Science Friday - Making The Outdoors Great For Everyone. July 3, 2020, Part 1

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

It’s the start to a holiday weekend, which often means spending time outdoors, whether that’s going to the beach, on a hike, or grilling in a park. But not everyone feels safe enjoying the great outdoors—and we’re not talking about getting mosquito bites or sunburns. In late May, a white woman, Amy Cooper, called the police on a Black bird watcher who asked her to leash her dog. This incident felt familiar to many other Black outdoor enthusiasts, many of whom had encountered similar experiences of racism outside. To understand why the outdoors is an unwelcoming place for some people, we need to look back at our violent history. Joining Ira to talk about this is Dr. Carolyn Finney, author of the book Black Faces, White Spaces. She is also a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. And later in the conversation, Ira is joined by two scientists, biology graduate student Corina Newsome from Statesboro, Georgia, and exploration geoscientist Tim Shin from Houston, Texas. They’ll talk about what it’s like to do fieldwork while Black, and what responsibility academic institutions should have in keeping their students safe.   As coronavirus cases surge across the U.S., including in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and California, it’s more important than ever to have an accurate and real-time understanding of transmission. Epidemiologists have been measuring the spread of the virus based on the number of individual people who test positive. But depending on when people get tested, and how long it takes to get their results, confirmed cases can lag days behind actual infections. Luckily, there’s another way to find out where people are getting sick: The virus that causes COVID-19 can be detected in feces, and for months, researchers have been studying whether sampling sewage systems can help identify new outbreaks faster. Scientific American technology editor Sophie Bushwick joins Ira to talk about the value of sewage tracing for COVID-19. Plus, a new sparrow song has gone viral in Canada, and why summer fireworks can damage not only your hearing, but also your lungs. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. A bit later in the hour, we'll talk about how we can make the great outdoors a safe and inclusive place for everyone. But first, the pandemic is worsening in the United States, and the records keep shattering. This week, we saw the number of New Daily cases top 50,000 for the first time, and case numbers are rising in 40 states. But all of those case numbers rely on thousands of individuals getting tested, which, as we've, seen throughout the pandemic can be difficult depending on where you are and there's a time delay. But what if you could see where COVID was peaking before the test results come back? Here to talk about one potential surveillance method, sewage, is Scientific American Technology editor, Sophie Bushwick.

Sophie, welcome back. Thank you. You know, you've started with one of my favorite topics, sewage. We'll talk about that at some other time. Well, sewage is an amazing thing because it's not limited by wealth or by ability to access tests, right? Everybody poops. And in an area with a working sewage system, we've got this way to surveil an entire population. So before the pandemic, researchers had been using this method to look at the use of drugs in an area.

And now they're able to find viral RNA from. the novel coronavirus in sewage. And people, it's not just in the U.S., people all over the world have been looking at this as a method of tracking the novel coronavirus. One group in Spain found that they detected coronavirus in the sewage of an area before any positive tests started coming in. So it could provide a way to spot when an outbreak is about to happen. Now, we're seeing a lot of outbreaks around the country.

Could we have seen them and detected them? sooner by looking at their sewage systems? So it's still a little bit of a new tool, and it's definitely going to have limitations. For example, it's hard to tell, you know, what the concentration of RNA in a sewage sample, how does that translate to the number of people who are actually sick? So this is something that's still being worked out. Some studies have suggested that the concentration of RNA in sewage means that there's more people who are infected with coronavirus than have shown up.

the official test counts, but there's not an exact equation to translate between people and concentration. So it's definitely still something that researchers are working on. And on the treatment side of things, a story about how hospitals are trying to treat COVID-19 without waiting for drug trials. What's going on there? Under normal circumstances, if there is a disease, you want to make sure that the drug use to test it is going to help more than it hurts. So that often involves doing a long clinical trial and waiting for FDA approval and making sure that the information gets published in a peer-reviewed journal. But during the pandemic, a lot of doctors are being forced to look at experimental treatments that maybe haven't been backed up as much as they

like. Maybe they come from a pre-print study. So instead of just relying on papers and clinical trials, doctors are talking amongst themselves. They're discussing how medication has turned out for their patients. And some are more willing to apply still unclear medications. Others are being much more cautious and saying, look, we know that treating with oxygen and electrolytes helps, but the other ones, it's unclear whether they'll help more than they hurt. Which other ones are they trying? So for example, we now know that one of the symptoms of COVID-19 is an increase in blood clots, which can cause all kinds of problems in the human body. But earlier in the pandemic, doctors saw that patients had all these symptoms that could be suggestive of blood clots, but they weren't sure if that's what was going on. And so they didn't necessarily want to give them anti-clotting medication, which can have negative side effects, until they had a better idea.

