November 6, 2023 • 15 mins
BIN News anchor Esther Dillard shares the second part of her discussion with Neil deGrasse Tyson — American astrophysicist and author of the new book To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery.
Listen now!
Listen now!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Ester Dillar brings us part two ofher conversation with Neil Degrass Tyson, where
she talks about his new book andhow he got interested in astrophysics. In
this week's edition of The Color Betweenthe Lines, I'm Aster Dillard on the
Black Information Network, chatting with writersand authors who offer an added perspective for
(00:21):
our listeners. This is the Colorbetween the Lines on this special edition of
The Color between the Lines. Wewere in part two of an interview with
doctor Neil de grass Tyson. Heis a Black astrophysicist that talked to me
about his latest book, To Infinityand Beyond. But before we talked about
(00:45):
his book, I asked him abouthim growing up and he told me a
story about something that happened to himthat changed his life and put him on
the path to where he is today. And I thought to myself, am
I wasting my life? Could Ibe? Am I? If I'm so
much in love with the field,can something that I love that much be
(01:10):
wrong? You know there's a there'san old disco song. If this is
what. If I'm wrong, thenI don't want to be right. If
this feeling is wrong, then Idon't want to be right. Some songs
too. I think it was DianaRoss, one of her songs. Anyhow,
so that it was probably a currentsong at the time was happening because
(01:32):
that's how old I am. Soanyhow, I carry this I would call
it a burden for at least tenyears, always thinking to myself, you
know, getting my undergraduate degree inphysics, a graduate degree in astrophysics.
You know, is this the rightthing? Should I be doing this?
I'm stepping over homeless people, yes, to go to my office. That's
(01:52):
why I asked, what am Idoing? How are we going to change
this? And at the time,there were a lot of people with squeegees
the red light. They're all blackin the city. I'm back in the
city, and so what is awhite person thinking? Who sees this?
With all lazy, shiftless black people, we always knew they can't hold down
a job, all right, Andso I I'm still trying to figure out.
(02:19):
I'm still doing what I love,but I'm carrying this burden. It's
around my neck and I feel it, if not daily, certainly weekly.
And then it all changed, allright. I'm in graduate school at Columbia
University and it's nineteen eighty eight,I think it was eighty nine somewhere around
(02:40):
there, and there was an explosionon the Sun. It was a solar
flare, but it was an explosionand made the wires okay, the and
I got my department got a phonecall from the local news. It was
Fox News before Fox News was aFox News thing. It's just Channel five
was Fox News. Okay, theFox Network's news, all right. And
(03:02):
they they called the department and say, can someone in their comment on this
explosion? If they called during lunch, all the faculty were out at lunch,
and I was in my office said, well, we don't have faculty,
but we've got this guy named Tyson'sa graduate. You know you want
to talk, He say, adoctoral candidate. Sure. They piped the
(03:23):
call through and I said, oh, not to worry. This explosions on
the Sun happens all the time.It's frequent. Charge particles race towards Earth.
They see Earth's magnetic field, theysplit, They slam into our atmosphere,
render it a glow, and itbecomes the northern lights, the Aurora
bory hollis. So why not gonorth this weekend and enjoy it? Earth
(03:45):
is fine? I said, Earthis fine. I said, wow,
could you come into the studio andtalk about it? I said sure.
Then I realized what I'm smelling allfunk. You know, I'm a graduate
student. I got to like dressup for this, So I said,
don't pick me up in my office, pick me up at home. So
I ran home and put on myone tie, my one jacket. Got
the funk out of my thing,okay, and then I go to the
(04:06):
I go and we recreate that interviewin front of a camera. And it
was conducted by the weather guy,of course, because the one the guys
the only wan who has science knowledgetypically in the studios. So it was
recorded in midafternoon. I get home, I call everybody. Mom, Dad
says, I'm gonna be on TVright, all right. So I'm eating
(04:26):
dinner and I'm watched. Then theinterview comes up and I I'm staring,
and I dropped my fork and Isaid, holy what am I noticing here?
