A Cornell University astronomy course titled, "Black Holes: Race and the Cosmos," injects studies on racism in to the hard sciences, asking the question, "Is there a connection between the cosmos and the idea of racial blackness?"
According to the course's catalog description, astronomy professor Nicholas Battaglia and comparative literature professor Parisa Vaziri note that "conventional wisdom" holds that the "black" in black holes "has nothing to do with race," commented book author Heather MacDonald for the City Journal.
"Surely there can be no connection between the cosmos and the idea of racial blackness. Can there? Contemporary Black Studies theorists, artists, fiction writers implicitly and explicitly posit just such a connection. Theorists use astronomy concepts like 'black holes' and 'event horizons' to interpret the history of race in creative ways, while artists and musicians conjure blackness through cosmological themes and images," reads the Cornell catalog description.
"Co-taught by professors in Comparative Literature and Astronomy, this course will introduce students to the fundamentals of astronomy concepts through readings in Black Studies," the course's catalog description continues. "Texts may include works by theorists like Michelle Wright and Denise Ferreira da Silva, authors like Octavia Butler and Nalo Hopkinson, music by Sun Ra, Outkast and Janelle Monáe. Astronomy concepts will include the electromagnetic spectrum, stellar evolution, and general relativity."
According to MacDonald, "Battaglia and Vaziri puncture the 'conventional wisdom' by drawing on theorists such as Emory University English professor Michelle Wright. Wright's book, The Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology, invokes 'Newton’s laws of motion and gravity' and 'theoretical particle physics' to 'subvert racist assumptions about Blackness.' The Cornell course also studies music by Sun Ra and Outkast to 'conjure blackness through cosmological themes.'"
MacDonald writes that "humanities and much of the social sciences have been beyond parody and beyond shame for a long time," adding that what makes this course different is its co-listing as a science course that fulfills Cornell's science distribution requirement.
"It is not surprising that astronomy would be an early adopter of race theory, and that Cornell would lead the way," MacDonald adds, pointing out that Cornell dropped the physics GRE "on the ground that it has a disparate impact on female, black, and Hispanic students," as well as admitting over two-and-a-half times more female undergraduates to the school's engineering department.
MacDonald condemns modern-day academia "mistaking rhetoric for knowledge and words for things," and the tearing down of western civilization due to "racial avengers" seeing racism in everything.
"Today's academic charlatanism consists in part in mistaking rhetoric for knowledge and words for things. This sleight of hand is particularly prevalent in matters relating to race. Hunter College professor Philip Ewell argues that the concept of tonal and harmonic hierarchies in music theory is a stand-in for pernicious racial hierarchies.
"Seeing specters of racism everywhere, the racial avengers are tearing down every institution associated with Western civilization, simply because of its “whiteness.” Science had stood as a guard against such metaphorical, magical thinking. Bit by bit, it is succumbing," Macdonald concludes.
The school was slammed recently for another controversial course description of a rock climbing class being offered in the spring 2021 semester only to BIPOC students. Many in turn argued that the class was segregated, with a Reddit thread being created to end "racially segregated P.E. classes at Cornell," while others argued that it broke Title VI laws, which prevents educational program receiving federal financial assistance from excluding participation on the basis of race or national origin, according to the Cornell Daily Sun.
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