And so they had to figure out ways to scan their patients without infecting the rest of the hospital to make sure that blood clots were really happening. And then they had to treat them and see what the outcomes were. And now it's become a much more standard treatment for doctors to use anticoagulant drugs on COVID-19 patients. Yeah, so they're making these ethical choices as they go along. That's right. I mean, and the other thing is that they're dealing with pressure often from patients' families who want to know that the hospital's doing everything they can to help their loved ones.

And it's very difficult because I think as humans we all have this idea that doing something is better than doing nothing and that we want to try every possible method of treatment. But doctors are faced with the idea that some of these treatments might not help very much and could have more harmful effects, which is something that happened with hydroxychloroquine when that drug was still being touted as a potential treatment. Let's move on to a different virus, but possibly the same problem, a story about how a strain of swine flu has shown the potential to infect humans. How should I feel about this, Sophie? Not great.

So the good news, the good news, the silver lining is that this is something that is not yet causing disease in humans, but this is something that scientists are saying, we need to keep an eye on this, because swine flu has shown that it can mutate. to be spread in humans. So this is a particular strain of swine flu called G4EA H1N1. And researchers have found it in pig farms in China since 2016. So it's not new. But this new study looked at this strain of H1N1 in humans, and they found that it does infect human airway cells. So so far it hasn't caused disease in the people it's infected,

but they're sounding the alarm that if this virus were, to mutate or adapt, it could perhaps cause disease in humans, and then it would have the potential to turn into another pandemic. All right. Let's talk now about a different kind of viral, a bird song that went viral. Tell us about that. Yes, this is definitely the kind of viral that we all prefer. So birds tend to be creatures of habit.

You know, they'll sing the same bird song over generations. But researchers in Canada found that the white-throated sparrow, was shaking things up and that a particular regional variation on their typical song was spreading through other populations and really, yes, going viral across the country. The story here is that the bird song morphed, changed as it went around? Right. So researchers looked at a website where citizen scientists had uploaded clips of white-throated sparrow song. And what they heard was that a version of the song, the song, The typical version of the song had a three-note ending,

and they found that all of a sudden some of the birds were singing a two-note ending, and that was spreading and replacing the original version. All right, let's listen to a clip from the original version, and let's listen to the hot new song. Mel Sophia, I hope you can hear the difference because... I think if I was a sparrow, it would make more of a difference to me. Is the new song better somehow? I mean, why would you have a new song?

I guess there must be some reason why it changes. Right. So they're still trying to figure that out. So they think they know how it has spread. They put little backpacks on the sparrows to track them as they moved. And they found that sparrows that sung the new song had the same overwintering grounds as sparrows that sang the old song. And so they think that juvenile males learned this new song during this winter season. But what they don't know is why that song would be better.

They haven't found that it helps sparrows defend their territory. So they think that maybe female sparrows are more attracted to males that sing this new song, and that could account for its success. Let's talk about this weekend coming up. The 4th of July is this weekend, and you've got some new fireworks science that, frankly, I'm not excited about having been to many fireworks displays. Please tell us more about it. Right.

So we all know that if you are setting off fireworks, you need to be very careful to avoid explosions and injury that way. But there's another danger, which is that a lot of these fireworks emit toxic substances. So chemicals and metals like lead and copper. And researchers wanted to see what effect these have on human lung cells and on animals. And so they basically bought about a dozen different types of common fireworks and set them off in the lab. and then they took samples of the substances that were emitted, and they exposed human lung cells and live rodents to these different substances. And they found that at least two of the fireworks emitted lead in levels that were harmful,

and that other ones managed to damage lung cells, in particular, a firework called the black cuckoo, was the most toxic, and it was 10 times more damaging to human cells. than a neutral saline solution. Wow. I'm glad. I guess that's the good news and bad news. The good news is we know about it and we can stay away from it. The bad news is that it's happening at all and just don't suck in the fumes, right?

Right. Don't try to, I mean, yeah, try to avoid inhaling fireworks, I guess. All right. Let's close it out with fireworks of a different kind, Sophie. Merging black holes. Scientists think that they've seen fireworks, sort of a flash of light from this now? Yes, this is really exciting. So back in May, astronomers using the gravitational wave observatory LIGO detected gravitational waves that they say came from a collision of two black holes.

