Mid Semester Essay

Science is such a prominent part of our daily lives, especially in the modern world. Everywhere you turn, you can find science, whether it’s in the technology you are using to read this piece, the car you drive to get to work, the food you have in your pantry, and even the walls and floors that make up your house. None of these things would have looked the same four hundred years ago. There have been changes and advancements in science that have revolutionized the way we function as a society and have allowed us to increase our productivity. Science also changes the way we think about the world around us and how we give meaning to and understand our lives. Yet, there are many figures that we can thank for these inventions and the knowledge we have that make our society function, and we don’t even know many of their names. However, we give even less recognition to some because of the color of their skin. For example, the name Percy Julian has never been discussed in any of my classes, even though his contributions to science are incredibly relevant to my field of study. He is responsible for increasing access to and decreasing the cost of medications for patients, an important factor limiting patients from proper healthcare, even in today’s society. He has also been a major contributor in the research for progesterone, cortisone, and physostigmine, all important chemicals in medicine and treatment of diseases (Dove, 2020). Percy Julian is not the only scientist who was not given proper credit for their contributions because of the color of his skin. The way that society has subtly incorporated characteristics of white supremacy into our daily lives can be blamed for this disparity between white and black scientists today.

The United States has a systemic issue with racism in its organizations, yet we often don’t even notice these characteristics because we perceive them as normal aspects of an organization, when really, they are hurting people of color. Tema Okun writes a very interesting article, “White Supremacy Culture,” in which she describes many different characteristics that organizations display which exhibit white supremacy culture. She lists these characteristics within her article and explains how each of these behaviors contribute to these organizations, unknowingly repressing their black employees. Okun also explains ways in which organizations can work to rid their company of these behaviors and to create a more inclusive environment in the workplace. One example of a behavior that Okun outlines is paternalism. In this behavior, Okun writes how this can affect the employees of the company, “those without power do not really know how decisions get made and who makes what decisions, and yet they are completely familiar with the impact of those decisions on them,” (Okun). It is so important for every member within an organization to understand what decisions are being made and why because it creates a better environment for communication. When all members are involved in the decision-making process and have an understanding of the reasoning, everyone will be much more satisfied and feel as if they are heard. Other behaviors that Okun writes about are individualism, fear of open conflict, quantity over quality, and many others. With all of these subtle characteristics of white supremacy culture in our society, it is no wonder that many people don’t even realize the systemic problems in our culture that have a racist bias.

The film Hidden Figures is a great representation of how racial biases within our society can affect science. Granted, this movie does take place in the 1960’s in Virginia, a time and place that is notably more outwardly segregated than today’s United States, but it still does a great job at demonstrating the hardships of these women in the NASA Space Program. This film focuses on three very gifted, African American women who are working as computers at NASA, helping aid the success of John Glenn, the first man to orbit the Earth. Katherine Johnson was notably good at analytic geometry and this skill was what allowed her the opportunity to start working with the white computing group. Although this was a huge step for African American women in the program, she still had many struggles with getting the respect she deserved. She was not allowed access to all the data that was needed in order to make accurate calculations, she was not trusted by the men to properly invent the math that was needed to safely bring Glenn home, and most notoriously in the film, she was not given a colored restroom in the building she worked in. These actions taken to suppress Katherine’s success by the white men in NASA demonstrate the paternalism aspect from Okun’s article. They wanted to keep Katherine out of all important decisions made, ensuring that she knew her place in the program and making her work much more difficult. All of these hardships made her job at NASA much more difficult for her, yet she took these roadblocks in stride and was able to be successful regardless.

