As a child growing in Zambia, Africa I didn't have a single fair skinned playmate.
As a woman with a Mensa level IQ, and an intuitive knack for science I have never once had the opportunity in my career or in any of my higher level coursework of having a female colleague.
For most of my life I've been oblivious to any ceilings for women for for people of color. I didn't believe they existed.
Over time as I progressed from a single wide trailer with a family of 7 to the college classrooms to a fast rising career that exposed me to people from all walks of life...I started seeing others hit that ceiling. But when it was my turn... I didn't even see the ceiling coming. And when I smacked into it I didn't believe it was there...so I just kept banging my head against it.
I got a huge and painful lesson in the UNINTENTIONAL FEARS and MISUNDERSTANDINGS that otherwise decent and well-intentioned folks can have of people who have a different set of experiences in ilfe.
I've seen and experienced heartwrenching discrimination....first as an observer of people of color and then personally as a woman who started coming into her own as a woman instead of pushing myself three times as hard to be a woman and still fit in as one of the guys.
SO color me thrilled with the breakthroughs in politics that are happening this year! A double whammy of historical moments in 24 hours!
As a scientist I've always watched politics from afar. I like to study catalysts, endothermic reactions, exothermic reactions etc etc etc.
Good science is based on a sequential progression from:
Observation, Hypothesis, Theory and eventually scientific fact.
You must always be ready to be proven wrong.
It seems to me that "Political Science" would involve the same progression..but most folks hate science....so I OBSERVE politics to be a very emotional and polarizing sport....which is why I stay out of it.
BUT.....there's nothing more riveting in SCIENCE than a breakthrough! The discovery of new catalyst that create new reactions. The thrill of being onto something new will keep you up all night running thru the new variable...trying new endless combinations to find a lock that fits...and grows into theory.
In my own life and hopefully in the life of any journalist one is content to live only in the world of observation and the collection of evidence. I prefer to focus on evidence , for formation of a hypotheses, test the hypothesis in the real world, then collect more evidence, analyze analyze analyze, try to DISPROVE the hypothesis.
THEN if you are very lucky...your research will form into a theory. As a scientist you accept that it takes a VERY long time before THEORY becomes FACT . And you live comfortably in that process.
And I am determined to stay there...I vote on theory...not on any omniscient illusion that I have all that answers .But this year...If we can agree that the value of each human being on this planet is a scientific FACT. We win no matter what.
If there's anything the American People take away from this years election I hope it is proof that every human being on this earth has something of value to contribute. No matter what their sex, race, beliefs, IQ, orientation, and on and on...anything that may seem Different...that (I hypothesize) is where the value lies...in our differences!
And I do hope (however observationally) that it one day it becomes a widely accepted scientific fact...that every living this on this planet has VALUE exactly as it is and deserved to be treated with respect
Here's to an exciting election. I am one excited observer!
