BLOGS

Image Source: University of Notre Dame

Topics: African Americans, Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Existentialism

Update on what I’ve been doing:

I was on the workgroup out of Washington for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) on this project. Perchloroethylene (Perc) is a common solvent for dry cleaning, selected for its low flash point, in comparison to kerosene and gasoline (yikes). OCSPP found it carcinogenic via inhalation and skin contact, instituting a 10-year phaseout of Perc, and trichloroethylene (T.C.E.):

New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/climate/epa-dry-cleaning-chemical-ban-perc-tce.html?smid=em-share

I am the author of the companion Dry Cleaning National Emissions Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) in my Research Triangle Park office, the Minerals and Manufacturing Group (MMG) to be published in the Federal Register and Regulations.gov, pending the Administrator’s signature (soon).

You now have enough government acronyms to last a lifetime.

*****

Now, we all tick-tock to December 20^th at midnight, for hopefully not a government shutdown (an abysmal kabuki theater since Gingrich inaugurated this bloodsport in ‘94).

After reading Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr.’s book “Begin Again,” based on the writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin, I began seeking writings from James Baldwin, particularly to frame the times we’re in now, as what we’re experiencing started somewhere; it had an origin. I found this essay he wrote 40 years ago. To use Eddie’s term of affection, it was as if “Jimmy” was peering into our now.

What strikes me about this essay is that in April 1984, I probably missed it, as my focus and attention were on Ebony and Jet for the monthly centerfold. I was 21 years old, and four months from the first time I would be a “best man” in my A&T college friends Leon (deceased) and Vickie Nowlin’s wedding in Fayetteville, NC, on August 26, 1984, 12 days after my 22nd birthday. 15 years later, my father died on this date. Four years later on this date, Motorola laid me off in 2003, in the fourteenth round of what amounted to a slow torture for those who survived the economic downturn for that long.

What also strikes me about this essay is how timely it still is, forty years from its publication to this date in our calendar, this time of choosing between democracy, or dictatorship. We are here, in 2024, because some have embraced the delusion of “replacement” when brotherhood and sisterhood are more tolerable, reasonable, and survivable. Where we are, in 2024, started here, in 1984, when another president wanted to take us backward to an imagined, glorious, façade past that he often confused with his Hollywood persona, playing soldiers in WWII while not being one, chanting a mantra famous from the KKK and Nazi Germany to “make America (Germany) great again.”

Then, as now, we still don’t know fully what that means. It seems Jimmy did.

*****

On Being White and Other Lies

James Baldwin, in Essence Magazine, April 1984

The crisis of leadership in the white community is remarkable – and terrifying – because there is, in fact, no white community.

This may seem an enormous statement – and I’m willing to be challenged. I’m also willing to attempt to spell it out.

My frame of reference is, of course, America, or that portion of the North American continent that calls itself America. And this means I am speaking, essentially, of the European vision of the world, or more precisely, the European vision of the universe. It is a vision as remarkable for what it pretends to include as for what it remorselessly diminishes, demolishes, or leaves totally out of account.

There is, for example – at least, in principle – an Irish community: here, there, anywhere, or more precisely, Belfast, Dublin, and Boston.

There is a German community: both sides of Berlin, Bavaria, and Yorkville. There is an Italian community: Rome, Naples, the Bank of the Holy Ghost, and Mulberry Street. And there is a Jewish community, stretching from Jerusalem to California to New York. There are English communities. There are French communities. There are Swiss consortiums. There are Poles: in Warsaw (where they would like us to be friends) and in Chicago (where because they are white, we are enemies). There are, for that matter, Indian restaurants and Turkish baths. There is the underworld—the poor (to say nothing of those who intend to become rich) are always with us—but this does not describe a community. It bears terrifying witness to what happened to everyone who got here and paid the price of the ticket. The price was to become “white.” No one was white before he/she came to America. It took generations, and a vast amount of coercion, before this became a white country.

It is probable that it is the Jewish community or more accurately, perhaps, its remnants—that in America has paid the highest and most extraordinary price for becoming white. For the Jews came here from countries where they were not white, and they came here, in part, because they were not white; and incontestably in the eyes of the Black American (and not only in those eyes) American Jews have opted to become white, and this is how they operate. It was ironical to hear, for example, former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin declare some time ago that “the Jewish people bow only to God” while knowing that the state of Israel is sustained by a blank check from Washington. Without further pursuing the implication of this mutual act of faith, one is nevertheless aware that the Black presence, here, can scarcely hope—at least, not yet—to halt the slaughter in South Africa.

And there is a reason for that.

America became white—the people who, as they claim, “settled” the country became white—because of the necessity of denying the Black presence and justifying the Black subjugation. No community can be based on such a principle—or, in other words, no community can be established on so genocidal a lie. White men—from Norway, for example, where they were Norwegians—became white: by slaughtering the cattle, poisoning the wells, torching the houses, massacring Native Americans; raping Black women.

