Dear colleagues, 

George Floyd
Breonna Taylor 
Ahmaud Arbery
Tony McDade (who was trans)
David McAtee

These Black people were murdered without justice, they did not just die.

The deterioration of trust between Black and white people -- and sometimes non-Black people of color -- stems from the inaction of white people and others as Black people are systematically oppressed. 

Why is innovation the motivation to support diversity and inclusion? Is this the principle that the astronomy community wants to "uphold?" Why isn't my humanity enough? Why isn't my existence as the sole Black American male Principal Investigator in my major astronomical collaborations (that I know of) enough to motivate you to welcome more Black people? Where are the Black women and nonbinary people who have had to be educated and come of age under the conditions of Black life in America?

Why is productivity the motivation for supporting diversity or for maintaining a high-quality work environment? Why isn't our humanity enough?

To say that I, as a Black man in America -- as one of the few Black physicists in nearly all of my scientific collaborations, as one of the few Black physicists of my generation -- am stressed, is an understatement that speaks to your lack of understanding about what is happening right now. 

I think it's important for everyone to reflect on why it might be that interactions between colleagues only now take on a special significance. Isn't our humanity enough?

This is not about identifying with a minority or marginalized group or diversity and inclusion. This moment is about Black people and the conditions under which we live and work. It is about how white supremacy pervades my professional spaces as well as my life outside of them. 

Does the scientific community support me? Let's take a look.

When we asked for a climate survey last year, and the management committee rebuffed and ignored us, is that "support?"

When I cried in front of an ombudsperson in 2017 when news about the murders of Black people was being highlighted in the media, and the ombudsperson said --- the first thing they said --- "I want you to know, I'm colorblind"; is that "support?" As my friend Chanda Prescod-Weinstein likes to say, “When you don’t see color, when you don’t see my Black heritage, you don’t see me.”

When I was made the co-chair of a Diversity Committee in 2017, and within months, the other co-chair literally ghosted me, is that "support?"

When senior white colleagues can yell at women during meetings (and I'm the only one to speak up about it), and they still get promoted, is that "support?"

We have spent millions of dollars building one of the most complex astronomical devices in the history of cosmological science, but you refuse to even open a book about how to build a healthy and inclusive community and a world where Black lives matter.

You cross continents to gather photons from the farthest reaches of the Universe, but you won't go to an annual meeting of the National Society of Black Physicists in Rhode Island.

Physicists act like the smartest people on Earth, interjecting themselves into every other academic discipline, and then throw their hands up in ignorance when asked to figure out how to make a minor contribution to justice and equality.

You tell me that change takes time, and that we have to do the work.
I asked you to do the work with me.
I was forced to figure out how to do the work without you.
Then, I did the work.
Then, I told you how to do the work.
I made the path visible, but you refused to take it.

And then, as we’ve seen before, there was no real change, and I was told again that change takes time.

Like James Baldwin, I want you to tell me, how long should I risk my life and my dignity for an ideal that I've never seen?

When I was a child, I wanted to grow up to share the beauty and gifts of a scientific understanding of the universe with the world. I've had the privilege to find and create knowledge for my fellow humans. I'm one of the "lucky" ones. How many have shared my dream, but never got this close, because of the science community's complicity through inaction?

Brian Nord

(Co-signed and Co-edited by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein)