It is probably good that this blog A) is anonymously written and B) has never been read. Because this will probably be a controversial “take” (as they say on the Twitter). Eight days ago an innocent black man was murdered in shockingly callous style by white police officers. Protests, riots, and chaos have followed in every major city across the country. It feels like the 2015 protests following the murder of Freddie Gray – but amplified times 10 and not just in Baltimore – in LA, in NYC, and right here in the city I live in somewhere in the midwest. I agree with, and have participated in, peaceful protests against police violence and police militarization in the past. I did not join the marchers this time around because the US is in the middle of the worst pandemic in modern history and, as a scientist, I know that every body in those crowds is one more piece of kindling on a fire that could kill millions. That does not mean I don’t share the anger and passion of the marchers. I do feel guilty for sitting this one out – but I cannot bring myself to participate in something I feel is so dangerous for the immediate health of our nation’s most vulnerable populations.

Here’s the seemingly larger, unforgivable sin: I have also not written anything on Twitter. I have been on academic Twitter (too much) in the past few days, and have seen lots of messages about how I’m part of the problem for not “speaking up”. It seems as though there are a great number of faculty, postdocs, grad students, and other researchers that feel that typing 280 characters into a small box and then clicking a blue button is “speaking up”. I’ve seen so many tweets about the grief and shock of each individual tweeter, and while those may be genuine, they are always accompanied by the suggestion that the tweeter stands on elevated moral ground and is beyond reproach when it comes to social issues.

I am aware there is a term for this called virtue signalling. I have truly been blinded by the earnest virtue being signalled from academia in the past few days. Perhaps I should reevaluate my own behavior as it relates to social issues? Maybe I am part of the problem because my 280 words describing what a good person I am are missing from the cluttered toxic mess of the Twittersphere? Ok, leaving the sarcasm aside, maybe being aggressive in vocal support of the victims and opponents of police brutality is the ethical thing to do. Maybe all these academics I follow on Twitter are right. Unless… unless all these academics I follow on Twitter are completely full of shit…

Here’s the thing: I don’t just follow these academics on Twitter, I know many of them in real life. I attend large conferences with these people. I go to departmental seminars with these people. I’ve gone to bars and restaurants with these people. I’ve spent weeks cloistered together with these people at courses and workshops. Every day I go to work with these people. Here’s what I know about these people – they are social elitists.

Don’t get me wrong, academics aren’t overt social elitists. The vast majority of scientists I know do not have any biases against those of different colors, religions, genders, etc. If you’re a fellow academic you’re part of the club. If you’re a fellow academic. Like I’ve mentioned – I see these people at conferences. I know how they treat the catering and cleaning staff (incidentally, mostly people of color). I’ve gone to bars and restaurants with these people – I see the shitty dismissive way most of them treat servers and bartenders and I see the garbage tips they leave. I have seen the same exact people that are tweeting their little hearts out about social justice right now be condescending AF to a black server once because she lacked the telepathic ability to know ahead of time that they would want 20 seperate checks and then treated her like she was developmentally disabled because when she tried to explain that they had ordered shared appetizers and bottles of wine and it was unclear how they wanted that split up (whew – been bottling up that anecdote for 5 years).

So I think I should be fair here and note that I don’t think most academics know they behave like this. Most fellow researchers that I know well have never actually held a job outside of academia or research (sorry guys – anything with “tutor” in it doesn’t count). Many of them come from privileged backgrounds (they don’t actually see it like that but trust me it’s true). But it’s true that many genuinely prioritize inclusion and diversity in their teaching and research. So I think from their vantage point they are part of the solution. From their vantage point they have some sort of moral high ground here.

But George Floyd didn’t die because there was a lack of “diversity and inclusion” policies in Minneapolis. George Floyd died because those white police officers consciously, or more likely, unconsciously viewed him as different and as a lower human than themselves. Racism exists because we humans have a remarkable ability to divide ourselves into us and a less human, lower group of “them”. We can divide our empathy so effectively such that it is high when we see someone like us suffering, but low to absent when it is someone different. We turn a blind eye to human suffering when it is amongst other groups and have internal notions that some groups just have a proclivity towards poverty or criminality. So academics might not be kneeling on people’s necks, but everytime they treat a custodian or a bartender as if they are a lower class of person they are contributing to this problem.

So I drafted a list of “are you part of the solution” questions. If you have to honestly answer “NO” to any of these questions – it’s possible that you just might be contributing to this whole social injustice thing.

Assess how fake your academic “wokeness” is:

1. Do you know the names of the custodial staff that clean your labs at night? You know – the ones who come in in the evening and clean your floors and scrub your toilets. Do you know their names? What about the people that take your trash out? Do you know their names?
2. Do you know who puts the cookies and coffee out for your seminars? More importantly, do you know who cleans up your mess after you put your used coffee stirrers and empty creamers on a table instead of the garbage?
3. Do you know what company was contracted to cater your last conference? Do you know what they pay the servers and food preparers?
4. Do you know the name of the hotel employee who cleaned your room at your last conference? Did you leave him or her a tip?
5. When dining/drinking with groups of academics, do you always make sure to inform the server ahead of time what the check situation should be? Do you always make sure that everyone in your group leaves 20%?
6. Outside your immediate family, are you close friends with anyone that does not have an advanced degree (or is working on on)?
7. Do you have any good friends that hold blue collar jobs?
8. Do you have any black friends outside academia?

