 undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and he Goodard Institute of Space Studies refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites.” What do the “unproven remarks” refer to? The undersigned was against “Global warming and catastrophic forecasts.”
By identifying Mr. Bolden with global warning, the ex-NASA scientists are able to both dismiss Bolden as an Affirmative Action hire and as an enemy of global warming theories.
In his story, Bradbury predicted this kind of argument too.
Just before the Blacks head for the space ship to Mars, the banks of the Mississippi overflow; and a river flows down the center of town. He draws graphic metaphor of the tide of black people surging towards the space ships, the “levee” breaking, and the “black, warm waters descended and engulfed the town.”
Samuel Teece wouldn’t believe it. ‘Why, hell, where’d they get the transportation? How they goin’ to get to Mars?’
‘Rockets,’ said Grandpa Quartermain.
‘…Where’d they get rockets?”
“Saved their money and built them.”
Apparently this is what the Obama administration did, too. Because of the budget crisis and the grounding of the shuttle program, Obama was forced to dig deeper into his cultural resources. By appointing a man qualified to do the exceptional task- and to do without congressional funds.
But the NASA-naysayers were just as negative about Obama and Bolden. At the end of the letter, under a picture of Charles Bolden was the caption, “Don’t expect much for him.”
Yet a few months later, the world was praising Bolden for his brilliant Mars landing.
“What you gonna name [the space ship],” Teese yelled to one of the black boys headed to the ship, “Elijah and the Chariot, The Big Wheel and the Little Wheel, Swing Low and Sweet Chariot? Faith, Hope and Charity, eh?”
He could have added “Curiosity.”
Although not known for his progressive politics, Bradbury, one the greatest science fiction writers of the century, knew how deeply American racism went. He knew the origins of the feelings that whites had about science and Blacks.
Even though black men may be the ones who bring us to Mars, the white scientist and journalists are still locked in the mind set of Samuel T. Teese.
The same ridicule that accompanied the white racism in the South is now deflected in the white’s interest in the “Mohawk!” The New media is as racist as the old media, and in some ways they are more so. Where the public would be informed about something significant, they focus on a trivial detail.
Bradbury never explained to the reader how Blacks developed and built the spaceship. He leaves it to your imagination–or your lack of imagination. In other words, when it came time for white NASA scientists to appreciate the contribution of Blacks to science, some of them had to look the other way.
In the story, when Grandpa turned to Mr. Teece and pointed to the spectacular scene of blacks entering the rockets, Mr. Teece could not look. He cannot bear to look, let go his prejudice that Blacks cannot know enough science to built a spaceship to Mars.
“I don’t want to look,” he said. He might have said, “Let me look at the guy with the Mohawk again!” In a comical rebuttal to the publicity accrued by this Mohawk flap, Obama quipped that he was thinking of getting a mohawk, too.
Whites still can’t believe that Blacks are capable of science.
This was precisely Bradbury’s point in his subtle, supple story. In fact, the key to the success of the mars landing was not money, but talent: the engineering, and Mr. Bolden is a master of engineering.
Yet Blacks students are not expose to engineering in the American education system. The class I teach at U C is full of African Americans learning about New Media and Digital technology. In the Engineering School where about 700 students are admitted–only three are African American. With my course, at least 25 students at U C will know about the contribution of African Americans have made to science.
In an article titled, “Race and Ethnicity in Science Fiction” researcher Elisabeth Anne Leonard has an illuminating insight