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

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

#61

Post by defen »

Thorentis wrote: post #23
cyberlurker wrote: post #14

I've seen negative comments of people claiming this is fruitless and that it pretends to solve racism forever (here and elsewhere). No one involved in naming this thought that was the case. They are giving overdue recognition. I can't imagine why people would be negative about this besides feeling threatened.

There is nothing meritorious about being black, or being a female, or being white, or being male. You cannot choose your race, or your biological sex. You didn't earn these traits, and you aren't a better or worse human being for having any of them. 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…

If you went purely by merit / contributions to the space program you'd probably have to name it after a literal Nazi who employed slave labor. If that's not acceptable, then you have to admit that pure merit is not the right criteria, and that there is a political aspect to it as well.

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

#62

Post by ip26 »

Thorentis wrote: post #23
cyberlurker wrote: post #14

I've seen negative comments of people claiming this is fruitless and that it pretends to solve racism forever (here and elsewhere). No one involved in naming this thought that was the case. They are giving overdue recognition. I can't imagine why people would be negative about this besides feeling threatened.

There is nothing meritorious about being black, or being a female, or being white, or being male. You cannot choose your race, or your biological sex. You didn't earn these traits, and you aren't a better or worse human being for having any of them. 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…

You assume it was a trivial matter to become the first black female engineer there.

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

#63

Post by spaceisballer »

cyberlurker wrote: post #14

I've seen negative comments of people claiming this is fruitless and that it pretends to solve racism forever (here and elsewhere). No one involved in naming this thought that was the case. They are giving overdue recognition. I can't imagine why people would be negative about this besides feeling threatened.

The negative comments are because people aren’t aware of their privilege and they need to check it. I personally don’t see the issue, this is recognizing someone for their contribution. It’s a very easy gesture that doesn’t harm anyone. Yet people want to rant about this isn’t fair or this won’t solve racism. Life isn’t fair and this woman had to deal with hardships that were imposed on her because of things she had zero control over. Yet she still accomplished a lot. Recognizing the unsung heroes is a great thing and there should be more of that, especially if it’s a woman or a person of color.

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

#64

Post by newacct583 »

grugagag wrote: post #20
cyberlurker wrote: post #14

I've seen negative comments of people claiming this is fruitless and that it pretends to solve racism forever (here and elsewhere). No one involved in naming this thought that was the case. They are giving overdue recognition. I can't imagine why people would be negative about this besides feeling threatened.

I dont know if feeling threatened but aware this person’s contribution was not the reason for the naming but the fact that black people were supressed. It’s a generous move but not highly meritocratic. People might have a problem or two with that. I want to remind them we dont live in a meritocratic society anyway and the powerful snatch the merit away like a giant magnet. It will naturally bruise some egos and pump…

> this person’s contribution was not the reason for the naming but the fact that black people were supressed

As opposed to all those other buildings, all of which were uniformly and fairly named after people with unimpeachible accomplishments in a purely meritocratic system, you mean?

I mean, come on. People name junk after stupid things All. The. Time. And no one cares. Seriously, go to your local campus or government center or NASA facility or whatever and look up the names on the buildings and lecture halls and bathroom stalls. Tell me those people "really deserved" that recognition.

Until you name something after a black woman. Then all of a sudden the white men get all meritocratic on your ass.

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

#65

Post by onetimemanytime »

Strongly disagree. If the overall contribution was close, I'd say give her name to the building but apparently it isn't. Also naming the building after her solves nothing, in fact its obvious why they did it.

Yes, I know as a black woman she had so many things against her, but so did a lot of people back then.

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

#66

Post by nickff »

justin66 wrote: post #53
nickff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA seems to have started a pattern of naming things after people featured in movies, rather than those who contributed deeply to its achievements. Re-naming the Dryden Center to the Armstrong Center appears to have been part of an unfortunate trend.

If only Neil Armstrong had accomplished something significant outside Hollywood, perhaps then he would be worthy of having a building at Edwards named after him, is what you're saying? (he is a particularly bad exemplar of the point you are trying to make)

Dryden was much more important to NASA than Armstrong was. Armstrong was lucky to be assigned Apollo 11; he was not the best test pilot (having crashed an X-15 due to his own recklessness).

If they were going to pick people who greatly contributed to the success of the Apollo program, they should have picked Houbolt.

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

#67

Post by luckylion »

tzs wrote: post #57
Thorentis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting when race is pointed out as a positive trait in some contexts but not others. E.g. a black engineer is a good inspiration for a black child because they are both black. Whereas if I showed my child a great white engineer because the engineer was white, I'd be criticised for being a racist. If race doesn't matter, why do we need more of x race as engineers? If race does matter, why isn't the curr…

It's the same reason we have a black history month in the US but not a white history month, or the same reason we have gay pride month but not straight pride month. It's because every month is a white history month, and every month is a straight pride month. A white child in the US is very unlikely to get the impression that their race might make it hard or impossible for them to become an engineer, so there is no ne…

> Not so for a black child. There is a very real possibility that their being black will make it harder for them to become an engineer.

There's also the very clear benefit of affirmative action that makes it easier to become an engineer, preferential treatment at top schools etc.

While a white child, and even more so an Asian one, might look at laws and statistics and Harvard and realize that, indeed, it is provably harder for them to become an engineer.

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

#69

Post by jasonlotito »

Thorentis wrote: post #23
cyberlurker wrote: post #14

I've seen negative comments of people claiming this is fruitless and that it pretends to solve racism forever (here and elsewhere). No one involved in naming this thought that was the case. They are giving overdue recognition. I can't imagine why people would be negative about this besides feeling threatened.

There is nothing meritorious about being black, or being a female, or being white, or being male. You cannot choose your race, or your biological sex. You didn't earn these traits, and you aren't a better or worse human being for having any of them. 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…

You say it’s absurd, but don’t give any reasons why the negatives outweighs the benefits. They don’t, so I can see how this is remotely abused.

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

#70

Post by Thorentis »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #41
Thorentis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of things are named after white men to the exclusion of everyone else. That's because the majority of scientific achievements to date, have been by white men. I'm not celebrating that fact, I'm just pointing out the source of the statistic you've pointed out. The things weren't named because the person was a white male, they were named because of a tremendous achievement that happened to be made by a w…

Mate, shut up with the nonsense. There are many scientific concepts that originated in Asian/MiddleEastern civilizations that simply happen to have a European name because the latter person popularized it in the West.

Then those Asian and Middle Eastern countries are welcome to put up statues for those people. Nobody is stopping them.

Would you like to give an example to back up your claim though? There is no statue in the US celebrating somebody for discovering the number zero, or gunpowder, or paper, or anything else I can think of that was brought over to the West.

If you're saying we should never celebrate anybody that builds on the achievements of others, well then we shouldn't celebrate anything in science at all. All discovery and progress builds on the work of those that came before us.

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