger is Dimitri Robert Dounas-Frazer, a frequent poster in the Equity & Inclusion Facebook Page, and a white man who allies as a verb. Dimitri earned his PhD in physics from UC Berkeley and he is currently a postdoctoral researcher at CU-Boulder working on physics education research.

When John asked me to write a guest post for his blog, he said, “Humans need to hear stories to make logical connections. We are storytellers. The story of your personal journey will help people start putting the pieces together.”

Here’s my best attempt to summarize where I am now, how I got here, and what’s on the horizon in terms of promoting equity and inclusion in Physics.

Part 1: My Whiteness

First, so that my fellow cis white men don’t feel alone when they make similar statements about themselves, it’s important to say this upfront: I have benefitted from, and contributed to, interpersonal, cultural, and institutional racism. And: I will continue to benefit from that oppression despite my best intentions and efforts.

Some brief personal history: On my father’s side, my family tree traces back to the pilgrim Paul Sears. My dad has a brass coin of some sort to this effect. When I was younger, I used to stare at the coin and think that my lineage made me a “real” American, one of the “first.” My colonialist understanding of American identity was (is?) a result of my socialization in a country where whiteness is normative and where American history starts with Plymouth Rock instead of the Bering Strait, with Purple Mountain Majesties instead of the culture and history of the Ute nation. Chimamanda Adichie calls this “The Danger of a Single Story.”

My mother was born in Greece. When she was finishing primary school, her family emigrated to South Africa. At the time they lived there, apartheid was still in effect, and my mom and her family were perceived and treated as white. My grandparents found work, saved money, and eventually came to the U.S. Thus, as is the case for my paternal ancestors, exploitation of people of color is an integral thread in the fabric of my mother’s and maternal grandparents’ history.

So, I benefitted from my whiteness even before I was born, as do all white people.

As a kid, I grew up in a family where my white parents and white grandparents owned their own homes. My neighbors were all white. Most of my childhood friends were white. All of us in my family and neighborhood had benefitted from racism in the housing market, something Ta-Nehisi Coates calls “The Quiet Plunder.”

I worked as a busboy at my uncle’s restaurant when I was in high school. My uncle forbade me, the only non-Latino busboy, from cleaning the bathrooms because that type of work wasn’t for “people like me.” Did he mean white people? Greek people? Family members? Probably all of the above. Thus, I was socialized in settings where my whiteness was not just normative, but better than.

I went to a small engineering college where roughly 75% of the students were men and 75% were white. In 2006--my last year of college--the college president announced a Diversity Initiative. Almost 10 years later, these trends are no different. And in that 10 years, the sexist slur “RIBS” is still a common feature of campus culture. In college, I joined a field (Physics) in which 80% of college degrees are awarded to men and 80% to white people--trends which, again, have been stagnant or worsening over the last decade.

My education has not only bolstered my perception that whiteness is the norm, but, in the words of philosopher Arianne Shahvisi, it also “reinforces the belief that [I was] special, or deserving, to start with.” Moreover, along the lines of psychologist Albert Bandura’s work on self-efficacy, witnessing the success of other white, male students enhanced my own confidence and motivation.

These are just some of the cultural, institutional, and psychological ways I benefitted--and continue to benefit--from my race. However, the point here isn’t to catalogue all of my privileges. Instead, John has asked for my story. So, now that the stage has been set, I’ll give brief overview of how I came to be aware of my unearned privilege and power.

Part 2: Awakening

In May 2014, a straight cis white man killed 6 people and injured 14 others in Isla Vista, CA. I was teaching physics in San Luis Obispo when this happened. Many of my students spent their weekends in the Isla Vista area. Having gone to high school in Lakewood, CO, during the Columbine massacre, the Isla Vista killings knocked something loose in my heart. I remember feeling a deep sense of dread and worry for my students and their friends.

The Isla Vista killings were different from the Columbine massacre in several ways. One of those differences was that, in the former case, the killer went on a murderous rampage because women weren’t giving him the sex to which he felt entitled. I couldn’t wrap my head around this motivation. In an effort to make sense of what happened, I found myself reading feminist blogs and engaging in lots of conversations with my friends and colleagues.

First, the ugliness: I found out that many of my male friends were blaming women and feminists for the killings. After a lot of challenging conversations with these men, I ended up parting ways with most of them. I simply couldn’t accept their mentality--certainly not in the context of the violence that just transpired so close to where I lived. This process was emotionally taxing.

Next, the less ugly parts: I learned about different types of feminism, including intersectional feminism. I remember one phone call in particular. This call was with a smart and passionate woman who I met in grad school and has since become one of my best friends and most trusted colleagues. “What does it mean to be a feminist?” I asked. “Am I a feminist?” She and I explored these ideas over the course of several conversations.

Looking back on that period of time and reflecting on those conversations, I feel like I deconstructed and then reconstructed myself. What do I value? What do I stand for?

Or, more importantly: Who do I value? Who do I stand for?

A few months after the Isla Vista killings, Michael Brown was killed by a white police officer. This tragedy happened at a time when I was still in the process of rebuilding myself and my values, leaving me me wide open to exploring other dimensions of oppression and marginalization beyond sexism. And so Brown’s death added a new layer to my ongoing learning about the inherent violence of white/male supremacy in the U.S.

