Lockdown made me think of what it would be like to travel to Mars. Stuck in familiar confines, the same people around every day. The same food. A slowly diminishing blue marble the only vibrant object in a black sky hung with tiny white stars.
It made me grateful to have access to baking ingredients, fabric and crafting material, being able to walk outside and watch the changing seasons and touch, smell and hear the falling leaves. I would not make a happy would-be Martian. I'm an Earther through and through. Yes, lockdown for me did involve quite a lot of screen-time, but being able to feel the soft mossy grass under my feet is such a comfort, one that images on a screen just can't match. All those good things an Earther can enjoy that a Martian would just not have the luxury to.
The upside about being stuck in a tin can hurtling through the vast blackness of space? Perspective. Seeing the whole Earth and realising we are all in this together. Knowing that at least you will eventually arrive at an actual destination.
I am feeling a bit of hope lately, New Zealand does seem to be crushing it. Even so, with more cases a plane-ride away, living through a global pandemic feels like a slow tortuous process with no end. There is no nice ‘we've eradicated it' day to look forward to in a few months' time as it seems it will be a hard ask to eliminate it in other countries not as privileged as we are.
I'm writing this on the day that NASA and SpaceX's Dragon successfully propelled two astronauts into orbit, on their way to the International Space Station. I was excited and emotional as I watched at home with my family. Also, it has been a day where we are hearing more about race riots in the US, a reaction to the latest casualty of police brutality. It's a horrible reflection of how comfortable some have become at seeing others as less-than, due to nothing more than the colour of their skin, while some enjoy a cloak of protection. For too many years our privilege and silence has enabled bad behaviour. Many of us have also been living a life completely oblivious to the view from the other side of the mirror.
We aren't racist-free here in Aotearoa. Now more than ever we should be asking, am I helping to perpetuate the kind of discrimination that people of colour are being subjected to on a daily basis?
It is a kind of blindness of thinking, an appeal to ignorance to say New Zealand is free from racism.
As a white cis-gendered female, with Japanese family, I have both seen racism and have been granted a certain protection from it. To me, those who can't see a problem should acknowledge they are privileged and make an effort to educate themselves on how to be an ally. This means for example, actively looking for different perspectives. This means not just letting the status quo present the status quo to you and accepting it. Resist it.
It's recognising white manels (all-male panels) where we see them and saying something, just as Dr. Michelle Dickenson did when she pointed out a manel she saw on Linkedin. On Twitter she wrote “They are all amazing in their own right, I just don't know how in 2020 I am reading a Linkedin post celebrating a #manel sorry panel of business leaders providing insight with so little representation of the #diversity of our nation's leaders”.
What is the problem with manels? It silences voices from other perspectives, and they are self-perpetuating vehicles for the status quo. Experienced speakers are invited again and again. How do we get more diversity into leadership if the group of people assembled to discuss leadership does not include any diversity?
NZ Skeptics want to promote critical thinking, and reduce harm caused by misinformation. We want people to understand logical fallacies like appeals to authority, or celebrity so they can be armed to look past those appeals and instead look for evidence and logic to form beliefs.
It means constantly reviewing assumptions, trying to identify where we have bias, and weighing evidence to refine our beliefs. Saying there isn't a problem is ignoring the problem.
Even if you understand there is a problem, speaking up against privilege and bias from within isn't easy, but it's much easier than trying to do that from the outside.
Elon Musk, CEO, and founder of SpaceX, wants to expand our vision of humanity by sending people to Mars, but he also wanted to keep making electric cars during a lockdown. Articles have now come out about how his die-hard fans are starting to question his superstar status because his cavalier attitude to his workers during a pandemic did not fit their image of him as a hero to humanity. Now there has been an outbreak at his Fremont facility. Tech geniuses are not epidemiologists. Let us hope Musk will start listening to the science, even if he ignores the voices of those disillusioned fans. Underestimating the dangers during a pandemic will not make people immune, and with his platform his comments influence many.
So, whoever we are, let us be skeptical of prejudice and bias. Let us be skeptical of misinformation and privilege and do our homework. The status quo is hurting us and ignoring it or doing nothing will not make things better.
On Earth as it is in space, I can't breathe.