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Hidden Figures,NAACP Best Movie Award.


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I'm glad the movie was done so I'm not complaining about it, but the question I have is...........

Why did most of us have to wait until a MOVIE came out before we found out about these sisters; why wasn't it taught in history school or science on some level before this?

It's the same with the movie Glory and finding about entire regiments of Black Civil War soldiers.
We don't hear about them until AFTER Hollywood puts it out there and then all of a sudden there's a flood of information on them in schools, on television documentaries, in Black History classes, ect... with "new" facts coming out every year.

What next?
A movie about how 7 free Black men and women helped to draft the U.S. Constitution before it was finalized?

Like Harry Brown said....there seems to always be some unknown Black history being hidden and locked away somewhere until "whoever" decides to release it.

I guess my REAL question is WHO is holding on to all of this "hidden" information about Black greatness and releasing bits and pieces of it from time to time?
Clearly most of it....like the information about these magnificent women....is being "held back" from the general public.

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Pioneer there is so much information available, in books currently in print today (many showcased on this website.  Enough to keep on busy for several lifetimes, but the fact of the matter is this stuff is not going to be covered in school--ever.

The role of schools is not to educate people.  You know that right?  We celebrate Columbus while completely ignoring all the people who were already here... how sick is that?

The other problem is that history is really is not that interesting to most people. The history of Black women in science is even less interesting. To the movie's credit, the fictionalized version of history made the story compelling by throwing in Taraji's 'tude, Mahershala's sex appeal, and a few white boy saviors and you have a formula for mass appeal.

The movie had nothing to do with teaching us anything.  It was about entertainment, which sadly has become the replacement for education.

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On 2/13/2017 at 1:49 PM, harry brown said:

There Is Always Some Unknown Black,History

It was not unknown to Researcher Margot Lee Shetterly or NASA's Langley

A black woman’s research project and subsequent manuscript leads to feature film “Hidden Figures” (2017). “Hidden Figures” is the story of a  team of African-American women mathematicians who were the brains behind the space race and astronaut John Glenn’s 1962 orbit.

Check out Margot Shetterly talk at NASA Langley’s youtube channel

 

 

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On 2/13/2017 at 10:15 PM, Pioneer1 said:

I guess my REAL question is WHO is holding on to all of this "hidden" information about Black greatness and releasing bits and pieces of it from time to time?

@Pioneer1 someone heard your question AND answered it!  :)

How cool is that?  Here it is... From Freedom’s Journal to the NNPA, Black Press Is Still Relevant

"Margot Lee Shetterly, author of “Hidden Figures,” said if not for the archives of the Black Press such as the “Norfolk Journal and Guide” and the “Pittsburgh Courier” the inspiring story of the Black women geniuses at NASA would not have been possible to tell. If not for the “Florida Sun” in Orlando, the story of the great training in science and technology happening at Bethune-Cookman University – one of the nation’s historically Black universities – would go untold and unnoticed."

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In the words of Michael Che, noone really cares. You don't even care that much. 

@Pioneer1There are three types of schools. Schools that teach you how to be a worker, how to be a manager, and how to think. If you want to run stuff or be able to think. Either you have to be chosen or accepted into those elite schools. Having money can get you in but not having it  doesn't mean exclusion. Or you can teach and train yourself. Most people including you are too lazy to make the effort to buy a book, borrow a book or click the mouse. The information is out there it just required more effort than buying a dope pair of sneakers.

 

 Occasionaly people show up that encourage us to think. Which is different than charismatic leaders who require submission from their followers. Malcolm X is one of the few to go from Charismatic to Avatar.

 

Quite a few "leaders" fall into the Guru trap. The milk their followers for money sex and influence. I hear lots of would be leaders having the prescription for what ails ___.

 

Pride and Arrogance is one of the worst traits a would be leader can have.

 

In addition you will notice that "Leaders" can be worse for the followers by giving them a quasi religousexistential rationalisation.

 

So they real unvarnished answer is none gives two _____. 

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Troy

First, as an educator you know most people don't like reading or doing research.  Only a minority of people with a certain intellectual prowess can be expected to do any reading or studying beyond what they are required to do for school or work.
So can we really expect most people Black or White to just go around digging up information like this?


Secondly, hardly anyone goes looking for what they don't know even exists in the first place.
I'm willing to wager that the VAST MAJORITY of research done on these women was probably done AFTER that movie came out than was done on them before because most people didn't even know about them.

Did YOU....prior to 2016?




 

 

Mel

Pioneer1 someone heard your question AND answered it!


Good!
I'm happy to know I have people listening to me and ready to answer my question on demand.....lol.

Now.
Since I have their attention let me drop this on them one time:

HEY YALL,
HELP ME REBUILD FLINT!!!!!


WE CAN DO EVEN MORE RESEARCH AND DISCUSS BLACK HISTORY  OVER COFFEE AND COCKTAILS IN THE LOUNGE OF OUR BRAND NEW SKY SCRAPER AFTER IT GETS BUILT!!!


 

 

Delano

Most people including you are too lazy to make the effort to buy a book, borrow a book or click the mouse. The information is out there it just required more effort than buying a dope pair of sneakers.


Lol....

Did your "crystal ball" tell you that I was too lazy to buy or borrow a book, or do online research?

Or were you able to gaze into it and see that.....
1) I have MY OWN personal library and
2) live near a major university with several world class libraries that I frequent on a regular basis

.....and seeing this, confused my CONTENTMENT with with the breadth of knowledge already at my disposal with being TOO LAZY to buy more reference material that I already have?



*ps
Never tell a person you're communicating with on the computer that theyr'e too lazy to click on a mouse...lol.

 

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Mel

Jay Z said I-WILL-NOT-LOSE
.....because I'm talking about research done by the general public, not the academic arena.