Again, this process involved lots of reading, talking, and listening. Ezekiel Kweku’s blog post “The Parable of the Unjust Judge” sticks out as a particularly memorable reading from last fall. Around this time, a friend and co-teacher sent me a link to Jeff Duncan-Andrade’s TEDx talk in which Duncan-Andrade says, “One in three urban youth displays symptoms of mild to severe PTSD. And when you compare that data to the military data, you find that urban youth are twice as likely soldiers returning from Iraq to get PTSD.” Duncan-Andrade goes on to describe the concept of Complex-PTSD, which Wikipedia defines as:

a psychological injury that results from protracted exposure to prolonged social and/or interpersonal trauma in the context of dependence, captivity or entrapment (a situation lacking a viable escape route for the victim), which results in the lack or loss of control, helplessness, and deformations of identity and sense of self.

At the time, I was still in the process of reacting to, and learning from, the Isla Vista killings. So, issues of sexual violence against women and PTSD were fresh in my memory as I watched Duncan-Andrade’s TEDx talk. The concept of PTSD turned out to be a major link that helped me connect Isla Vista to Ferguson, a connection that gave me a foothold into understanding what “white/male supremacy” was capable of. Or rather, what white/male supremacy is doing:

White masculinity in the U.S. inflicts violence and lasting psychological harm on people of color and white women.

My white/male privilege initially made this hard for me to see and accept. It took me 30 years to really understand that race, sex, and power are intimately connected in the U.S., and that racism and sexism permeate every aspect of our lives. Now I know that where I live, where I went to school, what I studied, my ignorance of what hunger feels like, my ignorance of what a broken bone feels like, my ignorance of fear, even my embrace of the American identity... all of these things are facilitated by the unearned power and privilege that comes along with my white maleness.

Part 3 My Queerness

As a college student, I remember saying things like, “Well, I never owned slaves,” or “I never took land” in defense of my self-perceived innocence with respect to historical acts of racism and colonialism. Now, I know that such statements are, well, bullshit. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the details of the emotional growth that happened between then and now. But I’ll do my best to describe that process.

I came out as gay the summer before my first year of college. Towards the end of the year, a young woman who was also finishing her first year came to my dorm room and asked, “Are you the gay guy? My friends and I were talking about renting a house together, and we thought it would be fun to live with a gay guy.” Caught off guard, I told her that I was indeed the gay guy. After talking for a bit about our hobbies and interests (mine included rock climbing and backpacking), she said, “Actually, I don’t think this will work. You’re not the right type of gay.”

As an undergrad, I did research in the Chemical Engineering Department one summer. The grad student in that group was also gay. He had grown up in Laramie, WY--the same town where Matthew Shepard was beaten, killed, and tied to a fence. The grad student and I had several conversations about what Shepard’s murder meant for us and our safety on a campus that was pretty hostile to queer people.

So, as I started learning about patriarchy and white supremacy, about commodifying minorities, and about the violence of oppression, I had a reference point. My queerness grounded concepts which, for others, may seem abstract or theoretical. In addition, my queerness helped me dissociate myself from the motives of the Isla Vista killer, preventing me from identifying with him even though we were both cis white men.

Also, I had been engaged in outreach work for years before the Isla Vista killings and the murder of Michael Brown, so I had a foundation for understanding the systemic institutional and cultural roots of “diversity issues” (a term which I’ve since stopped using in favor of the terms “supremacy” and “oppression”). I’m sure my experiences teaching, mentoring, and co-working with students from marginalized groups helped me dive into learning about intersectional feminism in a way that didn’t immediately trigger overwhelming feelings of shame.

However, realizing that I was complicit in a system that inflicts damage on white women and people of color was still a hard pill to swallow. My queerness and outreach experience didn’t prevent me from, e.g., tone policing a woman of color when she called out a white man for blatantly sexist speech in an online forum dedicated to social justice in physics and astrophysics. Similarly, my queerness didn’t prevent me from experiencing white fragility the first few times I got called out on sexist and/or racist speech of my own.

Sexism is different from racism is different from homophobia. Being gay might have helped me empathize with the experiences of people of color and white women, but it certainly was no magic solution to my own problematic socialization. And it certainly doesn’t eliminate the feelings of embarrassment or depression that accompany learning about my role in oppression.

Part 4: What's Next?

Now that I am aware, what next? First, I continue to learn. Not only about racism and sexism, but also about ableism, classism, transphobia, and homophobia. I’m learning about intersectionality. I’m learning about how, as a queer person, there is a real temptation to cling to my white/male privilege. (In fact, as Christina Hanhardt demonstrates in her critical examination of gay neighborhoods, cis white gay men have a history of oppressing poor queer people, queer people of color, and trans* people in the name of “safety.”) I’m also learning that being queer doesn’t magically prevent me from doing and saying homophobic things, promoting heterosexist culture or policy, etc.

So. Much. Learning.

This learning happens through reading blogs, peer-reviewed articles, and books. It happens through conversations with people, both in-person and online. More recently, I have been trying to really listen to poets and songwriters like Venessa Marco, Denice Frohman, and Janelle Monáe who speak and sing about patriarchy, homophobia, and queer female role models.

For me, social media--and Facebook in particular--has been an incredible medium for learning. For instance, it was through Facebook that John recommended to me the book Seeing White: An Introduction to White Privilege and Race by Halley, Eshleman, and Vijaya.

One important thing to remember is that this learning often happens at the expense of people from marginalized groups. Over the last six months, a lot of my learning has been in response to being called out for problematic speech or action. This is different from making (and learning from) mistakes in a typical classroom context because these “mistakes” bear the weight of my white maleness and thus promote oppression. Moreover, I am often called out by the very people who suffer from the very oppression promoted by my problematic speech and action. Thus, people of color often do “double-duty” in the sense that they both persevere in the face of oppression *and* educate oppressors. Doing so comes at huge emotional, cognitive, and temporal costs--which means that the lessons need to be cherished and remembered.

To Be Continued

In this post, I’ve focused on my ongoing process of learning about white/male supremacy. But learning is only part of the story. As Chescaleigh says, "Ally is a verb. Saying you're an ally is not enough, you've got to do work" (see also Dr. Sarah Ballard's recent post). So I want to finish this post with a “To Be Continued” of sorts, because the story of my journey is far from over.

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What to do when you hurt someone: Stop talking, start listening

June 3, 2015, 1:00 pm

≫ Next: MINERVA is a fully operational robotic telescope array

≪ Previous: Guest post by Dimitri Robert Dounas-Frazer on Learning How to Be a White Anti-racism Ally

Guest post by Renée Hlozek

There have been a lot of emotions flaring within the larger astronomy community. There have been friendships severed and alliances forged while debates raged in the open forum.

As a community we've been dealing with some of the following issues [Note: please excuse the over-simplifications here - I don't mean to reduce the discussions but I want to précis some of the issues that have been discussed]:

how do we deal with racism, sexism, heterosexism and ableism in astronomy in the US context and more globally?
how do we confront the spectre of colonialisation (both in the past and in the narratives of colonialisation that remain)?
how do we even have conversations about issues of race in astronomy, given the heated nature of the debate?
how do we make a safe place to deal with issues that we may not have realised exist (given our own privilege)?
how do we share our own stories (be they from a different cultural context or country) without speaking over or distracting from one thread?
what happens when you become 'the bad guy' and feel backed into a corner, and/or wronged?

A week ago I left the Astronomers page for a while because I started to feel unsafe and harassed by some of the arguments (and those individuals putting forward various arguments) and I needed some time to regroup. In one case an astronomer made an observation, and this was challenged in the comments of the FB thread. A bit of a back-and-forth ensued between what a person said privately and publicly and things got very intense. When called out, the astronomer was eventually removed from the group, but kept contacting people individually to try and clear their name. There were some allegations that screenshots were being taken of conversations on another thread to show as 'evidence' of different discussions and it all started to get pretty stressful. Unfortunately once the astronomer left the group (they have since rejoined) the original posts were removed, and so it had the effect of feeling like all this had happened partly in a dream. I decided for my sanity and safety I'd leave the group and 'check out' of the discussions to regroup and find my center (these conversations can be incredibly destabilising, one of the dangers we forget about engaging online).

After a call by John Johnson on the Equity FB page I realised that I'm in a lucky position. I'm also also in a privileged position, with the luxury of walking away from racism, while people of color cannot do the same. So I'm going to try and tread lightly here. I have been both the offender who wants to understand and make amends and figure out where it all went wrong AND I've been the offended party who feels like they are drowning in other people's good intentions but harmful---even if unintentionally harmful---words.

There have been lots of very good links on how to deal with these issues---and I don't want to 'spare' anyone the reading (e.g. here, here, here and here). Educating oneself when it comes to these issues of race, power and status at this time is really important for everyone.

But I wanted to highlight one super important and overlooked action you can take when you are called out and don't understand but there appears to be a lot of hurt.

Just stop.

No really. Stop. Stop talking, stop explaining, stop commenting.

You can't listen if you don't stop. And I realise that sometimes you don't want to listen. Because you feel you are in the right, or you never meant to harm, or you feel like you are being shouted at unfairly or you feel like if people just grasped how much you mean to be supportive they'd get it. I know you may want to reach out to friends who know you or who would advocate on your behalf. Or you want people to know you didn't mean to offend them, and you want to highlight your track record with various diversity efforts.

But stop. Please.

It is amazing how continued arguments with people when in that emotional phase can damage and hurt and make me never want to engage with you ever again. In these debates that is the equivalent of running down the street after me. It makes me want to lock the door to my house and never come out. Your explanations will not help. You will just continue to assault and offend.

So what can you do?

Well, if you do actually care about making amends with someone---then say "hey, I'm going to let this cool down a bit, I apologise [no really, apologies make a BIG difference] for my behaviour [note: saying you are sorry for how I feel or sorry if you hurt me because you didn't mean to isn't the same thing] and then say something like: "if you would like to hear more of my opinion and what I was trying, but failed to say properly, I'd love to have more dialogue later."

And then let it cool down.

The person who was offended may not want that dialogue. And that hurts, because you feel like there is so much more to say. But you can't have every conversation---sometimes we can build those things we wanted to say into a calmer, cooler narrative and communicate them anyway, without the heat and pain that they were connected to earlier.

But until then, stop.

If we don't stop talking and start listening to those who have been voiceless for so long we are going to break this community apart.

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MINERVA is a fully operational robotic telescope array

June 17, 2015, 10:00 am

≫ Next: I love white people. Seriously!

≪ Previous: What to do when you hurt someone: Stop talking, start listening

Video courtesy of PlaneWave Telescopes:

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I love white people. Seriously!

June 21, 2015, 12:00 pm

≫ Next: Examining My Whiteness

≪ Previous: MINERVA is a fully operational robotic telescope array

I've been getting a lot of email, private Tweets, and Facebook private messages that seem to be expressing a common theme: "Why don't you like white people? Why are you so bitter against white people? Be nice to white people!"

Allow me to clarify something very important: I love white people. Not to sound like a white person talking about their "black friend," or the sexist talking about how "my mom is a woman," but I work with white people, advise them, mentor them, eat lunch with them, get coffee with them, play basketball with them, do astronomy with them, etc. I'm the son of a white woman. I married a white woman. I have the best (white) mother-in-law anyone could ever hope for (she gave me a Black power beer stein for my birthday for chrissakes!)