This moral erosion has made it quite impossible for those who think of themselves as white in this country to have any moral authority at all—privately, or publicly. The multitudinous bulk of them sit, stunned, before their TV sets, swallowing garbage that they know to be garbage, and—in a profound and unconscious effort to justify this torpor that disguises a profound and bitter panic pay a vast amount of attention to athletics: even though they know that the football player (the Son of the Republic, their sons!) is merely another aspect of the money-making scheme. They are either relieved or embittered by the presence of the Black boy on the team. I do not know if they remember how long and hard they fought to keep him off it. I know that they do not dare have any notion of the price Black people (mothers and fathers) paid and pay. They do not want to know the meaning, or face the shame, of what they compelled—out of what they took as the necessity of being white—Joe Louis or Jackie Robinson or Cassius Clay (aka Muhammad Ali) to pay I know that they, themselves, would not have liked to pay it.

There has never been a labor movement in this country, the proof of the absence of a Black presence in the so-called father-to-son unions. There are, perhaps, some niggers in the window; but Blacks have no power in the labor unions.

Just so does the white community, as a means of keeping itself white, elect, as they imagine, their political (!) representatives. No nation in the world, including England, is represented by so stunning a pantheon of the relentlessly mediocre. I will not name names I will leave that to you.

But this cowardice, this necessity of justifying a totally false identity and of justifying what must be called a genocidal history, has placed everyone now living in the hands of the most ignorant and powerful people the world has ever seen: And how did they get that way?

By deciding that they were white. By opting for safety instead of life. By persuading themselves that a Black child's life meant nothing compared with a white child's life. By abandoning their children to the things white men could buy. By informing their children that Black women, Black men, and Black children had no human integrity that those who call themselves white were bound to respect. And in this debasement and definition of Black people, they debased and defamed themselves.

And have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white. Because they think they are white, they do not dare confront the ravage and the lie of their history. Because they think they are white, they cannot allow themselves to be tormented by the suspicion that all men are brothers. Because they think they are white, they are looking for, or bombing into existence, stable populations, cheerful natives, and cheap labor. Because they think they are white, they believe, as even no child believes, in the dream of safety. Because they think they are white, however vociferous they may be and however multitudinous, they are as speechless as Lot's wife—looking backward, changed into a pillar of salt.

However-! White being, absolutely, a moral choice (for there are no white people), the crisis of leadership for those of us whose identity has been forged, or branded, as Black is nothing new. We—who were not Black before we got here either, who were defined as Black by the slave trade—have paid for the crisis of leadership in the white community for a very long time, and have resoundingly, even when we face the worst about ourselves, survived, and triumphed over it. If we had not survived and triumphed, there would not be a Black American alive.

And the fact that we are still here—even in suffering, darkness, danger, endlessly defined by those who do not dare define, or even confront, themselves is the key to the crisis in white leadership. The past informs us of various kinds of people—criminals, adventurers, and saints, to say nothing, of course, of popes—but it is the Black condition, and only that, which informs us concerning white people. It is a terrible paradox, but those who believed that they could control and define Black people divested themselves of the power to control and define themselves.

Topics: African Americans, Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Democracy, Existentialism, Fascism, History

"The End of History and the Last Man," by Francis Fukuyama "a 1992 book of political philosophy by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama argues that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy—which occurred after the Cold War (1945–1991) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)—humanity has reached "not just … the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: That is, the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." Wikipedia

I had a short dialogue with two younger relatives:

Me: I canceled my Amazon Prime membership due to Jeff Bezos's cowardice.

Relative: I honestly think this was more so because his Washington Post has been failing, and as a businessman, he's using the non-endorsement as a tactic to get it back on track. I also don't think news outlets should endorse presidential candidates, don't we want reliable, unbiased news?

Me: They started the endorsement after Watergate. It was the daily reporting by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward that held Nixon accountable. He went from a landslide victory to almost being removed from office via impeachment.

We had a news media when I was younger. What we had held the powerful accountable. When our media is owned by billionaires, it is more accurately defined as corporate media. When the powerful own our journalism, it's hard, if not impossible to hold the powerful accountable. Google "oligarchy."

Link shared with my young friends: Letters at 3 AM: O is for Oligarchy, Michael Ventura, Austin Chronicle, April 9, 2010

Offline, I have been reading (a lot of) books, mostly on history. In "The Craft: How the Freemasons Made the Modern World," by historian John Dickie. I excerpt Chapter 14 - Salamanca: Hyenas And Concubines:

"In Nationalist Spain, the army and right-wing vigilantes imposed a reign of terror. The intention was loudly proclaimed, to 'cleanse' the Fatherland of its political and cultural 'pollutants.' Anyone associated with the Republic and its institutions, with the political Left, and even with secular modernity, was liable to be arrested, tortured, and executed: trade unionists and politicians, workers and peasants, liberals and intellectuals, emancipated women and homosexuals. Tens of thousands died. Among them were many Freemasons." (pages 323 - 324)

Hitler: I will get rid of the communist “vermin.”