But then over the next couple weeks, there was a flare of light coming from the same part of the sky. So what they're saying is this light could have been produced in the merger. How would that happen? Why would the merger cause the light? Right. So we all know black holes are famous for not letting light out. So how is it possible that they produce light? So what these astronomers are suggesting is that if there was dust and gas around the black holes in what's called an accretion disc,

when the black holes merged and released all this energy that could have caused a bunch of heat in this matter nearby. and it's that matter that's producing the light. Well, I would imagine that because physicists like rigorous evidence, there's going to be some controversy going on here, right? Oh, yeah. There are astronomers who say this is absolutely not what happened. This is a big leap, and I completely disagree with your findings. So there's definitely, this is not a sure thing.

It's not a sure thing that this happened. It's something that's very much still up for debate. Well, it's a sure thing that we love having you coming on, Sophie. Thank you. Sophie Bushwick Technology Editor for Scientific American, always a pleasure. Have a great holiday weekend. Thanks, you too. We're going to take a break, and when we come back, the great outdoors can feel less welcoming and safe if you're a person of color. We'll explore the racial barriers to enjoying and studying nature.

We'll be right back after this short break. This is Science Friday. I'm My Reploid. You know, it's the start of a holiday weekend, which usually means going to the beach, going on a hike, or perhaps grilling in a park. But some of you told us on the Science Friday Voxpop app that you may not feel it's safe outside. I don't go into the Great Outdoors because I'm very allergic to the Great Outdoors. Yes, I have definitely enjoyed the outdoors in the past, but because of Lyme disease, I never feel comfortable.

Salt, sand, dirt, heat, rashes, sweat, sunburn, and bugs. Bugs, heat, allergies, those are the usual reasons we hear people saying they don't feel safe outside. But you know what? That conversation began to change a few months ago. In late May, you might recall, a white woman, Amy Cooper called the police on a black birdwatcher who asked her to leash her dog. This incident unleashed a wave of other black outdoor enthusiasts saying, This may be news to you, but hey, things like this happen all the time. And you told us this on our Science Friday Voxpop app. I'm an African-American doctor who grew up in New York's inner city and recently moved to North Carolina.

I've always had a little bit of a fascination with the outdoors, given the fact that I grew up in the city. And I was really excited to start exploring hiking trails and camping in North Carolina. one of the first things my husband told me was, you can't just go camping anywhere. It may not be safe. And I asked some of my white colleagues, if there were any areas in North Carolina where camping might not be safe for African Americans. And a couple of people told me yes, and that some counties that do have camping sites are also known to be a little bit unfriendly to African Americans. So when did the outdoors become an unwelcoming place for some people? Joining us to talk about this is Dr. Carolyn Finney, author of the book Black Faces, White Spaces. She is also a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. Welcome to Science Friday, Dr. Finney. Yeah, thanks for having me here, Ira.

So let's go on to talk about your book. What was your motivation for writing Black Faces, White Spaces? Yeah, the second half of the title will tell your, listener is something, which is reimagining the relationship of African Americans to the great outdoors. And what I always tell people is that it was really personal. You know, when I, in 2001, when I tried to do this, I started off doing this as a dissertation and I went to the library and there wasn't a, I hardly found any books on the shelf about African Americans in the environment. I found a little bit about environmental justice, but what I always say to people, you know,

black people, like I think most groups of people don't like to be wholly. I, I, I don't, I by only the bad things that happened to them in life, which is often the way that environmental justice comes at, and rightly so, comes at the question of black and brown communities and environmental issues. And so at that point, I was like, well, I don't see myself here on the shelf in the stories of black people, which doesn't mean we hadn't been creating stories about ourselves and knowledge about ourselves. But if you think about the history of this country, we haven't always been allowed, you know, in spaces of knowledge production to do that work. And I got really tired of hearing, you know, black people don't fill in the blanks. The things we don't do

as it relates to the environment, which are all missed. They're simply not true, right? For a while, I believe the largest voting block, pro-environment voting block was the Black Caucus. We had so many, we show up everywhere, just like everybody else does. But those stories aren't told, we're not acknowledged, and we're often erased. And so I was really, I really wanted to change that conversation. So part of my telling the stories of other black people, of myself, of engaging is not to point fingers, but instead to say, you know what, we have to own this past because this past got us here today. Well, let's talk about how far back into the past does this go in history. Oh, well, that's an easy one, Ira.

first of all, and I'm just being blunt here. First of all, we stole the land from the original people who are here. So this will always be stolen land. It doesn't matter how far we get down the road. This will always be stolen land. And number two, we enslaved a group of people to work on that land for free to build the backbone of our economy. That will always be true as well. Now, I'm not saying there isn't nuance or complexity.