I love white people.

But you know what I have a hard time with, nay, can't stand? White culture. White culture---the straight, cis-male version in particular---is anathema to me. I think this is a very important distinction. This even goes way beyond "Love the player hate the game." The thing about white culture I dislike the the most is the fact that no one talks about white culture. It's as if it doesn't exist.

Whenever I fill out any kind of form asking for demographic information, I have to check something that identifies me as "Black,""Black/African American,""Black/non-Hispanic," etc, and my University sees me and calls me a minority or URM, or on a really good day a person of color. All of my life it has been clear to me that I belong to a group, and that group is based on being non-white.

The problem with white culture is that white people see themselves as "normal people" and as "individuals," and as such don't recognize themselves as belonging to a specific group of people in our society. More than being normal, and hence invisible, it is also considered "right" and "superior." Everyone should aspire to be accepted into or tolerated by white culture, because to be a part of it is key to being American. The combination of being normal and right is what makes white culture normative.

That's a key aspect of white culture: to be white is to be normative, invisible, regular, taken for granted, and most importantly, superior. This is white supremacy in a nutshell. It's not the sheet-wearing, cross-burning, KKK membership variety, per se. Those are all subsets, albeit extreme subsets of white supremacy. But white supremacy goes well beyond these extreme examples.

If you are white, everything in American society is geared toward you and people like you, from "flesh-colored" Bandaids, to "Nude" clothing, to every goddamned show on Netflix, to our politicians, to political discourse, to our wealthiest private universities (HWCUs as I call them). This country is based on and geared toward white people. That's a very important aspect of white American culture. It doesn't get any bigger than the fact that culture itself in your country is geared toward your people! That is white supremacy.

The supremacy of white culture shows up in almost every aspect of life. White families have 20 times the wealth (assets minus debt) as Black and Latina/o families. White people numerically dominate every aspect of our country's societal, economic, judicial and political structure. This means that white people are in charge of shaping this country's social norms, wealth/income distribution, and laws. There is no aspect of American life in which Black or Latina/o people can exert this sort of influence and control. Whiteness permeates every aspect of our society. And yet it is invisible to most white people.

The flip side is that non-white people and their cultures are seen as inferior, strange, always lower and always the exception. This is troublesome to me, and the more I learn about race and racism, the more I see everyday examples of non-white people being relegated to lower rungs in our society. Sadly, my field of science provides the clearest view of this: 90% of astronomers are white, and less than 2% are Black, Latina/o, or Native. That's white supremacy. It's right there in your hallway every day, and its presence does not go unnoticed by the few people of color you may (or may not) have in your department or institution.

So here's my challenge to white people. Answer these questions:

What does it mean for you to be white in the US, or Western Europe, or the world?
How does your whiteness affect the conversations you have in your daily lives?

If you, as a white person, start asking yourself the first question every morning, and the second question throughout your day, you will actively combat systemic racism. Seriously. You'll help PoC, especially women of color. You'll make a huge difference in your world and your scientific community. This is called keeping your privilege in focus. This is unpacking your invisible knapsack. This would be AWESOME!

I'd love to hear from the white people in the comments section What are your answers to my two questions above? I don't expect much, but I'm always happy to be surprised!

↧

Examining My Whiteness

June 22, 2015, 4:36 pm

≫ Next: Confronting My Own Racism

≪ Previous: I love white people. Seriously!

by Erin

In his last post, John posed the following questions:

What does it mean for you to be white in the US, or Western Europe, or the world?

How does your whiteness affect the conversations you have in your daily lives?

I've been thinking about this quite a bit (as you may imagine!) and share my responses here:

I'm white. But until recently I didn't know it. I know that sounds silly, because I've checked those "white" boxes for all of my life, but I didn't deeply examine what it meant to be white because I never had to. I always thought of myself as differently. Or I didn't think of whiteness as a thing - I was just "normal, or American". My family's ethnic heritage is Italian, French and German and so that's how I've seen myself...as the embodied mashup of my relatives who emigrated to US 4-5 generations ago. Regardless, just as the world sees John as black, I'm seen as white. My whiteness allows me to blend in. To go unnoticed. To be silent when I want or to speak up when I choose. To float through life without my very presence rubbing someone the wrong way. It has allowed me to look for the good in everything. It fueled my positive outlook for so long it earned me the nickname "Optimissy" -remember those Little Miss books? "Little Miss Optimist" would be mine.

Being a white woman means I get to be "default". I'm the norm, I don't stand out and as such, I'm generally given the benefit of the doubt. I can trust that others will see me as "safe" and won't cross to the opposite side of the street when I approach them on the sidewalk. Others are patient with me when I ask for directions. I can ask questions without others wondering why I didn't get it the first time. I can rely on people hearing my words rather than fearing or dismissing me as "aggressive" for speaking out about something that hurts me. My whiteness shields me from daily questioning about why I am in a given space and ensures that I will get good service in restaurants and while shopping. My whiteness means I'm approachable and people regularly offer to help me if I'm lost or drop something. I can wear pajamas in public or leave the house without fixing my hair and not be called a "crack head." I can open a box of crackers for my hungry kids in the grocery store before paying for them and no one will raise an eyebrow or question whether I will pay for them. To my knowledge, I have never been followed around a store. Being white meant my parents didn't have to have explicit conversations with me about how to interact with a police officer when I get pulled over for speeding, and I can have a conversation with a cop when pulled over (a luxury not afforded my husband, as I clearly witnessed recently).

