Neil deGrasse Tyson the Racist

Some of you have probably heard about the scuffle in the Dallas area.  A member or the city council made the mistake of referring to the traffic ticket collection office as a black hole.  Apparently a lot of paperwork was getting lost.  Two black officials took offense to the term, one even calling it a white hole.  Well, maybe these folks need to go back to 5th grade science.  A white hole is actually a scientific term for a theoretical object where objects are ejected, rather than sucked in at the event horizon.

Julia Gorin has a pretty good article on this topic in the Christian Science Monitor.  The article points out some of the uses of the word black in positive contexts vs. some uses of the word white in negative contexts.

What does this have to do with Neil deGrasse Tyson?  Apparently he is unaware of the racist-ness of the term black hole, because he named one of his books Death by Black Hole.  He was such a brilliant man with a great show on PBS.  As soon as the two Dallas Mensa applicants find out about good old Neil, he'll have to move see if he can salvage his reputation enough to cohost with Don Imus.  Maybe that will teach him a valuable lesson.

This was old news, but worth mentioning.  I actually started this post over a week ago, but circumstances made it so that I could not finish.  Pretty lame, since it turned out to be so short.

Good luck Neil.