Him: Repeated verbatim.

Hitler: I will take care of the “enemy within.”

Him: I will take care of the “threat from within.”

Hitler: Jews and migrants are poisoning Aryan blood.

Him: Migrants are poisoning the blood of our country.

Hitler: One people, one realm, one leader.

Him: One people, one family, one GLORIOUS nation.

In The Recount on Instagram, two African American Nevadans explained why they no longer support Democrats (and democracy) and "wish both parties would do better." They also felt that the "him" I mentioned is "the only politician who hasn't lied to them." I assume that means politicians from both parties stretch the truth, and when caught, the news alerts blaring on our cell phones stoke the outrage to Olympian heights. The "him" I mentioned is a pathological liar, always lying, therefore, is "truthful" in his obfuscations.

The problem is that they probably don’t know their relatives, have never paid attention in school, and think that history began with the last thing they Googled on their phones.

They did not have the benefit (and honor) of being raised by a man drafted into the Second World War into the United States Navy, (to fight actual Nazis), only for the "GI Bill" to be bifurcated: white soldiers and sailors received academic and financial benefits like home loans that set them up for generations of prosperity. My father, with all the other black soldiers and sailors got trade school, that set us up for where we lived: the ghetto.

The Civil Rights era scenes are in YouTube videos played as they slept in their high school history classes, and Googled the answers to the take-home exam without meditation. It was never their big sister's bloodied face patched by your nurse mother in the middle of the living room after marching for rights that in east Winston-Salem, NC, did not exist.

It is this proud ignorance of history and refusal to inquire about it from books written by experts, or by inquiring from the experts themselves. It is the modern, and young, notion that history didn't exist before web pages and search engines. It is their overwhelming confidence that they can "get the gist" of any situation, no matter how dire, or life-threatening. If we lose our government in a coup, they'll post something clever, or march and shout to shame the powerful into submission (the "him" wanted to shoot protestors in the leg during George Floyd and COVID). It makes a modern fascist/nationalist movement hard to believe is occurring in America because some of them have not received an alert on their cell phones from Instagram, or TikTok. And nothing exists if it hasn't gone "viral."

Ignorance will kill us all.

Willie Hobbs Moore (left) with her daughter, Dorian, in the 1980s. (Courtesy of the Ronald E. Mickens Collection on African-American Physicists, AIP Niels Bohr Library and Archives.)

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Diversity in Science, Education, History, Theoretical Physics, Women in Science

The first African American woman to earn a PhD in physics remains little known. But her legacy is enormous.

There was a time when I believed that Shirley Ann Jackson, who received her PhD in physics from MIT in 1973, was the first African American woman to attain that degree. I realized that view was incorrect around 1984 when I learned that Willie Hobbs Moore (1934–94) finished her PhD in physics at the University of Michigan in 1972. At that time, for more than a decade I had been collecting data on African Americans with advanced degrees in physics—and had even published a list of Black physicists. Needless to say, learning about Moore came as a welcome surprise for me.

The fact that Moore received her degree from Michigan was of additional interest to me because of the long-standing connection between its physics department and that of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. While I was at Fisk, first as an undergraduate student in 1960–64 and later as a professor, the physics department had several faculty members who obtained their doctorates from Michigan, including Nelson Fuson in 1938, James Lawson in 1939, and Herbert Jones in 1959. Moreover, Elmer Imes, who received his BA and MA from Fisk in 1903 and 1915, respectively, became the second African American to earn his PhD in physics, from Michigan in 1918 (see my article in Physics Today, October 2018, page 28).

For some unexplained reason, Moore and I never ended up at a conference or workshop together. We never met! By the time I gained a better understanding of who she was, her research, her career in industrial research and management, her role as a mentor, and her community involvement, she had died of cancer. One of my greatest personal and professional regrets is that I didn’t have the opportunity to meet her in person. I am certain that the two of us would have had much to discuss.

The trailblazing career of Willie Hobbs Moore, Ronald E. Mickens, Physics Today

Portrait of Edward Bouchet and lithograph of early Yale College campus. Courtesy of Yale University. Via uniquecoloring.com

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Diversity in Science, History, Physics

Authors: Bryan A. Wilson, Ph.D., M.B.A & Sierra A. Nance, B.S. (PhD Candidate - Univ. Michigan)

Abstract
Edward Alexander Bouchet was born in New Haven, Connecticut, USA in 1852 during a period of racial segregation and injustice. He overcame tremendous odds and obtained a quality education at Hopkins Grammar School, preparing him for Yale College. In 1876, Edward Bouchet became the first person of color to obtain a Ph.D. in any field, not only from Yale but in the United States. However, due to the disenfranchisement and discrimination against African Americans, Bouchet’s career advancement in Physics was stifled. Despite these challenges, Bouchet became a dedicated educator and advocate for the education of colored youth, until his death in 1918.
Keywords: Edward Alexander Bouchet; physics; history; black history; education; science, reconstruction era; graduate school

Meet America's First Black Ph.D. Scientist Who Turned Opportunity Into Academic Success - Edward Bouchet, Bryan A. Wilson, Ph.D., M.B.A, LinkedIn

Credit: Freddie Pagani for Physics Today

Topics: African Americans, Diversity in Science, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Physics

Students should strategically consider where to apply to graduate school, and faculty members should provide up-to-date job resources so that undergraduates can make informed career decisions.

