Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
Coming from a long line of relatives that worked in the medical and science fields, Jewell Plummer Cobb dedicated her life first to the research of cellular biology and then to the teaching of science to people of minority status. As the president of California State University-Fullerton, Cobb made advances in the opportunities to motivate minority students of all ages to study science and engineering and has been honored due to her work by numerous colleges as well as by the National Academy of Science in Washington, D.C.
Jewell Plummer Cobb was born on January 17, 1924, in Chicago, Illinois. She was the only child of Frank V. Plummer, a middle-class doctor, and Carriebel Cole Plummer, a dance instructor who worked closely with the Works Projects Administration in the 1930s. Cobb’s father was one of the main inspirations in the young girl’s life, making it clear to her that the most important thing in life was making life better for those around you. Frank Plummer lived by this rule, setting up his first office on the corner where a streetcar had a transfer point for commuting stockyard workers. This allowed the workers, almost all of who were men and women of color, to use the transfer time to visit his office and receive medical treatment without having to take time off of work and without having to pay out transportation fees to get to a doctor’s office.
Even though Cobb faced the same segregation that all minorities faced in the 1930s and 1940s, she was privy to the advantages of a middle-class upbringing. Her family continued to move into better and better neighborhoods in the city as they became available due to white families moving out of the city and into the suburbs, allowing Cobb to attend better public schools throughout her primary schooling. She learned to read at an early age and she took advantage of her father’s large home library which contained numerous scientific journals and magazines, up to date newspapers, and a thorough collection of books that chronicled the achievements of black Americans. Her parents also owned a cottage in Idlewild, Michigan, where a number of well to do black families vacationed during the summer months.
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Most students during this time who came out of school with a Ph.D. in cell physiology went into a medical career, but Cobb opted to work in a biology research lab at the National Cancer Institute instead due to her love of theoretical research over pathological application. She also made sure that the lab she joined focused on cellular biology, which observes the action and interaction of living cells, instead of molecular biology, which observes mainly atoms and molecules that make up cells. At the National Cancer Institute she studied the effects of chemotherapy drugs on human cells infected with cancer, producing research that is still used today in creating new and more effective tools to fight cancer.....Read More
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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When a state’s felony disenfranchisement scheme is grossly unconstitutional and racially biased, it becomes clearer whY If this case is appealed “it’s the Supreme court stupid” Slate: Alabama’s Failure of Moral Turpitude
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In 1901, Alabama passed a constitution that stripped voting rights from any person who committed a “crime involving moral turpitude.” The purpose of this disenfranchisement, the president of the convention explained, was to “establish white supremacy in this state”; Alabama labelled those offenses more frequently committed by blacks as crimes “involving moral turpitude” in order to purge minorities from the voter rolls. In 1985, the Supreme Court unanimously invalidated the “moral turpitude” provision as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. But 11 years later, the state quietly reinserted the same words into its felony disenfranchisement law. Today, the statute has helped to disenfranchise 250,000 Alabamans, most of them black. Indeed, a stunning 15 percent of otherwise qualified black voters in Alabama can’t cast a ballot because of the state’s felony disenfranchisement law.
A new lawsuit spearheaded by the Campaign Legal Center argues that the statute is a gross violation of Alabamans’ rights under both the Voting Rights Act and the United States Constitution. Their ambitious suit—which is joined by influential Alabama litigators, the white-shoe firm Jenner and Block, and voting rights luminary Pamela Karlan—combines conventional legal arguments with innovative constitutional theories in order to try to demonstrate that Alabama’s law contravenes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14thAmendment, as well as the 15th Amendment, the 24th Amendment, and the Voting Rights Act.
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After the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina denied the Donald Trump campaign's request told hold a lengthy private tour for the candidate, the museum has received several threats, the News and Observer reported.
“The callers were threatening to come over and burn down the building and to shoot up the building,” John Swaine, the museum's CEO, told the News and Observer. “They’ve lessened in frequency this week, but they’re still coming in.”
He said that the museum has received the threatening messages on social media and phone calls with racial slurs since the news broke in late September that the museum had denied Trump's request for a private visit.
Swaine said that he denied the Trump campaign's request for a tour on Sept. 20 because the campaign asked for the museum to be closed for five hours and for Trump to be videotaped walking through the exhibits.