Of course, there is. But those two moments in our history help to found this country. It's why a lot of people don't want to look at it. That's really hard to own. How do we own that? How do we own that we did that to two group of people to get where we are today? But I believe that's where we have to start at least, you know, and if we want to talk about reconciliation, redemption, reparations, whatever it is,

you know, we want to talk about and meet each other, you know, meet each other in a place where we can really build a relationship that's built in part on that acknowledgement, you know, and not trying to pretend that we all got here in the same way. We did not. And all of our institutions, every single one has been built on that. I'm not saying that everybody in those institutions are bad people. I know I work in a lot of these institutions. There's some really good people out there, are good organizations trying to do some good work and to understand that the roots in there, those foundations of those organizations and institutions, and some of it's invisible that's embedded right into those systems. So you have mission statements that are 50 years old or 60 years old

that were created at a time of Jim Crow segregation. If you were non-white, you couldn't show up in these spaces, including parks, including the woods, the forests, including beaches. You could not show up in the same way. Because you did not feel safe or you were not allowed to? It doesn't matter. The continuum for me is all the same in terms of it's on a continuum. You either, at one end of it, you were not allowed to. And somewhere else is all the insecurity. It's Christian Cooper and Amy Cooper. It is the idea that you can be challenged by, I've had it happen to me. I know a lot of black and brown people who it's happened. to, right, where you're challenged about your right to even be there, whether it is weaponizing

the color of your skin, whether it's asking you nine years old, walking in from school, you know, basically challenging what are you doing here in this neighborhood? So when I think about Amy Cooper, I bet you she's actually a pretty nice person, you know, and I think that she probably didn't walk into the park that day going, if I see a black person, this is what I'm going to say. But what's interesting is that somewhere, that's what came up for her right away. Not to say that a man was threatening her, not even to say that there's a person, you know, threatening her. She could have said, she could have nuanced that thing. And I'm not saying that would have made it right, but she could have nuanced it. But what she said was, there is an African-American man

threatening me. You know, I bet you she doesn't even understand why she said it, you know, consciously. but it's embedded in there, you know. And that's the piece that I really am trying to sort of tease out. How do we finally, finally just rip up those band-aids and actually deal with that truth? It's ugly. It's really ugly. But for those of us who have to live in that place of insecurity and discomfort all the time. If you ever watch Real Sports Tonight with Brian Gumpel, and I just love that show, last week at the end, he did a short monologue that was personal.

and he talked about something called the black tax. And he explained it so succinctly about what that is. I knew what it was, but I know that a lot of my white friends and colleagues had never heard of it. But I've known what it is my whole life. The idea that it doesn't matter how much money you make as a black person, how much education you have, what your opportunities have been. At the end of the day, you're always up against the potential insubility, being challenged about who you are, that you have to represent the race in a country that promotes individualism, we are not allowed

to just be ourselves and who we are. We are always representing the race. And so the energy that's required at all times in every space to negotiate that, because you don't know what the response to you is going to be. Let's talk a bit about the name of your book, because it provokes a very powerful image, black faces, white spaces. What do you think it's going to be? What do you think it's going to take for this country to stop thinking of the outdoors as white spaces? I think that's a great question, and it's a hard one to just answer quickly. But I think part of what it's going to take is what's happening now. And actually, what's been happening. It's, what's really important for me is to honor people, black, brown, and white,

who've actually been doing this work to change that for some time. I served on the National Parks Advisory Board for eight years. up until two years ago. And one of the things that I came to learn and understand when we go around the country, looking at different parks, meeting the staff, and many of the people who take care of our public lands and work, is that there is a lot of love there.