The number of bachelor’s degrees in physics awarded annually at US institutions is at or near an all-time high—nearly double what it was two decades ago. Yet the number of first-year physics graduate students has grown much more slowly, at only around 1–2% per year. The difference in the growth rates of bachelor’s recipients and graduate spots may be increasing the competition that students face when interested in pursuing graduate study.

With potentially more students applying for a relatively fixed number of first-year graduate openings, students may need to apply to more schools, which would take more time and cost more money. As the graduate school admissions process becomes more competitive, applicants may need even more accomplishments and experiences, such as postbaccalaureate research, to gain acceptance. Such opportunities are not available equally to all students. To read about steps one department has taken to make admissions more equitable, see the July Physics Today article by one of us (Young), Kirsten Tollefson, and Marcos D. Caballero.

We do not view the increasing gap between bachelor’s recipients and graduate spots as necessarily a problem, nor do we believe that all physics majors should be expected to go to graduate school. Rather, we assert that this trend is one that both prospective applicants and those advising them should be aware of so students can make an informed decision about their postgraduation plans.

The “itch” for graduate school has always been a constant with me. I wanted especially to go after meeting Dr. Ronald McNair after his maiden voyage on Challenger in 1984. Little did I know that he would perish two years later in the same vehicle. Things happened to set the itch aside: marriage, kids, sports leagues. Life can delay your decision, too. My gap was 33 years: 1984 to 2017.

The recent decision by the Supreme Court to overturn another precedent: Affirmative Action in college admissions, affects graduate schools as well as undergraduate admissions. After every effort of progress, whether in race (a social construct) relations, labor, or gender, history, if they allow us to study it, has always shown a backlash. The group that is in power wants to remain in power, and the inequity those of us lower on the totem poll are pointing out they see as the result of the "natural order," albeit by government fiat.

My pastor at the time could have called our congressman and gotten me an appointment. My grades weren't too bad, and being the highest-ranking cadet in the city and county probably would have helped my CV. I chose an HBCU, NC A&T State University, in my undergrad because Greensboro to Winston-Salem was and is a lot closer than the Air Force Academy in Colorado. I would have been away from my parents for an entire agonizing year of no contact: cell phones and video chatting weren't a thing. I also wasn’t a fan of my freshman year being called a “Plebe” (lower-born). I do support the decisions students and their parents make as the best decision for their future. I do not support an unelected body trying to do "reverse political Entropy," turning back the clock of progress to 1953. We are, however, in 2023, and issues like climate change can be solved by going aggressively towards renewables: Texas experienced some of the hottest days on the planet, and their off-the-national grid held because of solar and wind, in an impressive display of irony.

Physics majors who graduate and go to work are prepared for either teaching K-12 or engineering. I worked at Motorola, Advanced Micro Devices, and Applied Materials. I taught Algebra 1, Precalculus, and Physics. So, if it’s any consolation: physics majors will EARN a living and eat! As a generalist, you should be able to master anything you’d be exposed to.

Speaking of Harvard: when I worked at Motorola in Austin, Texas, one of my coworkers was promoted from process engineering to Section Manager of Implant/Diffusion/Thin Films. He attended Harvard, and I, A&T. I still worked in photo and etch, primarily as the etch process engineer on nights. I noticed he had a familiar green book on his bookshelf with yellow, sinusoidal lines on the cover.

Me: Hey! Isn't that a Halladay and Resnick?

Him: Why, yes! What do you know about it?

Me: I learned Physics I from Dr. Tom Sandin (who recently retired after 50 YEARS: 1968 - 2018). He taught Dr. Ron McNair, one of the astronauts on the Space Shuttle Challenger. Physics II was taught to me by Dr. Elvira Williams: she was the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Physics in the state of North Carolina and the FOURTH to earn a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics in the nation. Who were your professors?

Him: Look at the time! Got a meeting. Bye!

Life experiences, in the end, overcome legacy and connection. We need a diversity of opinions to solve complex problems. Depending on the same structures and constructs to produce our next innovators isn't just shortsighted: it's magical thinking.

I now do think that 18 might be a little too young for a freshman on any campus and 22 a little too early for graduate school.

Just make the gap a little less than three decades!

The gap between physics bachelor’s recipients and grad school spots is growing, Nicholas T. Young, Caitlin Hayward, and Eric F. Bell, AIP Publishing, Physics Today.