Further, when my whiteness is carefully examined I find it to be painfully empty. For 37 years my whiteness trained me to avoid conflict, follow rules and be a "good girl". It signaled that if I dutifully followed a prescribed set of actions, followed steps that were laid out by design for white cultural success.... I'd get an education, a good job, be able to buy a home and everything will fall in line with each of these successes. Sure enough it's done those things for me. But I've come to learn that these rules only apply to people of my race. A different set of rules apply to people of color. It pains me that this different set of rules will apply to my sons, despite all that we'll do to set them up for success.

Whiteness now feels hollow and sterile. It has sheltered me from both the pain and suffering, the beauty and strength of people of color (PoC). It's kept me from deeply understanding the severity of macro- and microaggressions that remind all of us every day that some lives are more important than others. My whiteness has stifled my voice and reminded me to be polite. It's shamed me into avoiding uncomfortable conversations and caused me to resist speaking out against things I know to be wrong. It protects me from doubt, frees me from worry and gives me a choice in whether or not I deal with injustice---big or small. I can "check out" of any conversation when it gets too uncomfortable. I have that privilege. My whiteness means I get to be an individual and that my opinion is not assumed to be that of all others of my race.

My whiteness means that when a white supremacist like Dylan Roof commits premeditated mass murder during a bible study, that I can think of him as a racist monster, acknowledge the tragic loss of lives, and move on, if I choose. I can try to rationally disassociate my whiteness from his. I can choose to not claim Dylan Roof as a member of my own race. I can declare that as a white supremacist, he was acting out the extreme examples of hate. But whether we're aware or not, it's a version of the same white supremacy that we're all socialized into. It teaches us that black and brown lives, no matter how accomplished, intelligent, beautiful, kind, responsible and brave are simply valued less in American society. Newscasters and politicians can refer to Roof as a neonazi, placing him in a separate group. This allows those of us who are white, to not claim him---to absolve ourselves of any feelings that there is anything wrong with being white. But it robs us of the opportunity for reflection on the continuation of racism in our country or even the simple notion that until Europeans settled in North America in 1600s whiteness didn't exist. We invented whiteness, placed it above all, and we must now own up to the fact that Roof is one of us, that we created him.

White people can claim to be "colorblind," as I did for many years. I've learned that when we do this, we erase the lived experiences and daily struggles of people of color. If I dont' see my husband's Blackness, then I don't see him! "Colorblindness" is the 2015 form of racism. As white people, when we say that we don't see color or are raising our children to be colorblind, we impede progress. We shift the focus away from the uncomfortable examination of our own complicity in the systemic racism that exists in our neighborhoods, schools, parks, workplaces, cities, states and systems of government.

Any time I talk about my whiteness, I feel my blood pressure rise and a lump form in my throat. So I tend avoid it. I squirm from discomfort of facing and addressing the ugliness that is heaped daily on people I love. Engaging in social justice and antiracism work means I always need to use "whole body listening" (the kids talk about this at school...it's how you signal your engagement as a listener). This means actively listening, hearing, feeling uncomfortable, and hurting. It means actively de-programming my defensiveness and letting go of fear. It means not trying to find a solution, or explanation, but to simply acknowledge that a racist experience sucks, its not fair, and that I hurt along with the hurt person.

It also means making mistakes. It means screwing up, hearing feedback and doing something with that feedback, no matter the tone of voice used to point out my mistake. It means being open to being wrong and being willing to change.

My whiteness isn't my fault. But it is definitely my problem. Our problem. White people's problem.

↧

Confronting My Own Racism

June 24, 2015, 12:00 pm

≫ Next: False Binaries and Good Schools

≪ Previous: Examining My Whiteness

I am a white woman, and I have spent most of my life not thinking about race. Not in a "we live in a post-racial America" type of way, but just that on an everyday level it didn't really come up that much. Of course when something overtly racist happened, I would notice and be upset by it. I knew that people of color (POC) are underrepresented in STEM, I thought this was a bad thing, and I wanted to increase the number of underrepresented minorities (URM) in Astronomy and Physics. But overall, race and racism was an occasional thought that would briefly come to my mind, and then quickly leave.

Source: Washington Post

Then some incredibly powerful events happened this past year which opened my eyes and very much changed my perspective:

I wrote a blog post for Women in Astronomy that (among other problematic things) was racist. I got called out on this, and was incredibly ashamed and embarrassed.
Fellow CSWA member John Johnson challenged me to read Seeing White, where I learned a lot about white privilege and systematic racism in America.
A Facebook Group (which I moderate) started having intense conversations about race where I was continually challenged to confront the various ways I have been contributing to a hostile climate for POC in my everyday life, on this blog, and in my professional community.
There were several high-profile murders of unarmed black men by the police in America.

So, it turns out I was/am racist. Not in an overtly bigoted way, but in the way that many white people in America are: I spent most of my life ignoring race, ignoring my white privilege, and not actively doing anything about the problem of systematic racism. I live[d] in a predominantly white neighborhood, and primarily interacted with other white people. I rarely discussed race with anyone, or thought about how my race impacted my world-view or life-experience. What had allowed me to ignore race in my everyday life was my white privilege. This is not something I would be able to do if I had been born a person of color in America.

The authors of Seeing White eloquently discuss why being passive, as a white person, is contributing to the problem of racism (pages 66-67):

A white person can be actively anti-racist, working within their social network and means to reduce the impact of racism. A white person can be passively racist, doing nothing about racism. Or a white person can be actively racist. Many white people want a passively anti-racist option. They don't want to take any action, and they want to be absolved of responsibility. Doing nothing supports racism. In a racist society, going with the flow allows racism to continue. To be passive in regard to racism is to be racist.

