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| Image Source: Emily's Quotes |
Topics: African Americans, History, Diaspora, Diversity in Science, Women in Science
Okay, I lied.
I lied when I said I wasn't going to talk anymore about Hidden Figures. I obviously featured it on #P4TC and that AFTER I bought the book the movie was based on. Congrats to the cast for the Screen Actor's Guild Award for best cast (Denzel Washington and Viola Davis won Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress respectively).
I also lied that I wouldn't do special months again. It's usually a double post of science papers that I've read and a post for the respective history month: I've done posts for African American History Month; Women's History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month. It's enjoyable, but exhausting as a lot of thought goes into the posts so as to not repeat themes/stories/history.
However, lies ("alternative facts") are fast becoming truth and verifiable, factual truth lies. A Federal Republic: "is a type of government made up of smaller areas such as states or provinces where the central government cedes certain powers to the individual areas for self-government purposes. The citizens of the federal republic elect their own representatives to lead them," [1] and only functions well when reality can be judged and fairly reported on by its leadership to the governed.
Even before "alternative facts" recently entered our lexicon, some disturbing tendencies have already been documented:
The Civil War "wasn't about slavery, but about state's rights," a canard continually debunked, but apparently taught in public schools still.
- In Texas, slaves were referred to as "workers," hinting at volition instead of what can properly be termed as a kidnapping. A concerned mother pointed that out in 2015.
- The aforementioned Hidden Figures.
- When you think African American, Black, Negro, what's the first thing that comes to mind: scientists, engineers, or athletes and thugs? Transmitted images, shape narrative and matter in how we interact with one another individually and as a republic.
Truth, and our own thoughts are going to be precious things in days to come. They always have been, and why power tends to spend inordinate money and time to shape narratives of cultures in particular and civilization in general. It is why Dr. Woodson created Negro History Week (as it was originally know) which has evolved into African American History Month. It is not just the Negro mis-educated, but a sizable number within the American electorate that still believe social myths of innate superiority; a faux hierarchy that can only be attributed to racism, pseudoscience and magical thinking. [2]
Our society has always been herded by the powerful through the control of information, from print media to radio; radio to television and now Net Neutrality threatens to alter the Internet commons into a "Ministry of Truth," [3, 4] accessible only on a tiered payment system, bringing back the "information superhighway debates" of the nineties.
Affirming our humanity, truth: precious, manipulable and fleeting is the last real commodity we all have. What will be presented this February roaring like a lion, will be our collective Hidden History; it will be the TRUTH.
1. Reference.com: What is a federal republic?
2. "If you can control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one."
Dr. Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro
3. “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” George Orwell, 1984
4. Star Trek, The Next Generation: "There...Are...Four...Lights!"
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