NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

The NASA HQ was named after somebody to celebrate traits they didn't earn or choose. There are plenty of engineers that were objectively better engineers (I'm sure there were or are many black female engineers who are better engineers than this individual). And there were many engineers that contributed more to the space program than this individual.

If their achievements were that incredible, we would've heard much more about them. Plenty of white engineers had successful careers, contributed to their program, performed well, but will forever go un-named, and unappreciated. And that's fine. Nobody is complaining about that, and neither am I. That's life. But to pluck somebody out of a huge number of engineers because of something they had no control over (the color of their skin) and then name a building after them because of it? Absurd.

> If their achievements were that incredible, we would've heard much more about them. Plenty of white engineers had successful careers, contributed to their program, performed well, but will forever go un-named

This isn't remotely true. The majority of things are named after white men to the exclusion of everyone else.

The reason I love the sciences is that in general, people are more meritocratic in those circles compared to others. I've found especially in scientific academia that people are far more meritocratic compared to other disciplines. This also applies at science/engineering companies. No, not at all levels (the more business-y you get, the less of a meritocracy it becomes). But usually team-leads, senior engineers, etc. rise because of merit. Always exceptions, but in general. Much more than as an accounting firm where you rise because you know somebody who knows somebody.

Unfortunately, as time goes on, I've seen academic circles in sci&eng, and especially tech companies (and silicone valley in general) become much more interested in stay relevant, keeping up with social trends and movements, and appearing progressive. You see this with all the FAANG companies calmoring to be the first to speak out against some injustice or another, or be the first to take a stand on Their Platform(TM).

And with this, the meritocracy has slowly declined. You don't rise in a company because you're a skilled engineer - you can rise because you're a token minority. Or because you're the most outspoken on a social injustice and can see a way for your company to solve it (sorry, profit from it). You can be rewarded because you were the first (insert random minority here) to solve a problem or do something that plenty of other people had already done. Rather than celebrating scientific advancement, we're now celebrating the type of people making that advancement. What next, the first black woman to clone a GitHub repo? Let's name the GitHub HQ after that.

Personally, I see both sides. I think this is actual progress that will indirectly have positive material benefits while also recognizing we can obviously do better than this.