Topics: African Americans, Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Climate Change, Democracy, Diversity in Science, Environment, Existentialism, Fascism, Global Warming, Human Rights

Trauma at 55

© April 3, 2023, the Griot Poet

Graduation day.

No child smiling because we

Lost Martin Thursday.

April is National Poetry Month. This photo of five-year-old me inspired my haiku about my kindergarten graduation. It should have been a happy day with parents in the audience.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on Thursday, April 4, 1968. Our graduation was scheduled for Friday at Bethlehem Community Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

All thirty-six students were blissfully unaware of the political earthquake that this was or that it had occurred. As we all aged, we probably learned of the death threats and the near assassination by a deranged woman at a book signing. We were unaware of the "Missiles of October" in 1962, barely scratching the planet's surface or taking our first steps before potential Armageddon. Medgar Evers was assassinated in Mississippi in June of 1963, and President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November of the same year in Dallas when we were a little over a year old. Brother Malcolm was assassinated in February 1965 when we were almost three. I don't recall the University of Texas. Clock Tower shooting in 1966, but we were four then. My classmates, like me, probably heard a program on the local radio station, WAAA-AM, on Sundays from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, "Martin Luther King Speaks." At that time, the caveat was that he spoke, addressing his audience directly over AM, the complete analog of today's social media. What are now tapes or YouTube videos for later generations: it was him, alive, breathing, and speaking. Martin, then Robert F. Kennedy, June 6, the president's brother running for president, fell that year.

I recall my mother kissing me profusely, promising to be there for the graduation, and saying "I love you" repeatedly. I had no doubts about that.

I also remember my father's eyes: red with bloodshot, dried tears on his cheeks. To that point in my brief existence, the thought of him crying was alien, foreign.

The kindergarten teachers sat us down. We assumed to prepare us for the costumes we would wear – white shorts, shirts, and bow ties for the boys, and skirts for the girls.

"Children, Dr. Martin Luther King was shot yesterday and died."

Stunned silence.

I am on the front row, the photo's first student on the left. The eighth student on that row is a girl who I recall having a crush on: she has her right knee pointing towards her left leg. She would break the silence before our ceremony with an ear-piercing screech, repetitive, inconsolable grief beyond her years, perhaps mimicked from a funeral. We all knew what "died" meant. In some form or fashion, by five, you have lost beloved pets or relatives that you never thought would leave the Earth.

The seed from her grief cascaded through the graduates like a malignant vine. The time was 9:00. We cried for two hours, during which someone with a pickup truck, a rebel flag flying, drove through the parking lot, yelling over and over so our young ears and teachers could hear him, "Martin Luther Coon's dead! Yahoo! The South will rise again!"

I lay on the linoleum, palm heels in my eye sockets, wailing my [own] notes. The teachers were crying with us, trying to console themselves and us, allowing us our grief. We went down for a nap at 11:00. Perhaps our teachers did too.

We went out for a brief recess, probably to clear the fog from our brains, but as I recall, we moved like zombies, with no one on the seesaw, children sitting, staring numbly on the swings, and no action on the monkey bars. Then we went in and got dressed.

Our parents would be there at 1:30 pm. I have described why not a single child graduating in the photo was smiling. Staring at my unsmiling, well, forced smiling parents, I remember this poignant thought post-grief beyond my brief years:

"We're not kids anymore!"

We would all start first grade in the fall without him.

I hugged my big sister tightly that evening, a student activist in the Civil Rights Movement attending Winston-Salem State University, because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, what "died" meant.

*****

Devolution

(Post-Cold War and 9/11)

© April 4, 2023, the Griot Poet

I did duck-and-hide

Drills, kids as cold warriors:

Now, active shooter.

My employer hosted an Active Shooter/Stop the Bleeding training at my facility on probably the most insensitive date they could pick on the calendar: the 55^th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King. As the first haiku eludes, time does not heal trauma. For the first half, both instructors had experience in law enforcement and the military. The second set of three instructors from a local trauma center featured a combat medic, who taught us through a cadaver dummy to stuff gauze from a "stop the bleeding kit" (there is a website to order directly).

I participated in the class vigorously to fight the "sugar crash" from the doughnuts offered.

We saw a lot of videos, one featuring the shooter in the Naval Shipyards gun massacre. The other was the bodycam video from the recent incident in Tennessee at a Christian School where three adults in their early sixties (around my same age) and three nine-year-old children were sacrificed on the altar of American Moloch. The original intent of particularly white evangelical Christian schools was to protect the "innocence" of their children from sitting next to someone like me. Somehow "thoughts and prayers" for a Christian school, no doubt inspired by Brown vs. Board of Education being actualized in the South, seemed oxymoronic.