Some white readers may feel uncomfortable processing this argument. Many whites (including the two white authors of this book) have been passive at some point in our lives with regard to race. Being called a racist feels like a slap across the face. It feels awful. It takes a moment to recover. But we would rather be called-out on our unintentional racism than to be unaware and inadvertently harming others in ways much more devastating.

Individuals with power are unlikely to recognize their power and may feel uncomfortable when someone tries to reveal it. Because white privilege tends to be invisible, any given individual white person is unlikely to be aware of their racial advantage. White people might not feel personally powerful, and because of this, arguments about power might not resonate with them. If the focus is shifted from individuals' feelings of power to an analysis of who tends to hold power as a group, it becomes clear that whites are highly likely to be overrepresented on corporate boards and in legislative bodies.

I decided that I was no longer ok with being passively racist, and that I wanted to do something about it. Below is what I have been doing, and will continue to do to address my own racism:

I listen to POC talk about race and racism: It turns out that living as a POC in America means that you are exposed to a lot more everyday racism than a white person. Therefore POC have a lived experience that is profoundly different than mine, and I can learn a lot by trying to understand their experience. Most of the time when it comes to conversations about race the best thing for me to do is to listen to, validate the experience of, and elevate the voices of POC. In fact the main role I see myself playing in conversations about race is to talk to other white people and try and help them understand their own passive and active racism.
I point out inequities, white supremacy, and racism when I see it. This mostly involves telling other white people that I think they might not be considering how their white privilege is influencing their perspective on a situation or how their words/actions are negatively impacting others. This normally doesn't go very well. It turns out that (in general) white people don't like talking about race or any implication that they are behaving in a racist way. This phenomena is called white fragility. However, I will continue to do it—even though it hurts me socially and professionally—because I believe an important step in breaking down systematic racism in America is for more white people to clearly understand their privilege and resist participating in passive or unconscious racism.
I am continually educating myself about race, white privilege, and intersectional feminism. This involves diversifying my media, following people of color on twitter, reading books, and attending trainings, workshops, and conferences around the issues of inclusion and equity.
I am advocating for my workplace, and the STEM community as a whole, to institute best practices around recruitment, hiring, training, reviewing, promotion, and retention of URMs.
I am participating in real-life activism like protests and meet-ups.
I am donating to causes which help POC and other URMs.
I am accountable for my mistakes: When I am criticized or called-out, I am of course embarrassed and ashamed. But I am also VERY grateful that the person cared enough to point out my mistake. They could have written me off as a lost cause, they could have avoided conflict by not saying anything. Calling someone out takes energy and is risky. So when I am called-out, I see it as an incredible gift, and respond with gratitude for the opportunity to change, regret for causing harm in the first place, and a commitment to do better in the future.
I am working with other astronomers to change the culture in astronomy to address discrimination and prejudice in our field. I am helping the organizers and participants of Inclusive Astronomy develop recommendations for best-practices around inclusion and equity.
I am seeking out more diverse voices for this blog, hoping to elevate the experiences of women of color and other URMs.

Now let me be clear: I am still racist. This is work I am going to have to continue to do for the rest of my life. There is no test I can pass which declares that I am no longer racist. However, it is incredibly important work, and work that is essential to the overall success of our field. How can we do the best science if we are excluding and pushing-out some of the best talent? I believe the first step in addressing racism in Astronomy is for us to admit the ways we contribute to racism as individuals, and to try and become better as individuals in combating our own racist and discriminatory behavior.

What are you doing to address your own racism? Please comment below.

I would like to especially thank Zuleyka Zevallos and Chanda Hsu Prescod-Weinstein for being excellent leaders, teachers, role-models, and continuing to hold me accountable.

↧

False Binaries and Good Schools

July 1, 2015, 3:58 pm

≫ Next: The Banneker Institute at Harvard: Summer of 2015

≪ Previous: Confronting My Own Racism

Guest post by Erin

The notion that two types of schools, “good” vs “bad” has never sat well with me. In short, I've come to see this as a false binary, and a particularly damaging one at that. It undermines the fabric of the communities in which we live and groups children based on family income and race. And I now have a better understanding of the very logical explanation for all of it.

As a parent, I was surprised at how the “good/bad” school conversations started long before my own children were old enough to attend school. They’d surface on playground sidelines, albeit quite innocently, with chit-chat about how old the kids are, if/where they go to preschool, and in which neighborhood you live. And without fail, the topic and timeline of your parenting choices shifts to elementary school. And that’s when the good/bad aspect inevitably comes up.

I generally tend to ask what information or measures parents are basing their statements about whether a school is “good”. The responses are usually a) parental ranking on websites or b) test scores. I ask about the highly self-selecting sample of upper/middle class parents that write surveys on school ranking sites. I frequently note that, test scores are only one of many ways to judge quality of education, and standardized tests have been proven to reflect little beyond socioeconomic status. I inevitably struggle because in these conversations we dance around the topic of race (and class - which we know to be inextricably tied).