I'm talking about the masses who may not be academically inclined but if they find something like this that peaks their interests will google the subject or check wikipedia to find out more information about it.


Among astronomy and NASA experts they may have been well known, but certainly in the in the general public there wasn't a lot of research being done on these women because most of the people I know didn't know anything about them UNTIL the movie came out.

I'll ask you the same question I asked Troy.
BEFORE talk of this movie....had YOU heard about these ladies?

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12 hours ago, Pioneer1 said:

Mel
BEFORE talk of this movie....had YOU heard about these ladies?

  @Pioneer1 Yes.  I heard about the book first - I have many sources but if I had to point to one source I'd say it was my  google alert that is set to "Black Women" . so yes, I had the pleasure of  hearing about Margot Lee Shetterly's book before I heard of the movie.

Old Journalist tricks are hard to break and I'm a information junkie.


BTW, I disagree with your assessment about general public, and academia -  it's usually individuals with a specific interests or out of  necessity that make the breakthrough and bring information into the mainstream.   I even read the flint water crisis was brought to light by a homeowner , a woman named " Leeanne Walters"

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Pioneer, I see I did not answer your question.  I too was aware of the book before the film.  I actually know the production designer , but he did not reveal which movie he was working on until the project was essentially completed. I don't recall being aware of the women prior to the book.  But I could be wrong as I've forgotten much more than I know at this point in my life :-)

But again how much did you actually learn from the film?  I'd be willing to bet that you don't even know the names of the three mathematicians the movie was about. Without doing a search can you?  Can you also describe in any meaningful level of detail what all three women did?

 

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Mel

BTW, I disagree with your assessment about general public, and academia - it's usually individuals with a specific interests or out of necessity that make the breakthrough and bring information into the mainstream.

This is true, but it doesn't disagree with my original statement that most people OUTSIDE of academia will not do extensive research on a subject unless they have to. 
In the general public OUTSIDE of academia, for every one person who decides to put in the research work on a particular subject of interests......probably 5 or 6 will move on to focusing on their day to day activities.


I even read the flint water crisis was brought to light by a homeowner , a woman named " Leeanne Walters"

That's not true.
She did notify the media about what was going on but she wasn't the first one and certainly wasn't the only one.  The media often uses her and other White people to put a more "racially integrated face" on a problem that disproportionalty affected Black people in Black neighborhoods.

The original whistle blower was a pediatrician; an Indian woman named Dr Mona Attisha who kept noticing all these Black children coming in with rashes and decided to investigate.
She first alerted the state and when the state brushed her off she went federal and alerted the EPA.




Troy

I have a confession.

I did not see the movie...lol.

I have no plans to go and see it.

It's not so much that I have a problem with the theme, I'm just not into going to see movies much unless they're very intense horror movies or war movies.


 

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10 minutes ago, Pioneer1 said:

an Indian woman named Dr Mona Attisha who kept noticing all these Black children coming in with rashes and decided to investigate.

"individuals with a specific interests or out of  necessity that make the breakthrough"  as  Jenifer Lewis said in "In Living Color"  "That just proves my point"!

11 minutes ago, Pioneer1 said:

 

In the general public OUTSIDE of academia, for every one person who decides to put in the research work on a particular subject of interests......probably 5 or 6 will move on to focusing on their day to day activities.

 

Clearly you haven't been on wordpress dot com or Quora.  J/K   Seriously though, I've been researching polymaths and monomaths; so I think the ratio is much lower than you give credit.  We have more 'specialists' today than ever in history.   If this country is actually divided it's by autodidacts, academics and a minority of folks who are clueless.

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Mel


Clearly you haven't been on wordpress dot com or Quora. J/K Seriously though, I've been researching polymaths and monomaths; so I think the ratio is much lower than you give credit. We have more 'specialists' today than ever in history. If this country is actually divided it's by autodidacts, academics and a minority of folks who are clueless.


This is the internet!

Ofcourse when you're on the internet you're going to get a lot of people who tend to be intellectual and academic oriented, because THOSE are the type of people who are the most computer savvy and know how to navigate their way around different websites, chat rooms, ect....

There are millions of people out there who don't use computers or even read books.
If it doesn't come on television or the radio, they don't even know it exists and don't care.

Add THEM to the people who ONLY use the internet to search for porn or a job and you'll have the MAJORITY of people....lol.

 

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Troy

No sir.
I have not seen it and as I said I have no intention of seeing it.

But my original points STILL stand and my not having seen the film doesn't detract from them one iota.  Most people DON'T do research on their own, especially about subjects they don't even know exist.  Nor should it be expected of them to do so.
Most people aren't academically inclined any more than most people are mechanically inclined.

Which is why I don't blame most of our people, I blame the public educational system of the United States and especially Black educators who knew about these ladies and other valuable information that has yet to come out.

This should have been taught in class rooms around the nation decades ago instead of us waiting until a book came out or movie is made.

We shouldn't look to Hollywood to give us our own history.

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I agree with most of what you wrote Pioneer especially the bit about Hollywood responsibility for relating our history.

But I would not begrudge the educational system for leaving out the story of these three women scientists-provided they include the contributions of Black folks in their lessons.  There are so many accomplished Black people, you just can't cover them all.

Shetterly's book is on is on the NY Times Bestseller's list and I'm sure it is schools and libraries across the country.  So the problem you are complaining about has been solved, right?

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Don't feel too bad.

I didn't know who the hell she was a couple weeks ago either, but so many young people kept talking about her and making jokes in reference to her I had to do a little research myself.

And now...like memes tend to do.....that silly ass girl and her ghetto-glorious catch phrase is starting to resonate and reverberate all over society, lol.

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