And I realized that I'd never inmy life seen an interview of a
(04:47):
black person on television on a subjectthat had nothing to do with entertainment,
sports or like I said, thepreacher who's worried about the inner city.
This was an interview that had nothingto do with being black. The interviewer
didn't say, how do black peoplefeel about this extra solar radiation? You
(05:10):
feel does it effect your skin differentlyfrom it? Was not every none of
that, And he was a blackperson. I was. It was kind
of an out of body experience becauseI'm eating dinner. But you see the
first time you ever see yourself onTV, you get this is that me?
But I'm here? How could thatbe me? Right? So I
get through all of that, I'mand I realized the newscaster was interviewing a
(05:36):
black person who's telling him that Earthis going to be safe with an expertise
that was being tapped in that momentfor that purpose. And I realized that's
one of the last stereotypes that theworld has. Black people just domb they
(05:59):
get low grave than it just them. And of course that's why you're squeeging
my windshield at the red light,because you can't hold out a job because
you're not smart enough. Well,if you see me getting interviewed an astrophysicist,
and that evening a dark skin naturalfit, and that even a black
person is gonna squeege your car.How do you reconcile that you're now forced
(06:26):
to say, I think you're forcedto say, wait a minute, is
it for absence of opportunity or supportthat this person squeeching like what might have
become this person on TV? Nolonger can you sustain a stereotype? And
because there's conflicting information in your face? And it occurred to me that was
(06:49):
one of the last things to overcomein race relations, the idea that black
people can only dance for you ordribble a basketball for you. And at
that point I shed this this albatrossthat had been put around my neck.
That's still a reference to the albatross. Okay, I still shed this weight.
(07:16):
I shed this weight in that instant, and I said, my visibility
alone can be a force of racerelations that can transform how people see and
think about each other and their skincolor. And so I haven't looked back
(07:38):
since. And then I wondered,is it just because I'm seeing myself?
Maybe there were other interviews I justdidn't notice. Right. You know,
you get a new car and everybody'sdriving the same car you're driving. There's
an awareness factor that can buias yoursense of the world. So I spent
the next five years tracking this fiveyears wow, and I no time,
(08:03):
at no time was a black personbrought on for expertise that had nothing to
do with being black. So Ireached the point the conclusion that my interview
may have been the very first ontelevision because that huge gap that followed it,
there was no one. And nowyou see it. You have experts,
political commentators, yes, social comedy. We have commentators on law,
(08:26):
cases, on economics, you havescientists, you have yes, yes,
yes, so yeah, I'm Idon't want to go back in time.
For those of you who are justjoining us, I'm mister Dillard with the
Black Information Network with legendary astrophysicist doctorNeil deGrasse Tyson about his new book,
(08:46):
To Infinity and Beyond. And wehave to talk about this book. You
have written so many books. Howis too Infinity and Beyond different? And
what inspired it? Yeah? Thanks? So what inspired it is My podcast
called star Talk. It's been aroundlike fourteen years. I mean it predates
even podcasts as a thing, andit was started by a grant from the
(09:07):
National Science Foundation and we wanted toexplore how are we going to bring science
to people who don't know that theylike science, or better yet, to
people who know they don't like science. All right, these people like science,
they don't need me. They're goingto chase the science with or without
me. So what we found isif you thread science, pop culture,
(09:28):
and humor into one braid, peoplecome back for more. If I teach
you something and you smile, youlike that, and you like that feeling.
This is not a secret, youcome back for more of that feeling.
The pop culture part is you walkinto the room with a body of
knowledge, and as long as thateveryone shares, that's the definition of pop
culture. So if I'm aware ofthat, I say, hey, I
(09:52):
can attach some science to that partof your scaffold, and I don't have
to teach you anything leading up tothat moment because I'm basing it on your
pop culture knowledge. And then youwalk away say hey, I never knew
that about football, or about theballet, or about this movie. And
so in this book, To Infinityand Beyond, it chronicles the human spirit
(10:15):
that lifted us from Earth into air, into space, to the moon,
Mars and beyond. We've reached themoon physically with our bodies, but our
robots have gone beyond. Will wefollow our robots? How would we make
this happen? Will we travel amongthe stars other galaxies? This seems pretty
(10:37):
remote. But if I put youthree hundred years ago, should you flat
footed and say how would you getto the moon? What answer would you
give me? Well? We needrocket fuel? What's rocket fuel? We
need a rocket? What's a rocket? Can't we just sail there? Does
the atmosphere go all the way tothe to the moon is a balloon?
(10:58):
You all know? Need science,you need technology, you need engineering,
You need people who are not satisfiedbeing contained where they are. They want
to go someplace more than where theywere born. So these are the travelers
who map the Earth. Now,once Earth is mapped, to quote Carl
(11:20):
Sagan, the surface of the Earthis the shore of the cosmic ocean.
All right, we mapped the oceansof the Earl. Now how about the
rest of the universe. So it'sthe fits and starts of these efforts,
and it goes and if there's amovie that attempted to portray some of that,
this is scenery along the way.I'll talk about that movie here.
(11:43):
They got it right, and it'sa movie you would have you recognized what
you heard about, and that's thepop culture link that goes that connects back
into you. And the book ispublished by National Geographic Books, so you
know, is a beautiful books,beautiful pictures and this paper quality there it
is. Yeah, you know,it's funny because when you talked about that,
(12:05):
and I know I'm running out oftime. When you talked about that,
it reminded me of an interview Idid with retired Major General Charles Bolden
Jr. Who worked with NASA,and he said that, yeah, I
was had well he hed him,that's well. He mentioned that the reason
(12:28):
why he even got to NASA wasin part due to pop culture, because
of Star Trek and because of MichelleNichols talking to him and his friend Ron
McNair. Now Ron McNair pushed himover the edge to go to NASA.
But it all yeah, in away, but in a way it was
(12:48):
it was just a kind of acampaign that connected pop culture to young people.
Do you think that that's what isgoing to really take to bring more
black and brown kids into the foldof wanting to get into STEM. And
it would bring anybody, but especiallythose who've been previously disenfranchised. Michelle Nichols
(13:11):
died just a couple of years,a few years ago, who was,
of course, Lieutenant Uhura. Shewas a lieutenant, which means she was
in the line of command of theship, though that she was never put
in that situation, of course,given the day, the nineteen sixties,
but that was forward thinking to havea black person at the head of a
starship. Oh my gosh. Soyou want to talk about the influences.
(13:35):
Did she tell you the story whenshe was at a party in Los Angeles
a fundraiser for some civil rights cause. I've heard it, and Martin Luther
King was at that party, andshe was good. She was gonna do
Star Trek because she really wanted toperform on Broadway. And she was even
even a singer. In fact,at the beginning of Star Trek, where
it goes, that's her voice,Okay, she's a singer, okay.
(13:56):
And so so she was willing toput in one season and she was going
to continue on. And then theyintroduced her to Martin Luther King and he
learns that she's going to go onto Hollywood do something else. She said,
no, you can't do that,you know, say, we arrange
our week to watch you on thisshow. This is nineteen the mid nineteen
(14:16):
sixties. Oh my gosh, hardlyany people on TV were black. And
you can't leave you. You area woman of distinction and pride and power,
And no, you don't. Andshe didn't. She stayed with the
Cities and later on was used torecruit astronauts for NASA so that NASA looked
(14:39):
more like the United States. Buthow do we do that? Now?
That's the that's the really hard thing, is trying And what do you think?
What do you think I'm going?No, I think more if to
show that, especially in sci fiwomen people of color, if they're just
naturally part of the crew, thenit becomes normalized that yeah I could do
(15:05):
that too. And it's not evena big you're not even thinking deeply about
it. It's oh, yeah,yeah, count me in. I like
what they're doing. I want todo that for myself too. Well.
