{"id":570231,"date":"2021-06-22T10:52:13","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T14:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=570231"},"modified":"2021-06-22T10:52:20","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T14:52:20","slug":"black-holes-are-connected-to-racial-blackness-cornell-u-course-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/black-holes-are-connected-to-racial-blackness-cornell-u-course-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Holes Are Connected To \u2018Racial Blackness,\u2019 Cornell U Course Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fblack-holes-are-connected-to-racial-blackness-cornell-u-course-says%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=570231&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1217774756.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>An astronomy course at prestigious Cornell University, concerned about racism in the universe, not just Planet Earth, asked the deathless question: \u201cIs there a connection between the cosmos and the idea of racial blackness?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As famed author Heather Mac Donald, who has written numerous books, including \u201cThe War on Cops,\u201d writes in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/cornell-black-hole-class-racializes-astronomy?wallit_nosession=1\">City Journal<\/a>, the course, titled \u201cBlack Holes: Race and the Cosmos,\u201d notes in the catalog description that \u201cconventional wisdom\u201d asserts that the \u201c\u2018black\u2019 in black holes has nothing to do with race,\u201d but astronomy professor Nicholas Battaglia and comparative literature professor Parisa Vaziri suggest the truth may be otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/classes.cornell.edu\/browse\/roster\/SP21\/class\/ASTRO\/2034\">catalog description<\/a> reads:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"17\">\n<p><em>Conventional wisdom would have it that the \u201cblack\u201d in black holes has nothing to do with race. 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 \u201cblack holes\u201d and \u201cevent horizons\u201d to interpret the history of race in creative ways, while artists and musicians conjure blackness through cosmological themes and images. 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. 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 Mon\u00e1e. Astronomy concepts will include the electromagnetic spectrum, stellar evolution, and general relativity.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Mac Donald notes, \u201cBattaglia and Vaziri puncture the \u2018conventional wisdom\u2019 by drawing on theorists such as Emory University English professor Michelle Wright. Wright\u2019s book,\u00a0<em>The Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology,<\/em>\u00a0invokes \u2018Newton\u2019s laws of motion and gravity\u2019 and \u2018theoretical particle physics\u2019 to \u2018subvert racist assumptions about Blackness.\u2019 The Cornell course also studies music by Sun Ra and Outkast to \u201cconjure blackness through cosmological themes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She concludes, \u201cToday\u2019s 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. \u2026 Seeing specters of racism everywhere, the racial avengers are tearing down every institution associated with Western civilization, simply because of its \u2018whiteness.\u2019 Science had stood as a guard against such metaphorical, magical thinking. Bit by bit, it is succumbing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, another course description at Cornell recently came under fire for ostensibly being racist. The course description of a rock climbing P.E. class \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20201202163126\/https:\/scl.cornell.edu\/coe\/pe-courses\/spring-pe-courses\/rock-climbing\/BIPOC-rock-climbing\">initially said<\/a>\u00a0that the class was open only to those students identifying as BIPOC, which sparked controversy on Cornell\u2019s campus and beyond. A<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/Cornell\/comments\/jr9vti\/end_racially_segregated_pe_classes_at_cornell\/\">\u00a0thread of posts<\/a>\u00a0to the Cornell reddit called for an end to \u2018racially segregated P.E. classes at Cornell,\u2019\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/cornellsun.com\/2021\/05\/04\/students-and-instructors-defend-bipoc-p-e-class-after-online-controversy\/\">Cornell Sun<\/a> reported in May. \u201cSome argued that the implementation of BIPOC rock-climbing, by offering the class only to students of particular races, was a hindrance to diversity and inclusion efforts,\u201d the paper noted. \u201cOthers said that Cornell\u2019s decision was racist and in violation of federal Title VI, which states that no educational program receiving federal financial assistance may exclude participation on the basis of race or national origin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An astronomy course at prestigious Cornell University, concerned about racism in the universe, not just Planet Earth, asked the deathless question: \u201cIs there a connection between the cosmos and the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2280946,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1217774756.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Black Holes Are Connected To \u2018Racial Blackness,\u2019 Cornell U Course Says","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1217774756.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Black Holes Are Connected To \u2018Racial Blackness,\u2019 Cornell U Course Says","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2280946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}