feature: ‘rediscovering the scientist’ – filmmaker lydia marie hicks animated documentary on the “repressed histories” of science

Explore ‘Rediscovering The Scientist’ – filmmaker Lydia Marie Hicks’ in-progress animated documentary on race and the history of science. Talking to us about the experimental project (now in its 10th year), Hicks tells us: “Portraits of repressed histories of science are woven together as a former scientist looks for herself within science’s foundations. This is a film that helps to validate and empower black and brown experiences by highlighting the margins of history.” Check out the film’s trailer below and support its completion here via Kickstarter.

By Alexander Aplerku, AFROPUNK Contributor

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The odd underrepresented scientist, dusted off for cultural month celebrations and then forgotten again, is not enough to sustain currently underrepresented science students’ desire to belong. Neither is it enough to prove their worthiness to a society that still believes them to be inferior overall. Indeed, their rarity solidifies the fears of minority students and placates the egos of bigots. The celebration of a few seemingly solitary “savage prodigies” has occurred for so long in order to maintain the social order, and seeks to pacify a fire that burns in each of us to know. The reality is that the very foundations of western modern science do not belong to the west. If one only searches a little they will find that this reality has been declared and suppressed since the inception of western modern science. These facts may be accepted by science in passing but they are not institutionalized into its lesson plans, textbooks, and other structures of education.

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