I will have to have you comeback one day and talk to us more
about all of the wonderful things thatyou're doing to try and encourage more kids
to get involved with STEM. You'redefinitely a person who's constantly creating and a
(15:26):
real inspiration. Thank you so muchfor joining us on the BION excellent,
Thank thanks for having me. That'sastrophysicist doctor Neil Decrastus Haysen. His latest
book is To Infinity and Beyond,produced by National Geographic Partners. I'm mister
Dillard on the Black Information Network.Thanks Esther,
Ester Dillar brings us part two ofher conversation with Neil Degrass Tyson, where
she talks about his new book andhow he got interested in astrophysics. In
this week's edition of The Color Betweenthe Lines, I'm Aster Dillard on the
Black Information Network, chatting with writersand authors who offer an added perspective for
(00:21):
our listeners. This is the Colorbetween the Lines on this special edition of
The Color between the Lines. Wewere in part two of an interview with
doctor Neil de grass Tyson. Heis a Black astrophysicist that talked to me
about his latest book, To Infinityand Beyond. But before we talked about
(00:45):
his book, I asked him abouthim growing up and he told me a
story about something that happened to himthat changed his life and put him on
the path to where he is today. And I thought to myself, am
I wasting my life? Could Ibe? Am I? If I'm so
much in love with the field,can something that I love that much be
(01:10):
wrong? You know there's a there'san old disco song. If this is
what. If I'm wrong, thenI don't want to be right. If
this feeling is wrong, then Idon't want to be right. Some songs
too. I think it was DianaRoss, one of her songs. Anyhow,
so that it was probably a currentsong at the time was happening because
(01:32):
that's how old I am. Soanyhow, I carry this I would call
it a burden for at least tenyears, always thinking to myself, you
know, getting my undergraduate degree inphysics, a graduate degree in astrophysics.
You know, is this the rightthing? Should I be doing this?
I'm stepping over homeless people, yes, to go to my office. That's
(01:52):
why I asked, what am Idoing? How are we going to change
this? And at the time,there were a lot of people with squeegees
the red light. They're all blackin the city. I'm back in the
city, and so what is awhite person thinking? Who sees this?
With all lazy, shiftless black people, we always knew they can't hold down
a job, all right, Andso I I'm still trying to figure out.
(02:19):
I'm still doing what I love,but I'm carrying this burden. It's
around my neck and I feel it, if not daily, certainly weekly.
And then it all changed, allright. I'm in graduate school at Columbia
University and it's nineteen eighty eight,I think it was eighty nine somewhere around
(02:40):
there, and there was an explosionon the Sun. It was a solar
flare, but it was an explosionand made the wires okay, the and
I got my department got a phonecall from the local news. It was
Fox News before Fox News was aFox News thing. It's just Channel five
was Fox News. Okay, theFox Network's news, all right. And
(03:02):
they they called the department and say, can someone in their comment on this
explosion? If they called during lunch, all the faculty were out at lunch,
and I was in my office said, well, we don't have faculty,
but we've got this guy named Tyson'sa graduate. You know you want
to talk, He say, adoctoral candidate. Sure. They piped the
(03:23):
call through and I said, oh, not to worry. This explosions on
the Sun happens all the time.It's frequent. Charge particles race towards Earth.
They see Earth's magnetic field, theysplit, They slam into our atmosphere,
render it a glow, and itbecomes the northern lights, the Aurora
bory hollis. So why not gonorth this weekend and enjoy it? Earth
(03:45):
is fine? I said, Earthis fine. I said, wow,
could you come into the studio andtalk about it? I said sure.
Then I realized what I'm smelling allfunk. You know, I'm a graduate
student. I got to like dressup for this, So I said,
don't pick me up in my office, pick me up at home. So
I ran home and put on myone tie, my one jacket. Got
the funk out of my thing,okay, and then I go to the
(04:06):
I go and we recreate that interviewin front of a camera. And it
was conducted by the weather guy,of course, because the one the guys
the only wan who has science knowledgetypically in the studios. So it was
recorded in midafternoon. I get home, I call everybody. Mom, Dad
says, I'm gonna be on TVright, all right. So I'm eating
(04:26):
dinner and I'm watched. Then theinterview comes up and I I'm staring,
and I dropped my fork and Isaid, holy what am I noticing here?
And I realized that I'd never inmy life seen an interview of a
(04:47):
black person on television on a subjectthat had nothing to do with entertainment,
sports or like I said, thepreacher who's worried about the inner city.
