Well, it went wonderfully. What went wonderfully? My one hour (plus) talk at a local church in the neighbourhood. I mentioned the backstory in a previous post. It was quite a long day in the end. I got up at 6:00am to write my "sermon" -which involved hunting with Google images for images which would illustrate the various themes I wanted to bring out. I sketched what I wanted to say mostly in my head and scribbled on a few scraps of paper, but the idea was that I did not intend to be scripted, but instead talk off the cuff. The scribbling was simply a means of ordering various themes. We had a full church service, with some excellent singing (with the pastor Aaron Howard on the piano). And clapping, lots of clapping. There was some reading from scripture, with some nice verses chosen, and there was prayer. I have a problem with none of the above, I should say. It was not at odds with what I came to talk about: Science and science careers. These were good people, doing great things in their community, and that's all that matters to me at this point. In some cases, I was able to find resonance with what I wanted to say and what came up in the verses, and so I improvised a bit and incorporated some bits here and there as I listened. I got a rather grand introduction from a lady who writes children's books about black inventors and scientists, which I thought was just perfect. I spoke for about an hour, and then there was an unexpected amount of really excellent questions afterwards, and so we went on for another half an hour. I can't get over just how pleased everyone was that I came out to talk to them. They've never done this before. We spoke at length about problems in the community and where -with limited resources- they could do more about getting kids exposed to science. I mentioned that they might consider not waiting for the schools to be "fixed" and take matters into their own hands. Why not have a "science club" for the young (and everybody else), right alongside their bible club, and just share information about good books, ideas of the day, etc, and get people from USC and other places to come and talk as guest speakers? They really could hardly believe me when I said that if they called up USC and asked, they could get more people to come and give a talk (e.g., "Please come and tell us something about DNA"), especially if they make sure that everything is ready and the person just needs show up and talk. They said they were going to try to use USC more. I encouraged them to make a niusance of themselves to get this to work. Here I am with the pastor and some of the young ones:
Truth be told, the young person turnout could have been a lot better. The pastor was confused about this, but thinks that the message about what exactly this was to be did not really get to the schools. I offered to come out and do it again if they wanted to have another go at getting more kids. One thing I talked about (more than I intended to, but that's where the spur of the moment took me) is something that really bothers me a lot. When I go to the parks and the nearby mountains to hike, where are the black people? When I go to the museums, where are the black people? Etc., etc. Why are they not using the resources of the city as much as other groups? Do they not know that they are "allowed to"? That they have just as much a right to do so? There was much nodding and shaking of heads, in acknowledgement of what I was saying. I talked about the discoveries that had been made up Mount Wilson, for example. Nobody knew that you could hike up there, which was remarkable. (On the other hand, I must say here from my encounters around the city that most people -of any ethnic or racial group- don't seem to know anything about the role of the telescopes up there in the history of our understanding of our universe.) I used this as a lead in to the conversation about science. Why are black people not participating in it in numbers, like everyone else? Do they not know that they are "allowed to"? That they have just as much a right to do so? I explained why it is so important to take part in the greater society by doing so. Etc., etc. I won't go on, since I've had this discussion here a lot here (see these links, for example: here and here), but you see where I was going with this, I hope.... I ended up giving directions to the trailhead to Mount Wilson, and explaining about the wonderful stuff that's going to be in the new Griffith Park observatory, and there was some conversation about church trips to see the telescopes.... so look out Sierra Madre, there might be some new faces in your 'hood! Having started at 11:30, and finished at 2:00 or so, we went straight to lunch (to which they wanted to treat me), which -puzzlingly- was held over in Manhattan Beach, so we drove over there to a big seafood restaurant. By now I was exhausted already (early start...... huge seven hour hike the day before.....wild book party the night before....) but we had a great time. And a long time....turned out I did not leave there until 5:30pm. Here some of us are at lunch (which was excellent):
Lunch was excellent not just because of the food, but because of the breadth, depth and scope of the conversation. We went into several interesting topics, from video games and virtual reality, revealed truth vs the autonomy of humans to investigate the universe themselves, through extra-terrestrial life to artificial intelligence. It was simply great! This should be repeated. If you're at USC and want to get involved, let me know. I can help arrange a talk, or we can just talk about things already being done at USC in terms of science/neighbourhood outreach, and how it can be supplemented or expanded. Sounds to me like there's people who have and want to give who are not talking to people who need. We might change some lives -maybe even a whole community- with a few phone calls here. ...now I'm going to veg and watch a movie. What a weekend....I'm wrecked. -cvj
