The subject you can't avoid if you're writing about America
African-American mathematician David Blackwell's first teaching job was at Southern University, in Louisiana. When he arrived there in 1942, it was his first time living in the Old South, and his first time experiencing the Old South's Jim Crow laws. The first time he got on a New Orleans streetcar, he was fascinated by the little signs that plugged into the top of the seats, reading "White" on one side and "Colored" on the other. The idea was that the signs could be moved back and forth, depending on how many white people there were who needed seats. If, like me, you've never seen one before, just watch the episode "Rosa" from this year's Doctor Who season.
Blackwell had never seen one before, either, and it amused him. When he got off the streetcar, he took it with him.
In the oral history interviews he did for the University of California, Blackwell said, "I, of course, accepted segregation but I didn't take it very seriously. Just another one of those silly customs." He said something similar in an interview he did for the National Visionary Leadership Project, which appeared to catch his interviewer by surprise.
Coincidentally, the day I came across these remarks, I'd also been reading some James Baldwin, who repeatedly described what he called a constant rage lurking under the surface of black men in America, because of the way the dominant white culture kept trying to de-humanizing them. And here was Blackwell saying it's "just another one of those silly customs." What are we to conclude from that?
Well, for starters, we can state the obvious - African-Americans, like all other groups of people, are not a monolith. Different individuals have different experiences, and react in different ways. Blackwell was originally from Illinois, and as a fellow Midwesterner, I certainly recognize the attitude of "We can't do anything, so let's just get on with it." But it occurs to me that some people may use Blackwell's reaction as an excuse not to change anything. "See? He didn't mind," I can imagine the argument going. "Those people like the Black Lives Matter group should be like him and stop whining." That would not be good.
David Blackwell is the next subject in my Mathematical Lives biography series. While choosing at least one non-white subject was a deliberate part of my series plan, Blackwell's race wasn't the only reason I chose him. His field of mathematics was the best fit with my overall series theme among the people I considered. Even so, I expected race would be part of the story - but I didn't expect his attitude about it. I've been thrown an unexpected challenge, and I haven't figured out how to handle it yet. I want to be true to who Blackwell was, but I don't want that to be taken as a defense of the status quo.
When I started writing, I never expected to touch on racial issues. Thanks to Gene Roddenberry, I always planned to have a diverse cast of characters in my stories, but I didn't expect to dwell on the subject. They would all just be there because that's how it should be, and that's that, right? But ever since my first book, Liberty Girl, the subject keeps coming up. Maybe it's because I'm an American, and you just can't write about America without touching on race. A lot of us white folks grew up thinking we'd never have to deal with it, that it was all taken care of before our time and so we were spared from all that effort. Well, at least that's the way it seemed before Trump.
There are times when I feel like I'm in way over my head. I do an author visit, and I look at an African-American child in the group I'm talking to, and I think, "What the heck do I know about that I could possibly tell you? I'm an idiot."
Maybe it's best if I just play it straight and stick to the truth. Once there was a man named David Blackwell. People discriminated against him because of his race, but he didn't pay much attention to them and just kept doing what he loved. And because of that, we can do things mathematically that we couldn't do before. The end.
Do you think that would work?
Blackwell had never seen one before, either, and it amused him. When he got off the streetcar, he took it with him.
In the oral history interviews he did for the University of California, Blackwell said, "I, of course, accepted segregation but I didn't take it very seriously. Just another one of those silly customs." He said something similar in an interview he did for the National Visionary Leadership Project, which appeared to catch his interviewer by surprise.
Coincidentally, the day I came across these remarks, I'd also been reading some James Baldwin, who repeatedly described what he called a constant rage lurking under the surface of black men in America, because of the way the dominant white culture kept trying to de-humanizing them. And here was Blackwell saying it's "just another one of those silly customs." What are we to conclude from that?
Well, for starters, we can state the obvious - African-Americans, like all other groups of people, are not a monolith. Different individuals have different experiences, and react in different ways. Blackwell was originally from Illinois, and as a fellow Midwesterner, I certainly recognize the attitude of "We can't do anything, so let's just get on with it." But it occurs to me that some people may use Blackwell's reaction as an excuse not to change anything. "See? He didn't mind," I can imagine the argument going. "Those people like the Black Lives Matter group should be like him and stop whining." That would not be good.
David Blackwell is the next subject in my Mathematical Lives biography series. While choosing at least one non-white subject was a deliberate part of my series plan, Blackwell's race wasn't the only reason I chose him. His field of mathematics was the best fit with my overall series theme among the people I considered. Even so, I expected race would be part of the story - but I didn't expect his attitude about it. I've been thrown an unexpected challenge, and I haven't figured out how to handle it yet. I want to be true to who Blackwell was, but I don't want that to be taken as a defense of the status quo.
When I started writing, I never expected to touch on racial issues. Thanks to Gene Roddenberry, I always planned to have a diverse cast of characters in my stories, but I didn't expect to dwell on the subject. They would all just be there because that's how it should be, and that's that, right? But ever since my first book, Liberty Girl, the subject keeps coming up. Maybe it's because I'm an American, and you just can't write about America without touching on race. A lot of us white folks grew up thinking we'd never have to deal with it, that it was all taken care of before our time and so we were spared from all that effort. Well, at least that's the way it seemed before Trump.
There are times when I feel like I'm in way over my head. I do an author visit, and I look at an African-American child in the group I'm talking to, and I think, "What the heck do I know about that I could possibly tell you? I'm an idiot."
Maybe it's best if I just play it straight and stick to the truth. Once there was a man named David Blackwell. People discriminated against him because of his race, but he didn't pay much attention to them and just kept doing what he loved. And because of that, we can do things mathematically that we couldn't do before. The end.
Do you think that would work?
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