There are people who are thinking about what that means, you know, to go beyond diversity. And I want people to understand that when I say diversity, I'm not talking about assimilation. If difference is invited to the table, if we're going to have different kind of people in the room, it is not making everybody who assimilate to one way that it's always been. Actually, it may be that you have to throw out the table

and start over from scratch, which is what's really hard. And so one of the things I learned about the National Park Service as a huge government agency is that you can have individuals really trying to do that work, and they're struggling because they're up against a structure, an agency structure that's been in place for a long. time. So I think one of the things it's going to take is a prolonged commitment. It is not about an end goal. Diversity is not an end goal that we're trying to reach. We have always been

diverse in this country, always. For me, it's about improving our ability to stand, you know, in good relationship with each other with our differences and work together. It is going to be a prolonged attention to how we treat each other in our relationships and our willingness to own what has come before. It doesn't matter if you weren't alive 100 years ago. I wasn't either. But I'm bearing the brunt and the consequence of that, as are you. So how do we look at that together and own that? And what does that look like? How do we determine where does we want to go? We have so much potential. That's what the incredible thing is for me about this moment. We have so much potential, you know. And so a lot of it is our ability to get better at claiming that

potential. You know, I hear you saying this, and as someone who's old enough to remember the civil rights movement of the 60s and live through that, and sometimes I think I'm back in the 60s watching what's going on, and yet there was the failure of that movement in the 60s to move us to the place we wanted to get. You seem to be saying now that you are more hopeful now, that your time has arrived. Well, what I'm saying, too, is I was really small during the 60s. So I only remember it as a vague sort of, it's a vague memory as you do when you're a small child. But I actually would say to you that it did get us somewhere. Here's what's true. You know, it meant that my parents and myself had different, actually me and my brothers had

better opportunities than my parents did. What couldn't happen in the exact same way would be someone, if I looked for a job as a park ranger, I could not actively be told that you can't hire me because I'm Negro. So actually, we have come down the road. One, two, I want to say that actually I'm an incredibly hopeful, optimistic person because I've had to be. I have to believe we can be better as human beings. First and foremost, all of us are human beings, which doesn't mean we get to skip over our differences, right, to get to where it is we want to go. But we have done so many things as human beings that are simply amazing. We've gone to the moon.

I mean, we've done so many things. We've proven to ourselves. We are so much more than we think we can be. Why can't we do it here around this work? Let me just take a short break and remind everybody if they're just joining us. I'm Ira Plato. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studio. And if you are just joining us, we're talking with Dr. Carolyn Finney, author of the book Blackface's

White Spaces. She is also a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. Dr. Finney, your book has been out for quite some time now, but what is it like to have worked with this subject for so long? And now all of a sudden, everyone is talking about it. Yeah, that's a good question. When that book came out six years ago, and this is not me patting myself on the back like I'm so great. I haven't had to look for work at all because I, the only way that I show up in somebody's space is you have to invite me to have this conversation. And often when predominantly white organizations or groups invite me, this is a hard conversation to have. And I use humor and I have all kinds of strategy to come into a room. But I have to be

invited. So this is now how I make my living. And it's funny for me because the book just keeps, it just has this slow roll. And so I think there's something about the lifetime of it. At this moment, I see my book as part of a larger set of, what do I want to say? Books, papers, ideas, art, voices that are out there right now. And it's coming up again. But it actually, it's been like this for me the whole time. I will say that I just think the stuff has always, it's been, it's been bubbling for a really long time. And in the environmental sector, it's been bubbling in very particular ways.

It's also important for me to point out to, man, the people who have been doing this work, Audrey and Frank Peterman, Maivine Bech, Anjolu Azelio, Majora Carter. I may mean names, people can look them up. There are so many, Theresa Baker, Rue Map of Outdoor Afro, Jose Gonzalez of Latinos Outdoors. There are so many people who've been

doing this work for a long time on the ground, right? John Francis, man, who spent 22 years walking across the United States to raise environmental awareness. You know, there are so many black and brown people who continue to do this work. My book is just one piece, you know, it's just one, it's another little drop in that bucket trying to expand that voice and expand that platform. So I'm just really grateful that I get to be here. I understand this moment.

You know, we get these moments as human beings, right? This is a moment. I mean, this does not feel like a moment between the pandemic. Black Lives Matter, everything that's happening right now. For me, it means that it's scary. Yes, I'm scared too. I've had days where I get really depressed, you know. But I also see the door has flung open.

And, you know, for the rest of us, it's about suit up and show up right now because all of this disruption and dismantling make space for something new to emerge. Right. So that is what gets me up every day. Like, who knows what's going to happen today? Yeah, well, I'm glad we could become part of this conversation. Yeah. I'm glad.

