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Fewer than 20 Black women physicists in the U.S. have earned tenure. This scholar just joined the club.

https://19thnews.org/2023/07/chanda-prescod-weinstein-physicist-tenure-rare-feat/

As the first Black woman to earn tenure in particle theory or cosmology theory, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is breaking barriers in physics while achieving her lofty childhood dreams.

Fewer than 20 Black women physicists in the U.S. have earned tenure. This scholar just joined the club.

And, at the risk of crossing subLemmy boundaries, here's Mekka Okereke (@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io) on that achievement, and Mastadon's loss:

"And when she tried to join the Fediverse, she was greeted with a barrage of hate, sexism, racism, and anti-semitism that should have never been allowed to happen.

"So now no one on Fediverse gets to interact with her directly about her work on here. Our loss. 😢

"Which is why we'll make it so that this type of terrible welcome is unlikely to happen again. Allowing it to happen to her was a choice. We will make better ones."

#BlackMastodon

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/110793385293203842

14 comments

Alteon

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I don't get racism. I just don't. How your self worth can become so inherently tied up with the color of your skin should be fucking embarrassing.

I mean seriously, do you have no other accomplishments or have you acheived so little in life, that your only source of pride is that your were born white? The life of a racist is tragic.

dragonflyteaparty

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It's not so much being proud of being white, so much as putting others down to make themselves feel better. "This race does that thing and I don't, therefore I'm better than them."

TheSaneWriter

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Racism truly is despicable. It's part of the reason why we must all take part in working to excise bigotry from the community so that stuff like this is not allowed to happen again.

jocanib

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Cloudflare being awkward today, I will edit that subtitle when it decides to play nicely.

Hazdaz

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One of the public's most beloved physicist is Neil DeGrasse Tyson -, so I find it rather interesting to say the least, when people claim that some other black physicists was met with a ton of hate. Makes no sense. So they readily accept someone like NGT but this other person is where they draw the line?!?

Paralda

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I'm sure being a woman has a nonzero percent chance to do with it

Hazdaz

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I work in STEM. I love to see more women in it.

dragonflyteaparty

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Likely because he's "one of the good ones". He's a name and face they know. That said, I'm sure plenty of people hate him because he's viewed as an elite.

lynny

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Ever hear the concept of the "house n-word"? They were a slave that was allowed to live in the house as a servant, who also got education such as reading and writing. Didn't change the fact most slaves were living in what amounted to chicken coops for humans.

Tyson got to where he is on his own merits, but there can still be institutional discrimination that prevents other black people from doing what he did.

Another great example of this in science is the Nobel Prize. It is infamously sexist, even excluding people who such as Noether who have contributed physics insights comparable to Newton or Einstein.

wheeldawg

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You mean NDT?

lynny

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Funny how the ivory tower that preaches to us about equality and social justice turns out to be racist themselves.

jocanib

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Not a single clause in that sentence makes any kind of sense.

lynny

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I'll help you out.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_tower

jocanib

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Still making no sense whatsoever.