In America, we can't have an honest and meaningful conversation about schools without discussing the history of government decisions that produced such extremes. Our history books are structured to paint an image of our history that supports a narrative of our troubled past, which we overcame, because we had a civil rights movement. I keep trying to understand what events led us to the this point I've found it helpful to create a timeline (it's oversimplified at best) of the series of notable events, decisions and policies of the last century:

1861 -1865	Civil War
1865 -1877ish	Reconstruction
1893	Emancipation Proclamation (Yay! Slaves are free! wait, now what!?!?! Share-cropping, vagrancy laws, incentives for officers to arrest those “associating” across race lines); I just learned that in 1863 - 10,000 slaves in NYC alone were freed, but little changed in their living situations
1896	Plessy vs. Ferguson - Supreme court says separate but equal is cool, Black kids can go to school BUT not a)with white kids b)not if their parents were slaves c)not if they have to work as sharecroppers so they have a place to live
1900s- 1960s	“The Great Migration” of 6 million blacks from south to big cities on the West Coast, Midwest and Northeastern parts of the country to escape the state-sanctioned domestic violence known as Jim Crow in the South (read The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson)
1940s	WWII ends and white soldiers return home w/GI bill, to buy homes in areas where blacks are actively excluded (both overtly through redlining, and covertly through restrictive covenants) - Although the GI bill was technically “available” to all veterans, only 4% of returning Black soldiers were able to actually benefit from the bill because they were unable to get loans for property ownership in predominantly white areas
1940s-	Blockbusting by realtors scares white homeowners into selling cheap and allows realtors to turn around and rent a single-family home to many Black families at much higher prices. Restrictive covenants are made between real estate brokers and homeowners associations; redlining; FHA low interest loans (read Seeing White, Jean O'Malley Halley)
1964	Civil rights act & school integration (in Boston--Chain of Change, Mel King)
1960-1970s	Integration fuels massive white-flight to suburbs nationwide
ongoing	Wealth accumulated over past generations enables those homeowners to assist with college tuition &/or down payments on homes for their children (mostly baby-boomers like my parents)
1960-1990s	These baby-boomers purchase homes in neighborhoods that are built on restrictive covenants (the totally legal way that homeowners and real estate brokers work-around for the fact that it’s illegal to forbid sale to blacks)
1970-80s	Many baby boomers go on to achieve higher levels of education & access to higher paying jobs and were able to accumulate wealth to pass on to their children
1990s-present	Factory jobs get moved overseas where labor is cheaper
	Working class neighborhoods transition to extremes that reinforce past patterns of segregation. Hyper-ghettos are established where areas of concentrated poverty
Present	The wealth gap is expanding, schools are again segregated.

This time last year, I was back in my hometown of Houston for my Granny’s funeral. In her Milby High School yearbook, I came across a “Pledge of Allegiance” that she and her classmates made to their community during their graduation.

All parents exert influence through their choices. But what if parents decided to “always exert influence" not only for their kids, but for the benefit of all students? What would happen if as a society, we all stopped thinking of schools as good or bad and instead we focused the funds and energy to shaping schools to prepare all children for their contributions to society. What if we collectively recognize that it’s in all of our best interest to educate ALL children, for they will inherit the systems we create and maintain?

This either/or thinking is a hallmark of white supremacy culture. It allows for the status quo to continue and for those with power to retain it and pass it on to their children. Things are either good, or they are bad. An action is right or it is wrong. You are either on my team or you are my opponent. You are my ally or you are my enemy. YOU are good or you are evil. You are racist or you are not. A person you pass on the sidewalk is safe or they are dangerous. This attitude is dangerous for a number of reasons. It gives us permission to avoid discussion and attempting to understand the complexity of these issues. It allows people to buy into the notion that a school is “good” or it is “bad”. Plenty of parents will point to standardized test scores as a qualifier for why a school is good/bad. Yet, when asked about the high-stakes testing that occurs, the consensus among both parents and teachers is that there is too much. The testing mandated by No Child Left Behind pulls valuable time away from opportunities for innovating and exciting educational exploration. Arguably all parents want these same things for their children. Allison Benedikt of Slate shares these sentiments:

“Whatever you think your children need—deserve—from their school experience, assume that the parents at the nearby public housing complex want the same. No, don’t just assume it. Do something about it. Send your kids to school with their kids. Use the energy you have otherwise directed at fighting to get your daughter a slot at the competitive private school to fight for more computers at the public school. Use your connections to power and money and innovation to make your local school—the one you are now sending your child to—better. Don’t just acknowledge your liberal guilt—listen to it.”

I can't help but feel that when white families opt out of the public system they fail to see the effect it has on the other students in the district. Does wanting “what’s best” for one’s child have to come at the expense of other children? When families with resources to improve education for their own children focus efforts on the institutions that serve all children in the community, everyone benefits. As our focus stays fixed on defining schools as “good” or “bad”, we lose sight of why public education exists in the first place.

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The Banneker Institute at Harvard: Summer of 2015

August 19, 2015, 3:52 pm

≫ Next: Thoughts, Take 1: On Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me

≪ Previous: False Binaries and Good Schools

Looking back at my blog this Summer I was both surprised and not surprised that the last post dates back to the beginning of July, more than a month ago! It's surprising in the way that time often seems to fly, especially during the summer months in contrast to, say, late February during a snow storm. But I digress. It was not surprising because I was giving all of my available energy, along with some of my reserves, to my latest "Moonshot" initiative, the Banneker Institute (our new website is now live! Ups to Erin Johnson for the pro bono web design work. Also, follow @TheBanneker Institute on Twitter).

I'm proud to report that this summer was a smashing success, thanks in no small part to the brilliance of my students. Make no mistake, #BlackExcellence and #BrownExcellence were on full display this summer, f'real. This is not surprising give that race is a social construct, completely divorced from scientific reality. This is surprising given our nation's foundation on the principles of white supremacy*.