"Duck-and-hide," or more accurately, duck-and-cover, where drills were part of civilian preparedness in the event World War Three spontaneously broke out. They gave us manuals we should read (I still have mine). The teachers and manual said that getting under the desk was the best way to survive the nuclear fallout if you were not the center of the blast radius. Preconscious and curious, my parents had bought the complete volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Internet of its day. Foreshadowing my eventual STEM majors in Engineering Physics, Microelectronics, and Nanoengineering, I read the "Nu" volume on nuclear weapons. I sadly concluded after my research that the drills were government-sanctioned gaslighting, a word I now use. The word I used then is a two-syllable word with the popular abbreviation "B.S." Plutonium 239, the ore of choice for thermonuclear weapons, has a half-life of 24,100 years, meaning that it would be half as radioactive in about 24 millennia. This drill wasn't to save lives but to reduce panicked stampeding that, I admit, would help no one. The official nuclear doctrine of deterrence is M.A.D.: mutually assured destruction. We'll see if Russia in Ukraine remembers this at all.

The United States has been in some war 93% of the time from 1775 (before its existence) to 2018. This factum is according to Smithsonian Magazine. The article's caveat is how to interpret "war": declared congressionally, unilaterally by the executive, or (in my opinion) upon one's citizens.

I will attend my precocious granddaughter's fourth birthday party this National Poetry Month. She is one year younger than my five-year-old image. After getting her a "Dr. McStuffin's Medical Kit" for Christmas, she immediately assigned herself as her grandparents' doctor. She even does televisits when we chat on Google Hangout.

Yet she grows up in a world of the continuous threat of Armageddon. Add to that designed scarcity, economic Disaster Capitalism cum neoliberalism, rising global temperatures, and active shooter training when she starts kindergarten in the fall, minus the "stop the bleeding kits," even with her Dr. McStuffin credentials. Because of the malaise of government and gun lobbyists, we've reduced her citizenry to becoming a combat medic in the future, whether she wants to or not.

I bought a "stop the bleeding" kit. It should be here before Easter.

"We're not kids anymore!"

None of us are.

Topics: African Americans, Diversity in Science, Women in Science

NASA Engineer, Concha Reid

Many people can reflect on their childhoods and identify the one moment that sparked their passion, ultimately illuminating their path to reach their career goals. For Concha Reid, the absence of light in her Virgin Islands hometown ignited her interest in power systems.

“We frequently had power outages on the island when I was growing up,” said Reid. “The reliability of the electrical grid wasn’t as robust as the United States, and hurricanes knocked out electrical power for lengthy periods of time.”

Reid saw the potential for power systems to be more reliable and realized that studying math and science was an avenue to solving real-world problems. Her school on the island of St. Thomas didn’t have advanced placement courses, but her teachers recognized her love of learning and mentored her along the way.

*****

Social Media Lead Courtney Lee

“When I started on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team, many people would say that our symbol looked like the alien from Space Invader. And I thought, what if we play into that and create a video game around the idea? It took a few months, but I pitched it, and the team absolutely loved it. We got the funding, worked with the developer, and got it done; we created the Roman Space Observer video game last year and released it on June 2nd.

“I love video games and thought we should meet people where they are, which is another way of creating content with people in mind. Just because we can create content doesn’t mean we should create content, so I want to ensure that everything we develop answers a question and has a purpose.

“I wanted to create a game because right now, a lot of what we [at NASA] make is geared toward people who already know the science and are interested in NASA. But there are huge audiences out there who, like me, didn’t realize they could love or be intrigued with NASA because it was never where they were. It’s not on these video game platforms. It’s not on YouTube beauty channels. Do you know what I mean? It’s not where people are watching.

*****

Project Manager Dr. Marcus Johnson

“In acting, a method actor becomes the thing, right?

“I hear and see a lot about techniques in technology in certain areas like AI. My personality tends to levitate toward wanting to try things out, wanting to build and break, as opposed to watching from the stands. So, it may not be with every piece of technology, but every year, I try to take one or two things I want to learn and get some hands-on experience. I ensure I have time within my day to think about the bigger picture. Think about things that haven’t been created yet, instead of just working the here and now.

“For example, [outside my work as the project manager for the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO)], I took training to be qualified as a Type 2 Wildland Firefighter. Part of my interest was to better understand who I was developing technology for and how they would use it. So, I went through many training courses and got my certification this year. I hope that sometime this fire season, I can get an opportunity to go out and help out with the fires, particularly in California.

“And likewise with my drone’s pilot license. My kids were interested in my drone work, and during the last extended furlough, I decided to learn a new skill in flying drones. And so, [outside of my work on uncrewed aircraft systems], I got a drone pilot license and showed my kids how to fly drones.

A plethora of trailblazers is at the following link: NASA Image Gallery Black History Month.

Topics: African Americans, Diversity in Science, NASA

The inclusion of women and people of color in NASA’s astronaut cadet program was unprecedented — and sometimes met fierce resistance.