I'm glad you invited me. And I want to thank you for taking time to be with us today, Dr. Finney. I thank you for working me up. I love it. Dr. Carolyn Finney, author of the. the book, Black Faces, White Spaces. She's also a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. We're going to take a short break, and when we come back, we'll continue this conversation with two scientists about making the outdoors more inclusive. We'll talk about what it's like to be a

black scientist doing field work and what responsibility academic institutions should have in keeping their students safe. So stay with us. We'll be right back after this short. break. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. We're continuing our conversation about making the outdoors more inclusive. But we're going to shift gears a little bit now. We're obviously a big fan of scientists here at Science Friday, and it's not easy to get a career in, say, biology, ecology, or whatever your ology of choice is. And whether it's in internships, universities, or out in the field, there are barriers for black scientists that don't always exist for their white peers. And that's what we're going to be talking about right now. Let me introduce my guests.

Karina Newsom, Biology Graduate Student at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Tim Shin, an exploration geoscientist in Houston, Texas. Welcome, Tim, to Science Friday. Welcome back, Karina. Thanks so much, Ira, for having me. Thank you. Nice to have you both. To start, I'd like to hear from both of you. Are your respective fields diverse? And Tim, let me begin with you. The answer to that is not particularly. Geoscience as a whole is very, very white,

and there are very, very few black people as geoscientists in the United States. And Karina? In my field of bird biology or ornithology, there have been very few. I can count on one hand the number of black people that I have physically encountered, whether it be recreational birders or professional biologists, so not a very diverse field. And in fact, I know you've been very vocal about what it's like to be a black scientist and a black bird watcher. You were one of the co-organizers of Black Birders Week, which happened right, about a month ago. Tell us what that event was and the goal behind it. Yeah, so Black Birders Week, the event itself was created.

rapidly in response to what happened in Central Park with Christian Cooper, who is a blackbirder that many of us look up to and have for a long time. And essentially, we felt that it was the perfect time to talk about our experiences, which has been happening long before that incident, which is that many of us are hyper aware, hyper conscious of the ways that white people perceive our presence when we're out going birding. And many times, most of us have encountered white people being anything from visibly uncomfortable to following us. And some people have even been followed by the police on many occasions when they're birding. So our goal for Black Birders Week was one to increase the visibility of black people in the outdoor

exploration world. Secondly, we wanted to kind of open the dialogue about our experiences because oftentimes we've been silenced when it comes to voicing our thoughts and our experiences. And then thirdly, finally, we wanted to essentially display the importance of diversity in any community of people, but specifically in the realm of birding. And how did you feel the reaction? What was the response like? I was completely floored in a good way by the overwhelming response in the United States and around the world to see so many black people visibly uplifted by seeing other black people doing the thing that they felt alone in doing, you know, birding or

hiking or being outdoors. And then I was even more surprised by the large organizations and even government agencies that backed our efforts and used their platform to amplify our voices. So I was absolutely delighted and thrilled by the response that we received. Tim, since Blackbirders' Week, there have been other viral movements to elevate Black outdoor enthusiasts. Why was it so important for you to participate in say, hashtag Black in Nature? Yeah. So I've done a bit of outreach. I'm a committee member of the diversity in Geosciences Committee for the Geological Society of America. And I find that as we are black, we are highly underrepresented within the geosciences. And for me, it was a big deal when I saw other

black scientists at my first conference to see that there were other role models out there for me. And so it was important for me to get out there and show young people that geoscientists are black people and that black people are out in nature. And so that was really important for me. And also, was a sense of community that I don't otherwise have because I maybe went to school with in geoscience's three other black students. And during my graduate degree, there was only one other black student in the department. We spoke to some other black scientists about this topic to get their perspectives on inclusivity. And here's what we heard from Josh Anadu, who studies environmental Geophysics in Oklahoma.

Josh recently had an intimidating encounter with neo-Nazis while doing field work. Josh is okay, but he says this is an extreme example of racism he encounters when he's out in the field. You know, people like to know often when you're doing fieldwork what you're doing, which is understandable, especially if you're on their area. But a lot of times that's where I get, like, people not respecting me or, you know, like not thinking I know what I'm talking about.

or things like that. Tim, you're also a geoscientist. Have you felt racism out in the field akin to Josh's? Yeah, I mean, most definitely. I've actually been pretty fortunate in that unlike Josh, I've never actually encountered any neo-Nazis that have shown themselves to be neo-Nazis, and no one has actually gotten particularly aggressive with me.

