Posted on 06/23/2021 5:14:58 PM PDT by Impala64ssa
An astronomy course at prestigious Cornell University, concerned about racism in the universe, not just Planet Earth, asked the deathless question: “Is there a connection between the cosmos and the idea of racial blackness?”
As famed author Heather Mac Donald, who has written numerous books, including “The War on Cops,” writes in City Journal, the course, titled “Black Holes: Race and the Cosmos,” notes in the catalog description that “conventional wisdom” asserts that the “‘black’ in black holes has nothing to do with race,” but astronomy professor Nicholas Battaglia and comparative literature professor Parisa Vaziri suggest the truth may be otherwise.
The catalog description reads:
Conventional wisdom would have it that the “black” in black holes has nothing to do with race. Surely there can be no connection between the cosmos and the idea of racial blackness. Can there? Contemporary Black Studies theorists, artists, fiction writers implicitly and explicitly posit just such a connection. Theorists use astronomy concepts like “black holes” and “event horizons” to interpret the history of race in creative ways, while artists and musicians conjure blackness through cosmological themes and images. Co-taught by professors in Comparative Literature and Astronomy, this course will introduce students to the fundamentals of astronomy concepts through readings in Black Studies. Texts may include works by theorists like Michelle Wright and Denise Ferreira da Silva, authors like Octavia Butler and Nalo Hopkinson, music by Sun Ra, Outkast and Janelle Monáe. Astronomy concepts will include the electromagnetic spectrum, stellar evolution, and general relativity.
Mac Donald notes, “Battaglia and Vaziri puncture the ‘conventional wisdom’ by drawing on theorists such as Emory University English professor Michelle Wright. Wright’s book, The Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology, invokes ‘Newton’s laws of motion and gravity’ and ‘theoretical particle physics’ to ‘subvert racist assumptions about Blackness.’ The Cornell course also studies music by Sun Ra and Outkast to “conjure blackness through cosmological themes.”
She concludes, “Today’s academic charlatanism consists in part in mistaking rhetoric for knowledge and words for things. This sleight of hand is particularly prevalent in matters relating to race. Hunter College professor Philip Ewell argues that the concept of tonal and harmonic hierarchies in music theory is a stand-in for pernicious racial hierarchies. … Seeing specters of racism everywhere, the racial avengers are tearing down every institution associated with Western civilization, simply because of its ‘whiteness.’ Science had stood as a guard against such metaphorical, magical thinking. Bit by bit, it is succumbing.”
Meanwhile, another course description at Cornell recently came under fire for ostensibly being racist. The course description of a rock climbing P.E. class “initially said that the class was open only to those students identifying as BIPOC, which sparked controversy on Cornell’s campus and beyond. A thread of posts to the Cornell reddit called for an end to ‘racially segregated P.E. classes at Cornell,’” the Cornell Sun reported in May. “Some argued that the implementation of BIPOC rock-climbing, by offering the class only to students of particular races, was a hindrance to diversity and inclusion efforts,” the paper noted. “Others said that Cornell’s decision was racist and in violation of federal Title VI, which states that no educational program receiving federal financial assistance may exclude participation on the basis of race or national origin.”
Racism has now reached galactic proportions...literally!
He should have won an Academy Award for playing that role.
What’s the problem again? Doesn’t he know that the color of the universe is high yellow?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_latte
WOMEN AND MINORITIES HIT HARDEST
I’m sorry to hear that.
What I was thinking.
Cornell ping.
That is actually the goal of leftism. Because, to destroy the universe is to destroy God’s material creation, and is a step in the ultimate goal to attack and dethrone God.
A book will be written soon, that could have the title, “The Biden Era, a descent into Bedlam”. This should not have to be explained beyond the title.
Having had conversations with black people about this very topic, I can’t help but wonder do they really hold a grudge against Him for making them black? Maybe they prefer to be white?
There’s a verse in the Bible that addresses this very train of thought:
Romans 9:19-21
19 One of you will say to me, “Then why does God still find fault? For who can resist His will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?
Or Isaiah 29:16
You have turned things upside down, as if the potter were regarded as clay. Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pottery say of the potter, “He has no understanding”?
The kind of thing I’d expect from Brown.
Well since there is no light what the heck else would you call it???
Another idea so stupid only an intellectual could believe it.
Obviously, using his “logic”, Don LEMON is a RACIST because his last name might cast a dark shadow on people of Asian descent!
wait- this isn’t satire?
Citizen, you do not understand.
The state tells you when white is white and black is black.
The state has declared the people formerly known as black people are now white and the people formerly known as white people are now black.
Any citizen failing to honor this dictum with be subject to immediate re-education.
P.S. The state reserves the right to amend this dictum at any time. It is your responsibility to check Wikipedia every five minutes before thinking or speaking to make sure you are in full compliance with correct thinking and speaking.
Actually the adoption of the term “Black Hole” has a more humorous origin. The physist John A. Wheeler was giving a lecture on “Collapsing Stars” and related General Relativity (GR) topics and struggled with finding a good name for these theoretical phenomenon. Some nerd in the hall yelled out “Black Hole” which was met with snickers and laughter because it was viewed as kind of “naughty”. This was well before Sheldon Cooperman was in grad school but his image comes to mind.
Wheeler was not a prude and used the term in a published paper. The editor’s pushed back and said it was too “racy” but he insisted they use it and it stuck. I guess what was “racy” in the 1950’s is now considered racist in 2021.
Speaking of Sheldon, the original term “Big Bang” theory was invented by the cosmologist Fred Hoyle who believed like Einstein in an infinite steady state universe and was making a joke. The term stuck after Hubble demonstrated the Universe was expanding and the expansion could be run backwards in time to a single moment.
...ok fine. Call them unicorn holes and then let’s move on.
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