The New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Travel, Meredith Bagby, William Morrow (2023)

Growing up in racially segregated South Carolina in the 1950s, Ronald McNair saw door after door slammed in his face. The public pool was for white people only, so he could not learn to swim. When he was nine years old, a librarian called the police on him for trying to borrow calculus books.

McNair fought the racism and went on to study physics at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro — a historically Black institution — and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. In 1978, NASA chose him as a finalist to be an astronaut, in the first group to contain women, people of color, and scientists. His pioneering class included Sally Ride, who would become the first US woman in space; Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American in space; and Guion Bluford, the first African American in space.

With The New Guys, Meredith Bagby, a film producer and former journalist has produced a broad and easily readable narrative about this group of US astronauts. She does not break new ground in outlining their experiences and the team’s role in space history. But she does illuminate the historic nature of their selection — and, significantly, how they helped to shape NASA’s space shuttle program, from its first flight in 1981 until its end in 2011.

NASA’s first astronaut class, chosen in 1959, was the iconic Mercury Seven which included John Glenn, Alan Shepard, and Gus Grissom. The next six groups were similar: all white, male military pilots lionized for having “the right stuff.” Then came the class of 1978. Of the 35 new astronauts, 14 were civilians, 6 were women, and 4 were men of color.

It was a time of huge change for NASA. The Apollo Moon program had wound down, and NASA had set its sights on developing a reusable space plane that would launch like a rocket and land like an airplane. Astronauts on this vehicle would deploy military and scientific satellites into space. It was time for a new type of astronaut for a new type of spaceship.

Breaking through prejudice

Bagby views the shuttle era through the experiences of its astronauts, with a focus on women moving into new roles. They include Ride, a gay woman who remained in the closet while at NASA because the agency would not hire her otherwise; geologist Kathryn Sullivan; physicians Rhea Seddon and Anna Fisher; biochemist Shannon Lucid; and engineer Judith Resnik.

In the late 1970s, the view in much of NASA’s ranks was that the agency had lowered its standards to admit a more diverse class, and the class acquired the soubriquet “Those Fucking New Guys.” John Glenn and Chuck Yeager, the quintessential “right stuff” pilots, were among those who fought against hiring women as astronauts. Opposition from Yeager had probably helped to keep Ed Dwight, a Black test pilot, from joining a previous class.

Note: Younger me, off Dr. McNair's left shoulder looking down at the floor. Someone dropped their keys, I reacted, and the faux pas is preserved for all Internet eternity.

Source: https://journalnow.com/news/local/30-things-you-should-know-about-astronaut-ronald-mcnair/article_b6e2357c-8b07-550c-bf19-f4a713047e76.amp.html

How NASA’s breakthrough ‘class of ’78’ changed the face of space travel, Alexandra Witze, Nature

Garrett A. Morgan (1877–1963), American inventor and community leader. Credit: Alamy

Topics: African Americans, Civics, Civil Rights, Human Rights, History

“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 Godwin Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro

*****

Just before midnight at the close of a hot summer day in 1916, a natural gas pocket exploded 120 feet beneath the waves of Lake Erie. It happened during work on Cleveland’s newest waterworks tunnel, a 10-foot-wide underwater artery designed to pull in water from about five miles out, beyond the city’s polluted shoreline. The blast left twisted conduit pipes littering the tunnel floor and tore up railroad tracks inside the corridor, with noxious smoke curling off the rubble. When the dust settled, 11 tunnel workers were dead.

Two rescue parties entered the tunnel searching for survivors. But they lacked proper safety equipment for the smoke and fumes; 11 of the 18 rescuers died. Some 11 hours later, desperate to save anyone still alive, the Cleveland Police turned to Garrett A. Morgan—a local inventor who called himself “the Black Edison”—and the gas mask he had patented two years earlier.

“He rustled his brother Frank,” says the inventor’s granddaughter, Sandra Morgan. “They threw a bunch of gas masks in the car—remember, they were selling these things—and in their pajamas, drove down to the lakefront.”

Some five years later, in the early 1920s, the inventor witnessed a horrific accident between the automobile and a horse-drawn cart at an intersection. Once again, his ingenuity kicked in. Before Morgan, traffic signals only had two positions: stop and go. “My grandfather’s great improvement,” Sandra says, “was the ‘all hold’—what is now the amber light.” Morgan patented the three-position traffic signal in 1923 and soon sold the idea to General Electric for $40,000 (the equivalent of about $610,000 today). He purchased 250 acres later that year in Wakeman, Ohio, and transformed it into an African American country club complete with a party room and dance hall.

