mekka okereke :verified:
Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !
I'm still not up to Black History! I'm still working through white US history. Bear with me! Almost there!
Q: Why does it seem like everything has to be woke now? Even our scientists?! It never used to be that way! Why does it seem like these days, even higher education has to think about race, when it didn't before?
A: Higher education, including STEM, did think about race before. That history has just been hidden from you. Because racism.
mekka okereke :verified:
As previously mentioned, here's what Einstein had to say about segregation:
"There is a separation of white people and colored people in the United States. That separation is not a disease of colored people. It is a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it."
For the last 20 years of his career, Einstein declined almost all public speaking engagements, except those at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
This photo was taken at Lincoln University, an HBCU.
mekka okereke :verified:
An uninformed LA Times Opinion writer was big mad that UCLA asks faculty applicants to document their contributions to “equity, diversity and inclusion."
She asks, "If Albert Einstein applied for a professorship at UCLA today, would he be hired? The answer is not clear." She asks if his work would "reflect his contributions to equity, diversity and inclusion? Unlikely." Or his “potential to understand the barriers facing women and racial/ethnic minorities? Also unlikely."
🤦🏿♂️Umm.. yes it would.
AJ Sadauskas
@mekkaokereke Thanks for sharing these threads. They're always incredibly interesting, enlightening, and informative.
For example, I had heard vaguely about Einstein speaking out against anti-black racism, but didn't know about his commitment to regularly teaching at HBCUs. (And given Einstein died in 1955—nearly a decade before the Civil Rights Act—that was a radical act.)
mekka okereke :verified:
Who is served by not talking about this aspect of Einstein's life? Black people? Scientists? Or anti-Black racists?
Why do we prioritize their needs over the needs of normal people? That's a choice. We could decide to stop doing that at any time.
There are over 4000 universities in the US. Only 2.6% of US universities are HBCUs. Despite this, HBCUs graduate 46% of all Black women in the US that receive a degree in a science, technology, engineering, or technology field. Almost half!
mekka okereke :verified:
Think of how much it would have meant to Black kids studying science, to know that Albert Einstein saw them.
Think of how impactful it would have been for white teachers and professors of science, to know that Einstein thought that focusing on DEI was important, and that anti-Blackness was foolish.
Why did so many professional scientists and educators learn about this for the very first time when some random Black dude (🙋🏿♂️) posted it on Twitter half a decade ago?
mekka okereke :verified:
Thurgood Marshall graduated from Lincoln, and Einstein has an honorary degree from there, so they have that in common.
But this brings me to an interesting observation: The racism gatekeepers in STEM often invoke the names of the very people who support inclusion! 🤷🏿♂️
Important: Einstein did good things and bad things. As much as he said nice and did nice things for Black folk and Jewish folk in the US, he didn't treat his wife very well, and he said awful things about Chinese people.
mekka okereke :verified:
Einstein refused to speak anywhere not an HBCU. How many US scientists or engineers have even been on an HBCU campus? Does knowing that Einstein was there so frequently, and was such a big advocate, make you more open to visit one? What is the closest HBCU to where you are right now?
kcarruthers
@mekkaokereke oh dear he sounds quite “woke”
Most Resplendent Bat
@kcarruthers @mekkaokereke I'm going to guess that the author of that op-ed has some thoughts on Jews, antisemitism, and holding prestigious/influential positions that the LA Times would hesitate to print.
Most Resplendent Bat
@mekkaokereke indeed, what could a refugee who fled being murdered for his ethnicity POSSIBLY understand about the barriers facing ethnic and religious minorities? 🙄
jake lazaroff
@mekkaokereke conspicuously unasked: how many people of color and/or women might have gone on to be albert einstein’s intellectual equals had *they* been hired?
the answer is not clear
schtschur 🍉 2 by 2 and back again
Generally speaking, as a society we are constantly failing on 'bringing people to live up to their potential' of sorts.
It's an endless grind mixed with a lottery and there's a lot of people never even discovering their talents because they are too exhausted, depressed or outright scared to try.
I don't remember who wrote it, but I've read a Polish poet's diary from 1920's, he was riding a train and saw miners and contemplated on how many musicians, poets, painters and engineers of them are forced into pointless hard work that destroys them.
And I feel that.
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.