Is Racism Playing a Role in the Religious Right's Hostility to Neil deGrasse Tyson?

[eridani]

Is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope shit in the woods? Ya think?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/02/1289208/-Is-Racism-Playing-a-Role-in-the-Religious-Right-s-Hostility-to-Neil-deGrasse-Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson's willingness to clearly and plainly state on his TV show Cosmos that creationism is a myth has (predictably) upset Christian fundamentalists.

Moreover, in an era where conservatism is typified by anti-intellectualism, the howls of protest that Neil deGrasse Tyson would be dismissive of the fantastical and facile thinking which often hides under the false cover of "balance" and "fairness" in American political discourse, is another source of umbrage and raw offense for the Christian Right.

The hostility towards Neil deGrasse Tyson is more than a function of simple anger or rancor towards the scientific facts he deftly and calmly presents on Cosmos.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is not an empty vessel. Neil deGrasse Tyson is also not a blank slate devoid of identity or form. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a black man. His gender and his race occupy a specific location and context in American society.

As such, Neil deGrasse Tyson is not racially unmarked.

Blackness, masculinity, and being gendered as "male", channel a rich and complicated history of fear, loathing, desire, violence, fascination, disgust, envy, strength, labor, and violence (both as a subject and object), in the American racial imagination.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, as a black public intellectual and scientist, is located within that history

[Seeking Serenity]

1. No.

[Calista241]

2. They didn't like Carl Sagan either

N/t

[newfie11]

3. Probably. Nt

[HipChick]

4. Yes..very much so

[WillyT]

5. Religion Has Been Used For Millennium To Put People Down... So Yeah...

[JI7]

6. i'm sure they don't like him because he is black but they are opposed to science in most cases

[Autumn]

7. I doubt it very much. Their problem with him is he violated one of their sacred beliefs.

That's what they can't handle. Their myth of creationism is a belief that must be true or it invalidates their entire faith.

[AverageJoe90]

8. There's no doubt in my mind that it does indeed play a factor.

[pscot]

9. Duh

It's a 2-fer; race and religion.

[gollygee]

10. I imagine they don't like him for a number of reasons

including that.

[LadyHawkAZ]

15. +1

[Bigmack]

11. Of course....

... I'm just waiting for one of the RW critics to use the word "uppity".

Nothing worse - in their eyes - than an educated, erudite, popular black man.

[monmouth3]

20. Reading my mind again Bigmack. Enough that he's a handsome black man but damn, he had

to be so smart and popular. Must be killin' them...LOL..

[pangaia]

12. I would venture that their hatred for and fear of

what he is saying is so strong, they have forgotten that he even is black.

On Edit.. Is Dr Tyson ..black?
Oh my. So he is. I hadn't even noticed.

I DID, however, notice is cool thumbs....

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

13. No

They are reality challenged. Most of them don't even know Bible wasn't compiled as one book until the Council of Nicea under Roman Emperor Constantine.

[Agnosticsherbet]

14. The conservative religious right are anti-intellectual religious fanatics opposed to

anything that runs counter to biblical literalism. Race hasn't anything to do with that.

[Initech]

16. No, it's rationalism vs. stupidity.

On DirecTV there are 16, repeat 16 religious channels and all of them represent Christianity and Chrishtian denominations. Cosmos is one hour a night. Let us have that without infecting it with anti evolution nonsense!

[etherealtruth]

17. Not solely based on his race

.... the right wing nut jobs ARE racist scum ... but they also are the folk that have brought us 'creationism' .... and other idiocy.


Neil deGrasse Tyson is the black man pointing out that they are imbeciles

[Hoyt]

18. It's no different than Obama. He's Democrat and Black. That's more than they can take.

Hatred Overload.

[Iggo]

19. Two separate things.

They'd hate his blackness no matter what he did for a living, even if they'd never heard of him before. So sure, yeah, they hate him because he's black. That's their default position.

On the other hand, there's the Cosmos thing. That's got everything doing with the emperor having no clothes. They don't like when you point that out. Doesn't matter if you're black, white, or green. You tell 'em their fairy tales are bullshit, they get a little cranky.

[NutmegYankee]

21. I would say yes.

And it's not just racism - it's the fact that he is brilliant as well. The racist elements of the religious right cannot accept that this supposedly in their eyes "inferior" man is smarter than 10 of them combined . Combine that with the devastating crushing of creationism and the constant reminders that the church has held science back and the religious right is howling louder than Georgia after Sherman's March.

Music to my ears!

[tblue37]

22. Their rejection of the science is unrelated to racism, but the *heat*

of their reaction is probably very much influenced by fury over hearing their "absolute truths" rejected by what they must consider to be an "uppity" black man.

[brooklynite]

23. UNREC

The OP and the supporting article offer no evidence of Black animus, other that vague speculation that conservatives naturally hate Blacks, so it must be the case here.

We KNOW they're opposed to COSMOS because of its scientific facts; why waste time trying to find an unnecessary and unsupported alternative hypothesis?

[99Forever]

24. I doubt it.

Not that racism might not add to the hate, but what "good christians" hate more than anything, is facts that show their BS for what it is.