"We made it known to Mr. Trump’s campaign that we were not going to grant a request of suspending our operations so he could somehow try to legitimize his ideological positions,” he told the News and Observer. “The landmark is very important – it’s not just a political backdrop.”
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A recent study from the University of South Carolina’s Richardson Family SmartState Center of Economic Excellence in Tourism and Economic Development has found that South Carolina’s tourism industry has been booming since the removal of the Confederate battle flag from Statehouse grounds in Columbia, according to the Columbia Regional Business Report.
African-American tourists generate $2.4 billion annually for South Carolina, according to the study, and that number has been rising since the Confederate flag was removed in July 2015.
Researchers also found that almost half of all out-of-state African-American travelers surveyed said that the flag’s removal increased their desire to visit, Charleston City Paper reports. The paper noted that just a 5 percent increase in African-American tourism would result in an extra $118 million for the state. The study also noted, however, that half of all potential African-American visitors to the state are concerned about experiencing racial discrimination there.
“We need to recognize that the fear of racial discrimination is real,” said Simon Hudson, director of the center, according to Charleston City Paper. “As tourism providers, we need to better understand travelers from a diverse array of backgrounds and be able to cater to their particular interests and needs.”
There is strong potential for more African-American tourist destinations, but according to Hudson, more investments need to be made to maintain these places, because many of those that already exist are located in economically depressed communities.
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I have been reading comics obsessively since I was about ten years old. I can probably quote from John Ostrander’s original Suicide Squad run in my sleep, I’ve watched all of the Star Trek series more times than I can count, and I often whip out Klingon when I’m nervous. But I’ve found that the love and knowledge I have on these subjects never seems to be good enough for the people who grow furious at a black woman writing about these properties. White male fans often don’t want to face how their beloved properties often have troubling racial and gender politics. (Just peruse the comments on my review of X-Men: Apocalypse RogerEbert.com: “The author feels like the X-Men series in general has failed its female characters—ignoring the fact that Mystique is elevated to a leadership and relevance level well above the source material.” Many didn’t want to face a critique coming from a woman, and a fan, who knows them better than they do.) You can only delete emails and block people on Twitter for so long until you feel burnt out. The reason why we don’t see more black women writing about these subjects with such visibility isn’t because we haven’t been interested in them, it’s that publications rarely give us the opportunity, and when we do write, we often find ourselves facing personal scrutiny that has little to do with the actual writing. At times, I’ve been left to wonder, why do I love these stories so much when they rarely care about people who look like me?
In recent years, as people of color have become more visible as creators and characters within geek properties, white male fans have felt that the mediums that so often acted as power fantasies for them no longer cater to their every whim. In a piece for the Guardian, Rose Hackman writes that “despite still persistently experiencing much better outcomes when it came to income, employment, home ownership and health, white Americans felt that as black Americans had gained in rights over the second half of the 20th century, white Americans had experienced a mirror decrease in rights.”
So much of the genre trades in metaphors for people of color—what is the X-Menwithout the language of the Civil Rights Movement?—but having experienced the bigotry within this fandom, it’s clear that the idea of championing those without power is somewhat misplaced. This vocal minority of geek fandom isn’t interested in dismantling the structures of oppression, but becoming the oppressors themselves. In many ways the company’s whose work fuel the geek community created a fantasy for primarily white men in which their voices, opinions, and desires matter above all else. Even when heroes of color were depicted, white people were still the primary creators and audience. As times are changing, white audiences are having to face this privilege and are forced to reckon with the fact that the geek community has far more diversity than they are willing to acknowledge. Black women have loved these genres for a long time—we’re just becoming more vocal than ever.
Science fiction and fantasy are nothing without the presence of women who look like Leslie Jones, Candace Patton, and Nichelle Nichols who played Uhura on the originalStar Trek, inspiring women of color for generations. Is it possible to find safety in these communities? Websites like Black Girl Nerds have found considerable visibility and champions partially because they offer a safe haven for geeks of color who love these works but not necessarily the scrutiny they face in more mainstream parts of the fandom. But for black actresses and journalists, isolation isn’t an option. We have to engage with communities that often don’t have our best interest at heart. But I like to keep in mind that’s it the voices of black women and other minorities that often power these stories whether white audiences want to realize that or not. As Junot Diaz wrote, “Without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as People of Color, nothing about fanboy or fangirl culture would make sense. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible, yeah. In the Green Lantern Corps, we are the oath. We are all of these things—erased, and yet without us—we are essential.”
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