Mary Jackson and Dorthy Vaughan also played important roles for African American women in NASA. Mary had the mind and the talent to be an engineer at NASA, however, she was never able to get the degree she needed because of the color of her skin. This obstacle for her can be compared to Okun’s concept of “only one right way.” Okun describes this concept as, “the belief there is one right way to do things and once people are introduced to the right way, they will see the light and adopt it,” (Okun). Since the United States had been segregated for so long and only allowed white people to obtain higher education, many believed that this was the “one right way” and that this idea could not be changed. During the movie, she fought to gain rights to attend classes at an all-white school so that she could be the first African American female engineer at NASA, and she was successful. Dorthy was discriminated against by not being promoted to group supervisor, regardless of her leadership role with the black computing group. This relates to the power hoarding characteristic, described by Okun as, “power seen as limited, only so much to go around,” (Okun). The leaders of NASA did not want to share their power, especially with someone of color, at least not until Dorthy proved just how indispensable she was with her knowledge of the IBM. She fought against this stigma and conducted her own research to learn how the new IBM works, eventually gaining the respect for her successes with the machine and was granted the lead for the group working with the IBM. Although all of these women have very remarkable achievements, they did not get the recognition that they deserved until much later. Because of their race, they were “hidden figures” in the NASA program and no one thought to give them credit for their work. It wasn’t until 2015 that President Obama recognized Johnson for her work, and in 2017, the movie was released, gaining even more recognition for these women, 50 years later.

However, even once the movie was released, the women were not given all the recognition that they deserved. Dexter Thomas discusses this in his article, Oscar-nominated “Hidden Figures” was whitewashed — but it didn’t have to be. The directors of the movie made some changes to the plot that took away some of the achievements the women made and instead, gave credit to the white men in the movie. In the movie, Katherine Johnson has to run across the NASA campus every time she needs to use the bathroom in order to get to the colored restrooms. Once her boss found out about this, he made a scene in breaking down the signs to the bathrooms that declare them white or colored. In reality, Katherine just went in the white bathrooms and was never told that she couldn’t. The producers felt the need to add a white hero to the story and diminish the strides that the women took for themselves. This can be compared to Okun’s characteristic of “right to comfort” that is described as, “the belief that those with power have a right to emotional and psychological comfort,” (Okun). These producers felt the need to make themselves feel better by adding in a white character that helped out the black women. They wanted to avoid white viewers from feeling discomfort while watching the film because of how poorly the white characters had treated the black characters in the film. Even just one white character aiding the womens’ efforts could put their minds at ease and allow for the viewers to feel more comfortable with the plot.

As scientists, we need to challenge ourselves to other possibilities and more ways to think about our studies. When it comes to science and innovation, we can’t afford to judge other scientists by the color of their skin. Listening to all ideas and perspectives is a great way to learn new things and create new science. Dr. Megan Halpern discusses this in her article, Standpoint Theory. She explains how we need to stop thinking about science as objective and we need to start embracing other perspectives as a way to understand science. She explains the definition of standpoint theory, “The basic principles of the theory are that (a) all knowledge is situated, interpreted, and thus local; and (b) those belonging to marginalized groups are situated in ways that allow them to see more than those who are not,” (Halpern, 2019). Halpern argues that marginalized groups have different perspectives which can be useful to understand. If scientists start to value the ideas of those of color, they may be able to combine the ideas from everyone in the group to create better science. Understanding not only the value of your teammates’ perspectives, but also your own perspectives can help create a more productive environment for creation.

There are still scientists in today’s world struggling to gain the respect and recognition of the community and of their colleagues. In a study conducted in 2010, it was found that 51% of the science and engineering workforce were white men, the next highest groups being white females (18%), Asian males (13%), and Asian females (5%). The remaining 13% of the workforce consists of Hispanics, African Americans, and other (Guterl, 2014). The difference between the top two of white males and females is extreme, let alone the difference between white males and black males. African Americans don’t have the role models that white scientists do to look up to because their work is not made as prevalent in society. As a society, we need to better understand all the consequences of our actions and be more mindful about making sure everyone has equal opportunities to grow. We can start by making these small changes in the scientific community, but for real change to occur, this needs to happen in the entire society.

Dove, L. L. (2020, August 20). 10 Black Scientists You Should Know. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/10-black-scientists.htm

Guterl, F. (2014, October 01). Diversity in Science: Where Are the Data? Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/diversity-in-science-where-are-the-data/

Halpern, M. (2019, October 02). Feminist standpoint theory and science communication. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://jcom.sissa.it/archive/18/04/JCOM_1804_2019_C01/JCOM_1804_2019_C02

Hidden Figures[Video file]. (n.d.).

Okun, T. (n.d.). WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE: Characteristics. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy-culture-characteristics.html

Thomas, D. (2017, January 25). Oscar-nominated “Hidden Figures” was whitewashed — but it didn’t have to be. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2020, from https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3xmja/oscar-nominated-hidden-figures-was-whitewashed-but-it-didnt-have-to-be