This was an interview that had nothingto do with being black. The interviewer
didn't say, how do black peoplefeel about this extra solar radiation? You
(05:10):
feel does it effect your skin differentlyfrom it? Was not every none of
that, And he was a blackperson. I was. It was kind
of an out of body experience becauseI'm eating dinner. But you see the
first time you ever see yourself onTV, you get this is that me?
But I'm here? How could thatbe me? Right? So I
get through all of that, I'mand I realized the newscaster was interviewing a
(05:36):
black person who's telling him that Earthis going to be safe with an expertise
that was being tapped in that momentfor that purpose. And I realized that's
one of the last stereotypes that theworld has. Black people just domb they
(05:59):
get low grave than it just them. And of course that's why you're squeeging
my windshield at the red light,because you can't hold out a job because
you're not smart enough. Well,if you see me getting interviewed an astrophysicist,
and that evening a dark skin naturalfit, and that even a black
person is gonna squeege your car.How do you reconcile that you're now forced
(06:26):
to say, I think you're forcedto say, wait a minute, is
it for absence of opportunity or supportthat this person squeeching like what might have
become this person on TV? Nolonger can you sustain a stereotype? And
because there's conflicting information in your face? And it occurred to me that was
(06:49):
one of the last things to overcomein race relations, the idea that black
people can only dance for you ordribble a basketball for you. And at
that point I shed this this albatrossthat had been put around my neck.
That's still a reference to the albatross. Okay, I still shed this weight.
(07:16):
I shed this weight in that instant, and I said, my visibility
alone can be a force of racerelations that can transform how people see and
think about each other and their skincolor. And so I haven't looked back
(07:38):
since. And then I wondered,is it just because I'm seeing myself?
Maybe there were other interviews I justdidn't notice. Right. You know,
you get a new car and everybody'sdriving the same car you're driving. There's
an awareness factor that can buias yoursense of the world. So I spent
the next five years tracking this fiveyears wow, and I no time,
(08:03):
at no time was a black personbrought on for expertise that had nothing to
do with being black. So Ireached the point the conclusion that my interview
may have been the very first ontelevision because that huge gap that followed it,
there was no one. And nowyou see it. You have experts,
political commentators, yes, social comedy. We have commentators on law,
(08:26):
cases, on economics, you havescientists, you have yes, yes,
yes, so yeah, I'm Idon't want to go back in time.
For those of you who are justjoining us, I'm mister Dillard with the
Black Information Network with legendary astrophysicist doctorNeil deGrasse Tyson about his new book,
(08:46):
To Infinity and Beyond. And wehave to talk about this book. You
have written so many books. Howis too Infinity and Beyond different? And
what inspired it? Yeah? Thanks? So what inspired it is My podcast
called star Talk. It's been aroundlike fourteen years. I mean it predates
even podcasts as a thing, andit was started by a grant from the
(09:07):
National Science Foundation and we wanted toexplore how are we going to bring science
to people who don't know that theylike science, or better yet, to
people who know they don't like science. All right, these people like science,
they don't need me. They're goingto chase the science with or without
me. So what we found isif you thread science, pop culture,
(09:28):
and humor into one braid, peoplecome back for more. If I teach
you something and you smile, youlike that, and you like that feeling.
This is not a secret, youcome back for more of that feeling.
The pop culture part is you walkinto the room with a body of
knowledge, and as long as thateveryone shares, that's the definition of pop
culture. So if I'm aware ofthat, I say, hey, I
(09:52):
can attach some science to that partof your scaffold, and I don't have
to teach you anything leading up tothat moment because I'm basing it on your
pop culture knowledge. And then youwalk away say hey, I never knew
that about football, or about theballet, or about this movie. And
so in this book, To Infinityand Beyond, it chronicles the human spirit
(10:15):
that lifted us from Earth into air, into space, to the moon,
Mars and beyond. We've reached themoon physically with our bodies, but our
robots have gone beyond. Will wefollow our robots? How would we make
this happen? Will we travel amongthe stars other galaxies? This seems pretty
(10:37):
remote. But if I put youthree hundred years ago, should you flat
footed and say how would you getto the moon? What answer would you
give me? Well? We needrocket fuel? What's rocket fuel? We
need a rocket? What's a rocket? Can't we just sail there? Does
the atmosphere go all the way tothe to the moon is a balloon?