I wrote this post a while ago in response to another blog post I read (https://smallpondscience.com/2018/01/29/science-has-an-atheism-problem). I’m going to drop it here.

Society has a religion problem

An alternate title for this post might be: The religious have a reality problem.

It has been sometimes alleged (https://smallpondscience.com/2018/01/29/science-has-an-atheism-problem/) that scientific communities do not fully accept scientists of faith, and that this impedes an equitable scientific community.

Let me first agree that an equitable scientific community is a worthy goal. I hope throughout my career I will continue to work alongside individuals of all colors and genders hailing from all socioeconomic backgrounds and nationalities. There is one thing, however, that I hope unites those colleagues. That is scientific acumen. I do not believe we should traipse out to recruit poets, stockbrokers, dancers, and journalists to come join our ranks in pursuit of equity. While some poets would certainly make excellent scientists, most of them would likely make rather terrible ones. There is little overlap between the properties that make an excellent poet and those that make a successful scientist. Likewise, there is little overlap between the paradigms of religion and of science. It is dangerous to pretend otherwise in order to placate the religious.

The article to which I am responding makes a point of stating that, while many phenomena that used to require a religious explanation are now explained by science, many questions still exist without scientific explanation and thus there is no harm in a scientist that chalks these matters up to the supernatural. This is ludicrous. The entire point of any scientific inquiry is to push the sphere of our understanding past it’s current point, not to simply throw our hands up and say, “Well this seems complicated – must be God”. It is a dangerous and silly notion that the processes of the natural world can be neatly binned into “stuff we know” and “stuff God does”. Certainly, that is how many non-scientists approach the realm of human knowledge, and while I find it frustrating, I’m not going to fight them on it. Scientists, however, by their very nature should should be averse to that behavior.

This response so far probably falls into what the author (of the blog I’m responding to) would consider adversarial atheism. Sure, Lawrence Krauss can be sometimes be a dick. And sure, Richard Dawkins runs a clinic on condescension. But let’s consider the sentiment they encounter on a daily basis. Throughout history and right up to present day in most countries, atheists are viewed as immoral and dangerous. There are next to no open atheists holding public office in the United States, and few in European countries. Poll after poll shows that most Americans believe atheists are threats to society. Open atheists are less likely to win custody of children in divorce proceedings. There is evidence of job discrimination against the non-religious. The list goes on and on and academia is not exempt.

I have never heard of a college or university prohibiting the practice of any form of mainstream religion (or fringe ones, for that matter). I have never heard of an institution not allowing the offering of coursework of a religious nature. I have never heard of an institution refusing to hire some type of campus faith leader. I have never heard of a faculty candidate not being hired due to religious beliefs. Here are some things I have heard of: censorship of course content by leadership at Catholic Universities, disrespectful and disruptive attitudes towards course content by religious students that go unaddressed and unpunished by administration, an expectation that faculty hired at religious institutions make a “statement of faith”, and threats and intimidations made by the public towards scientists well-known for research not in line with church teachings.

The author of this blog post seems to think that atheists have an image problem, and that if scientists are too aligned in the public eye with atheists, science will have an image problem. Science already has an image problem. Facts have an image problem right now. Reality has an image problem right now. Yes, science needs to do a better job at communicating to the public. Yes, science needs to come across as more accessible and less elitist. The way forward is to collaborate towards increasing access to early education, to push policies of inclusion, and to improve transparency and communication. The way forward is not a warmer embrace of theology. That has always been, and will always be, the way backward.

Do you ever compose insightful sentences and sassy commentary in your head while your driving? No, you probably listen to the radio or think about your day like a normal person. I do, though. (I also participate in opponentless debates on long drives but that type of crazy clearly needs different outlet.)

I have always loved to write. I’ve had mentors in the past tell me that writing is refined thinking. That really resonated with me when I first heard it. I’ve always used writing in that manner – to organize my thoughts and get to the bottom of my feelings – without really realizing that it was the process and not the product of my writing that provided the catharsis. Reaching for my laptop and opening my journal app is an almost involuntary response during bouts of intense thought or emotion.

That being said I have experienced a sharp decline in my writing habits in the past few years. It’s not that I haven’t been writing; on the contrary, I’ve actually begun to feel somewhat academically productive for the first time in my career. It has more to do with what I’ve been writing. The last time I wrote in my personal journal was a goshdarn year ago. The only writing I’ve been doing is dry and formulated academic writing. And let’s face it fellow academics – that kind of writing is absolutely no fun at all. Does it help to shape arguments and guide experiments? Well, sure. Is it an absolute necessity for any type of successful career? Of course. But it’s just no fun!

I like writing about random, ridiculous things. I like writing about my life and experiences as a woman. I like writing about my challenges and struggles to be the person I aspire to be and to live the life I’ve envisioned. And… of course… I like writing about science.

This blog isn’t intended to be topical in any sense. I’m a scientist in a community of scientists and I’m sure that plenty of entries will be devoted to that. I’m a feminist who gets a little fired up from time to time and need a place to be a woman and roar. I also will try to open up and write from a personal place. Not just because I get to hide behind a super convenient wall of anonymity – but because when I stumble on a piece of writing by a stranger that intimately captures my own feelings I feel a little sense of companionship, and I think I’d really like it if I helped someone else feel that.