Black History Month 2020
Yesterday, February 24th, 2020, Katherine Johnson, the NASA mathematician of “Hidden Figures” fame, died. She was 101. I don’t think you can get more “Black History” than reflecting on Katherine Johnson and many of the other Black “human computers” who helped America win the race to the moon. Given the conditions they endured, it is amazing they stayed focused on the task to make their historic contributions.
I am inspired by Black History, especially regarding NASA, for two reasons. One is just learning about past details and facts that I never knew or forgot. When discovering something new in history, I am often chagrinned over my poor education or my lack of appreciation of what I did learn, and likely forgot. The second reason I am drawn to Black History is the always nagging question of what can I learn from history (personally) and what can we as a society can learn? And, to the latter point, what is my role and responsibility in effecting societal learning?
With respect to the first question, I am usually drawn to the lesson of perseverance and what I learned from my mother that “what people think of you is none of your business.” I have to imagine that if people like Johnson (specifically, a smart Black female coming of age in “jim crow” America) did not have a strong determination and focus to do what she loved and was sensitive to and cared about what “they” - the White ”man”/establishment/system/racist society - thought of her, that she could not have done what she did. I wish asked her about this. I wonder, for example, if she did care what people thought of her and was sensitive of the context of her life at the time, but just didn’t allow those thoughts to stop her?
How does this first question motivate me? I think my answer is that when I face a barrier (real or imagined), then I can apply the Katherine Johnson standard: “What would Katherine do?” She had to work with many hostile colleagues and run to a segregated bathroom, and be judged incapable until she proved otherwise, and you (Donald) have to....what now?
The second question on what society can learn is more complicated. Do societies actually learn? When I think about current cases of anti-semitism, racism, sexism, and other hate-related violence being perpetrated, I wonder if our society has actually learned from our history? I would like to believe in some cases that the answer is yes, there are lessons we have learned. That learning comes in the form of updated laws and even amendments to the Constitution (e.g. the 14th) and extreme safety measures in addition to a collective conscience. For example, the use of nuclear weapons in war. That the United States remains, still, the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war, and only twice, suggests that society has learned there is a very steep slippery slope to global hell should nations resort to nuclear weapons in war. Since there have been many wars that have cost many lives since Hiroshima/Nagasaki without nuclear weapons, I am hopeful that we as a global society have learned that, as Colin Powell indicated in the run-up to the “Gulf I” war, “some tools (weapons) shall remain in the tool box.”
As a civic-minded citizen then, I conclude that the way “societies” learn is through an informed citizenry (me) that help articulate and shape values and laws “towards a more perfect union.” How does one do this? If one purpose of studying history is to enable a better future, then we are called to not just bear witness to that history (i.e. telling and retelling of stories – and, importantly, to insist on good scholarship to get the history complete and accurate) but to decide as individuals where and how we will contribute to a better future. It’s a decision one makes. And from the decision, it’s about the choices we make regarding that decision. Following choices are our actions and behaviors. What did we do? From that we will get results. Some results are nothing or negligible and other results are significant and meaningful. What is to be observed then are the consequences of those results. Not all of us are an ML King, or a Rosa Parks, or a Katherine Johnson where the consequences of the results we produce are social changes for the better. But we can do our part.