But just like Karina said, in our field, you're constantly outside when you're doing field. fieldwork, you're often walking through other people's land, and people get really suspicious, particularly if you're black. And we're often not allowed to go into the field alone. And I definitely recommend that black students or scientists don't go into the field alone as geoscientists because we're often in the middle of nowhere, and it can be scary. So yes, I face that. And I've done some field work in other countries where it's a little less aggressive, but I've also probably been the only black person for miles. When I did field work in

Turkey, everybody was watching me, you know, if I was in the city or if I was walking down the street or if I was in the field. We drew a crowd. There were paramilitary that came to us at one point because of my presence. So I faced sort of a lot of adversity in regards to that. Karina, how about you? So for me, I do field work in Southern Georgia on the coast and I have not encountered any racist experiences directed at me, but the place where I live and where I do my research is very visibly and obviously hostile to black people, you know, when you have Confederate flags everywhere and people protesting Confederate monuments and all Lives Matter signs and even like plantation museums that erase the horrific nature of the

enslavement of black people in the United States. because of the expression of hatred here, and even with the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia here, every time I'm in the field, I am kind of doing everything that I can to look as least suspicious as possible. So I posture myself in a certain way. I carry my equipment in a very obvious way if I'm in view of the road or where people are walking or driving. And there have been several times when I'll be in the marsh, because that's where I do my research on Seaside Sparrows. and I'll be kind of walking back to my car, which is parked on the edge of the road, on the side of the marsh, and I'll see someone, like, pull off the road

and park their truck and just watch me. And every single time, it's like there's a pit in my stomach that's like, this is about to be when stuff goes down. Like, I feel like I'm always around the corner from some sort of incident or something happening. And so I'm always prepared to essentially fight or defend myself or, you know, prepare for the worst. But thankfully, and I know that for a fact,

that as a light-skinned black female, my experience is not the same as, for example, a dark-skinned black man in this kind of a context. And so I don't want people to hear my story and think that everything's fine because my experience is not the same as people of darker complexion who are black. Wow. Let's talk a bit about what it's like to actually get a career as a scientist. Here's what we heard from Kawasi Rensford, who is a PhD candidate in behavioral ecology at Berkeley. who ends up in academia, who ends up getting to certain points, I think is really important. I think one of the biggest things is that I think for folks who look like me, for like other black folks and other people of color,

it's hard to find and to see people who look like you doing this kind of work, you know? In my role as an academic, I definitely, one of the things that keeps me going is wanting to be that for someone in the future. Let me ask both of you, do you feel yourselves as role, models, Karina? I definitely posture and position myself to be a role model because the only reason I'm in biology at all and wildlife conservation at all is because a black woman who is a zookeeper at my home zoo in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Zoo, she reached out to me and invited me to see what she did as a zookeeper. And the crazy thing was I had heard about her. Her brother, who's a friend of my family,

was like my sister, she works at the zoo and she would love to connect with you. And my first thought was she probably works in concessions and can't help me, which looking back as an adult professional in this field, I'm so embarrassed and hurt by the fact that I ever thought that. But the reason I thought that is because I saw zero black people ever doing this kind of job. And I only ever saw white people doing this job. And that literally directly impacted how I considered myself positioned to exist in such a career or not exist in it. And the way that I interpreted other people's existence in this career or lack thereof. And the moment, I saw her doing her work was when I realized that I could do it too. And again, it wasn't a conscious

thought that I'm black. That means I can't be a zookeeper or I can't be a biologist. My mind had just been structured that way to interpret the world that way. And so now, because of my experience with representation and how powerful that is, I definitely recognize that someone just seeing me doing my job, a black person just seeing me being an or an ornithologist or being a bird or a zookeeper is a powerful image to see and can change the trajectory of someone's career as it did for me. Yeah, it really is, actually. And I had a slightly different story where I also had no idea what geology was when I was growing up. And then after spending three years, painful years in electrical engineering and undergrad,

I switched into geology after a couple of Hispanic friends told me about it. So I switched into that, but really at the University of Texas at Austin, and where I got my undergrad and my master's, there were no black faculty in geosciences. So there wasn't any sort of representation for me there. And like I said earlier, when I went to my first Geological Society of America meeting, I met some of the most high-powered black geoscientists out there and seeing these people out there doing this and not just in lesser positions, but actually incredibly powerful head positions like this was huge for me.