*****

“The mere imparting of information is not education. ” Dr. Carter G. Woodson

Black Inventor Garrett Morgan Saved Countless Lives with Gas Mask and Improved Traffic Lights, Leo DeLuca, Scientific American

Illustration of Anthony M. Johnson working in an ultrafast laser lab; Ronald McNair playing the saxophone aboard the Challenger; Mercedes Richards in front of a computer.Illustration by Abigal Malate, American Institute of Physics

Topics: African Americans, Diaspora, Diversity in Science, Women in Science

Former First Lady, Secretary of State, and Presidential Candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said "women's rights are human rights." Comparatively, Black History is American History. The insurrection at the Capitol wasn't just white privilege on-steroids, it was ignorance writ large. Not that the information isn't in their face for twenty-eight days, twenty-nine on leap years, but an ignorance born of willfulness, arrogance, hubris, and mental deficiencies.

The Middle Passage. December 7, 1941. The Holocaust. September 11, 2001. January 6, 2021. All is a part of our history, days that shall live in infamy. Days we commemorate in ceremony, observance, remembrance, and a commitment within our souls: never again.

You don't forgive anything by shrugging, and the victims of violence never forget. We've all been experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder for four years we would LIKE to forget, but we'd rather heal from, in the light of science, and truth.

The American Psychiatric Association has never officially recognized extreme racism (as opposed to ordinary prejudice) as a mental health problem, although the issue was raised more than 30 years ago. After several racist killings in the civil rights era, a group of black psychiatrists sought to have extreme bigotry classified as a mental disorder. The association's officials rejected the recommendation, arguing that because so many Americans are racist, even extreme racism in this country is normative—a cultural problem rather than an indication of psychopathology.

The psychiatric profession's primary index for diagnosing psychiatric symptoms, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), does not include racism, prejudice, or bigotry in its text or index.

Therefore, there is currently no support for including extreme racism under any diagnostic category. This leads psychiatrists to think that it cannot and should not be treated in their patients.

To continue perceiving extreme racism as normative and not pathologic is to lend it legitimacy. Clearly, anyone who scapegoats a whole group of people and seeks to eliminate them to resolve his or her internal conflicts meets the criteria for a delusional disorder, a major psychiatric illness.

Is Extreme Racism a Mental Illness? Yes. It can be a delusional symptom of psychotic disorders. Alvin F Poussaint, Professor of psychiatry.

When astronaut Mae Jemison saw actress Nichelle Nichols portray Lt. Uhura on Star Trek, her life was changed forever. Seeing an African-American role model helped steer Jemison toward a goal – she was determined to join NASA and become an astronaut. Years later, Jemison achieved her goal when she made history as the first African-American woman to go into space with the U.S. space program.

Jemison’s accomplishment had positive ripple effects, and now she is cited as a source of inspiration for so many African-American students who are themselves reaching for the stars, but Jemison is not alone. There are many African-American physical scientists, such as Jedidah Isler, Hakeem Oluseyi, Chandra Precod-Weinstein, Sylvester James Gates, Tabbetha Dobbins, JC Holbrook, and so many others, who are doing important scientific work and also influencing countless students.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are essential components to the success of our fields. In recognition of that fact, the American Institute of Physics adopted a Strategic Framework in 2019 that aims to “advance the physical sciences with a unifying voice of strength from diversity.” Further, we are committed to becoming an institution that “leads the physical sciences community toward an impactful understanding of how to be more welcoming to, and supportive of, the full diversity of physical scientists throughout their [education and] careers.”

Black History Month, American Institute of Physics

Image Source: NSBP.org

Topics: African Americans, Diversity in Science, Women in Science

The National Society of Black Physicists stands with those that fight against systemic racism and for freedom, equality, liberty, and justice to become a reality for all of America’s citizens. Click the button below to read the statement from our president.

National Society of Black Physicists, Dr. Stephon Alexander, President

The Genesis of the National Society of Black Physicists, Dr. Ronald E. Mickens, Clark Atlanta University Department of Physics, NSBP Spring 1999

Topics: African Americans, Diversity in Science, Physics

Throughout the week of 25 October, Black physicists, their allies, and the general public are invited to participate in #BlackInPhysics Week, a social media-based event dedicated to celebrating Black physicists and their contributions to the scientific community and to revealing a more complete picture of what a physicist looks like. Programming includes professional panels, a job fair, and an open mic night. If you are interested in learning more and registering for the events, check out blackinphysics.org or @BlackInPhysics on Twitter.

The lead organizers of #BlackInPhysics Week are Charles D. Brown II, an atomic and condensed-matter physicist; Jessica Esquivel, a particle physicist; and Eileen Gonzales, an astronomer studying brown dwarfs and exoplanets. Co-organizers include Jessica Tucker, a quantum information scientist; LaNell Williams, a biophysicist; Vanessa Sanders, a radiochemist; Bryan Ramson, a particle physicist; Xandria Quichocho, a physics education researcher; Marika Edwards, an astrophysicist, and engineer; Ashley Walker, an astrochemist; Cheyenne Polius, an astrophysicist; and Ciara Sivels, a nuclear engineer.

Brown, Esquivel, Gonzales, Quichocho, and Polius answered questions about #BlackInPhysics Week and described how physics became their passion.

Meet the organizers of #BlackInPhysics Week, Physics Today