(10:58):
You all know? Need science,you need technology, you need engineering,
You need people who are not satisfiedbeing contained where they are. They want
to go someplace more than where theywere born. So these are the travelers
who map the Earth. Now,once Earth is mapped, to quote Carl
(11:20):
Sagan, the surface of the Earthis the shore of the cosmic ocean.
All right, we mapped the oceansof the Earl. Now how about the
rest of the universe. So it'sthe fits and starts of these efforts,
and it goes and if there's amovie that attempted to portray some of that,
this is scenery along the way.I'll talk about that movie here.
(11:43):
They got it right, and it'sa movie you would have you recognized what
you heard about, and that's thepop culture link that goes that connects back
into you. And the book ispublished by National Geographic Books, so you
know, is a beautiful books,beautiful pictures and this paper quality there it
is. Yeah, you know,it's funny because when you talked about that,
(12:05):
and I know I'm running out oftime. When you talked about that,
it reminded me of an interview Idid with retired Major General Charles Bolden
Jr. Who worked with NASA,and he said that, yeah, I
was had well he hed him,that's well. He mentioned that the reason
(12:28):
why he even got to NASA wasin part due to pop culture, because
of Star Trek and because of MichelleNichols talking to him and his friend Ron
McNair. Now Ron McNair pushed himover the edge to go to NASA.
But it all yeah, in away, but in a way it was
(12:48):
it was just a kind of acampaign that connected pop culture to young people.
Do you think that that's what isgoing to really take to bring more
black and brown kids into the foldof wanting to get into STEM. And
it would bring anybody, but especiallythose who've been previously disenfranchised. Michelle Nichols
(13:11):
died just a couple of years,a few years ago, who was,
of course, Lieutenant Uhura. Shewas a lieutenant, which means she was
in the line of command of theship, though that she was never put
in that situation, of course,given the day, the nineteen sixties,
but that was forward thinking to havea black person at the head of a
starship. Oh my gosh. Soyou want to talk about the influences.
(13:35):
Did she tell you the story whenshe was at a party in Los Angeles
a fundraiser for some civil rights cause. I've heard it, and Martin Luther
King was at that party, andshe was good. She was gonna do
Star Trek because she really wanted toperform on Broadway. And she was even
even a singer. In fact,at the beginning of Star Trek, where
it goes, that's her voice,Okay, she's a singer, okay.
(13:56):
And so so she was willing toput in one season and she was going
to continue on. And then theyintroduced her to Martin Luther King and he
learns that she's going to go onto Hollywood do something else. She said,
no, you can't do that,you know, say, we arrange
our week to watch you on thisshow. This is nineteen the mid nineteen
(14:16):
sixties. Oh my gosh, hardlyany people on TV were black. And
you can't leave you. You area woman of distinction and pride and power,
And no, you don't. Andshe didn't. She stayed with the
Cities and later on was used torecruit astronauts for NASA so that NASA looked
(14:39):
more like the United States. Buthow do we do that? Now?
That's the that's the really hard thing, is trying And what do you think?
What do you think I'm going?No, I think more if to
show that, especially in sci fiwomen people of color, if they're just
naturally part of the crew, thenit becomes normalized that yeah I could do
(15:05):
that too. And it's not evena big you're not even thinking deeply about
it. It's oh, yeah,yeah, count me in. I like
what they're doing. I want todo that for myself too. Well.
I will have to have you comeback one day and talk to us more
about all of the wonderful things thatyou're doing to try and encourage more kids
to get involved with STEM. You'redefinitely a person who's constantly creating and a
(15:26):
real inspiration. Thank you so muchfor joining us on the BION excellent,
Thank thanks for having me. That'sastrophysicist doctor Neil Decrastus Haysen. His latest
book is To Infinity and Beyond,produced by National Geographic Partners. I'm mister
Dillard on the Black Information Network.Thanks Esther,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.