“Science was commandeered to prove the biological inferiority of the Negro” - Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963
Dr. King was greatly opposed to the ideas of scientific racism, as detailed in a collection of his works entitled Strength to Love. He goes on to argue that supporters of enslavement in America placed their morals on “...pseudo-scientific writing and argue that the Negro’s brain is smaller than the white man’s brain.” Inspired by the above quote as well as a chapter on scientific racism in Ibram X. Kendi’s, How to Be An Antiracist, Building Castles Upon Sand is a meditation in workshop form. Sit with this former evolutionary scientist turned biology teacher as she comes to terms with what it means to be a black scientist in love with a biological field, and its forefathers, that gave rise to the moral justification for the enslavement of her ancestors. Along the way, you will be asked to help her answer the question: Can Darwin still be my hero?