I'm so very proud of my students:

Ana Colón (rising sophomore, Dartmouth)

Ryan Diaz-Perez (rising senior, UMass Boston)

Moiya McTier (rising senior, Harvard)

Justin Myles (rising junior, Yale)

Justin Otor (rising senior, Princeton)

Jamila Pegues (rising senior, Princeton)

Maurice Wilson (rising senior, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University)

Aara'L Yarber (rising senior, Howard University)

The links for each student's name connect to their summer blogs where they kept a running journal of their experiences and research notes. My instructions on style were open-ended and this is reflected in the diversity of writing styles the students brought to the fore. The key was to document what they were learning, so they could look back on the summer and remember important aspects of their development as burgeoning astrophysicists.

At the end of the summer I gave a review of the Institute's first summer; the students gave outstanding, grad-level research presentations; and we had three guest lectures by Dr. Jedidah Isler, Prof. Jorge Moreno and a keynote address by Prof. Sylvester "Jim" Gates. It was a wonderful, and historic day at the CfA. Dare I say that there has never before been such a display of excellence from so large a group of astronomers of color than Friday, August 15, 2015. And as the Institute grows and meets its ultimate goals, this summer will mark the start of excellence through diversity here at the CfA and beyond.

Here's the Google Slides presentation I gave at the beginning of the end-of-summer celebration, along with some notes for various slides below the embedded slides. The student and guest talks were recorded, and I'll post them once they've been edited.

Slide 2: Not convinced that white supremacy and racism are still things? Then ask yourself why such a remarkable man's history is not taught in our "American history" courses. Banneker's biography is available on Amazon, and you can read a nice summary of his life and accomplishments on Wikipedia. cf also E.E. Just and Kathrine Johnson, among other Black scientists of note (but not noted in our country's history).Slide 3: Astronomy is a white pursuit with a strong overrepresentation of white people and a corresponding order-of-magnitude underrepresentation of Black, Latino and Native people. This is not due to a lack of interest. The study of the Universe is...universal, and non-white people pay taxes that fund NSF and NASA, too, even as they have been and continue to be actively excluded from participating in science. Still? Note that the Harvard has only 1% Black representation across all sciences despite earning 8-9% of STEM degrees nationwide. These numbers hold for Latin@ representation at Harvard and degrees earned nationally. Slide 4: Old/busted vs. New/hotness. Striving for diversity without addressing the historical causes of the lack of diversity (e.g. racism) is like calling for people to do less coughing during a tuberculosis outbreak. Slide 5: Harvard Exolab represent, represent! Big ups to Exolab members Jason Eastman, Luan Ghezzi, Ben Montet and David Kipping for advising/mentoring six of the Banneker students. Prof. Karin Oberg and I advised a student each.Slide 7: Dr. Dawson = Bekki Dawson, who spent a week with us. Dr. Joye = CfA software engineer and DS9 author Bill Joye who gave generously of his time to teach us how to maximize the potential of his powerful image processing and analysis tool. Dr. Imara is Harvard Future Faculty Leaders postdoctoral fellow Nia Imara. Dr. Shields = NSF AAPF and UC Presidents Postdoctoral Fellow Aomawa Shields who spent the summer at the CfA acting like the professor she'll soon be, and Dr. Swift = Jon Swift, teacher at Thacher School and director of the Thacher observatory who spent a week with the B.I. Slide 14: Social Justice Fridays are just what one needs at the end of the week as a person of color studying science! We all learned volumes from our various visitors. Note that this slide shows only a third of all who participated. Big ups to Prof. Jorge Moreno for helping out on Fridays in particular, and all summer long generally as a Harvard visiting scholar this summer. Look out for the partner effort known as the Aztlán Institute at Harvard starting next summer thanks to the support of Harvard Astronomy chair Avi Loeb, the NSF AAPF, and funding sources TBD!Slide 15: AARG matey! Challenging whiteness on this high seas of academe since 2015!Slide 16: Arrows pointing to: Brenda Achison, founding member of the Banneker Institute and CfA admin; Dr. Nia Imara; Dr. Aomawa Shields; and John Lewis III.Slide 19: "It's not just a pledge, it's a way of life!" - B.I. scholar Moiya McTier-----Do you know of any outstanding Black or Latin@ students at your institution going into their sophomore or junior years who would benefit from the Banneker Institute? Please send me an email and put me in contact with them!-----*One of America's "founding fathers," Thomas Jefferson, wrote in 1784:

I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind...This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Many of their advocates, while they wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve its dignity and beauty.

Jefferson called upon scientists to back up his suspicion and demonstrate why Black people were lesser than whites (not if, but why). The call was ultimately answered in 1850 by Harvard professor, Louis Agassiz. From the transcript of NPR's Race: The Power of an Illusion (Episode 2):

NARRATOR: In 1850, Louis Agassiz by then Harvard's most prominent professor, told his fellow members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that "viewed zoologically, the several races of men were well marked and distinct." Josiah Nott wrote to Samuel Morton, "With Agassiz in the war the battle is ours."

BAKER: Here was the most objective, the pinnacle of the scientific man influenced by American racism, and who transformed his deeply held belief in the unity of mankind. I think that says more than anything else, that the power of the ideology of race can change peoples' minds.

NARRATOR: Three years later, Agassiz contributed a chapter to a forthcoming book co-authored by Nott. The 738-page Types of Mankind was greatly anticipated. It pre-sold its entire first edition.

BAKER: Types of Mankind was tremendously influential. It was the first time that scientists pulled together all of the research that justified the argument that African Americans, Native Americans, Asians, et cetera were different species.

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