And because of that, I actually then became, started thinking of myself as sort of a role model or a role model in the making. Tim, is representation a barrier to even getting a foot in the door in science? I think it is, actually. I've been having discussions recently about the pipeline and really the leaky pipeline to stem, as they call it, and saying that there aren't enough qualified black or BIPAC candidates to come into the field. But really, having based on my own experiences and what I've read from Karina and what we've just heard from Karina's experiences, I think that it's not particularly a pipeline problem. It's really more that there's no representation.

I mean, there are black scientists out there in a lot of places. They're just not, perhaps they're not spread out enough for people to see. and so mentorship and that representation is incredibly powerful. Very interesting. Let me remind our listeners that I'm Ira Flato, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. In case you're just joining us, we're talking about the barriers black scientists face

in their careers, their job, their education. My guests are Karina Newsom, a biology graduate student in Statesboro, Georgia, Tim Shin, an exploration. geoscientist in Houston, Texas. Karina, you're still in graduate school. Would you like to see more diversity in your department? Absolutely.

And I think one of the kind of exhausting things about being the only black person in a space, and Tim has been kind of speaking on this as well, is that you have to, you're essentially representing all black people to the white people in your space. And it shouldn't be that way, but that's the way that it is. And so, for example, when I'm in class or when I'm in a group of, you know, white students, even in a, you know, quote unquote friendly environment, I feel like I can't afford to ask certain questions that other students can afford to ask because I'm thinking, how does this make black people look? Well, this make people think that I'm incapable because I'm black.

And I go through a whole series of thoughts and questions and answers within my own mind to determine if I can present any sort of weakness or flaw or question or something that I don't know. because, again, what I do and how I act and the things that I say are going to inform what the people in my space, professionals and the other students, think about black people in this space because I'm the only one here. And so because that is exhausting, I can see that as being a contributor to someone dropping out of that space because it is tiring and it costs a lot of your energy and emotional capacity. And so I would like to see more black people in the science space for even that reason so that black students can breathe for once and just do the job of being a student, of being a graduate student, of doing the research and focus more specifically on why they are in graduate school in the first place. Well, then, do you think it's the responsibility of the schools and their departments to be more inclusive as part of their jobs? I definitely do. And I think that oftentimes they do put that burden on the, the one or two or three black people in the department to bring in other black people and to

fix the problem with the issue is that a lot of the reason why science is so white is because it's a structural problem. And so there are things that need to change in the way the departments operate, in the way they recruit, in the way that they do community engagement. Like all of these efforts and initiatives could be fine-tuned to make the space structurally one that is welcoming to black people. Do you feel hopeful now with the, the Black Lives Matter movement, moving, and gaining momentum it never had before that, you will see those changes, Tim, that you would like to see? Yeah, so I'm hopeful because I feel like a lot of people right now are really awakening

to what we as black or other marginalized communities face in getting into the sciences and being supported, as well as just basic human rights. and I think that a lot of people who were otherwise sitting on the sidelines before are actually speaking up now. However, for the sciences, in my own experience, you know, as a geologist to get into a professional job or to be a professor, it can take you four years in undergrad, three years for your master's, two to three years for your master's, maybe another four years for your PhD. So you're talking about seven, ten years before you make a new professor, barrens. any other things to slow them down. And so I think it's going to take a long time before we see any

positive effects, even after we start to hit the ground running and make positive effects in the present day right now. Corina, are you discouraged by what you hear Tim talking about the length of time and then the added burden of being a black student? Or are you really hopeful? Well, I am hopeful. And I think that the good thing is that a person in the science realm doesn't actually have to be a professor to then contribute to the next generation, seeing people like them. So even though it will take some time for, say, someone who's currently an undergrad to reach the professor stage, they can still make a massive impact on young black children who might have

passions that are untapped or unrealized or unpursued in the sciences. And so I am very hopeful, despite how long it might take for them to get to the professional stage that changes are happening. Well, I'd like to thank both of you for taking time to be with us today. Tim Shin, Exploration geoscientist in Houston, Texas. Karina Newsom, biology graduate student at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. Thank you for letting us know what it's like to be on your side. Thank you so much, Ira.

Thank you. You're welcome. Charles Berkowitz is our director. Our producers are Alexa Lim, Christy Taylor, Katie Feather, and Kathleen Davis. B.J. Leitman composed our theme music. and if you missed any part of the program, or you would like to hear it again, subscribe to our podcasts,

or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. Have a great holiday weekend. I'm Ira Flato in New York.