What does ‘Mahalo.ne.Trash’ mean?
Mahalo.ne.Trash is the personal blog of John Asher Johnson, an astronomer at Harvard University in the US who began blogging in 2007, when he was about to begin a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Hawaii. The site’s name was inspired by Johnson’s realization that the Hawaiian word “mahalo” – which appears on rubbish bins (or “trash cans” in US English) all over the islands – means “thank you”, rather than “trash”. (The “.ne.” part, Johnson adds, is “a form of nerd-speak for ‘not equal to'”.) Despite being initially dubious about writing a blog – in his first post, he claimed to have a “fear of digital commitment” – Johnson took to the medium like a natural, writing more than 100 posts in his first year. And unlike many bloggers, he’s kept up the pace as his career has progressed, taking him first to the California Institute of Technology and then to Harvard, where he has been a professor since 2009.
What are some sample topics?
Johnson is, in his own words, “the first Black professor to attain tenure at Harvard in the physical sciences [sic]” and in recent months, he has often blogged about what it’s like to be an “uber-minority” in astronomy. For example, in one post he recalls being uncomfortable with affirmative action programmes as an undergraduate because “I chafed at the idea that people thought I needed help just because I was Black, and being part of the physics-boy culture, I didn’t want people to see me as weak.” Since then, however, he has become a supporter of affirmative action because he’s seen that “science suffers when only a fraction of the talent pool is in play”. In lighter moments, Johnson also blogs about his family, his research on exoplanets and (during his Hawaiian days) his encounters with giant flying cockroaches, which are apparently one of the few downsides of doing astronomy on a tropical island.
Why should I visit?
In the wake of claims (made by a major UK newspaper) that two British physicists, Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Hiranya Peiris, were only invited to talk about the recent BICEP2 discovery on national television because they are female and not white, Johnson’s candid and robust defences of diversity seem especially pertinent. Like this one from a post on 4 March: “Yes, I was hired in part because I’m Black, and Harvard needs what my unique racial make-up brings with it: namely, excellence. I bring viewpoints that are out of the norm, yet well aligned with the educational needs of an ever more diverse student body. I bring a formidable publication record, unique teaching methods and innovative approaches to all that I do. And I’m determined to see diversification accelerated here. Soon.”
Can you give me a sample quote?
Johnson has a lot of interesting things to say, which makes it difficult to pick out a single quote. But this one from a March post on “The art of argumentation” seems fairly representative: “The over-reliance on politeness is one of the defining characteristics of discourse in astronomy. Wait, let me clarify that. The over-reliance on apparent politeness is one of the defining characteristics of discourse in astronomy. I suspect this dates back to the era when astronomy was run by British gentlemen, and the tendency of the older generation of astronomers to romanticize that period of time. But as an uber-minority in a monochromatic field of science living in a race-obsessed country, I have no inclination to romanticize the past. I can admire the specific accomplishments of past astronomers. But I refuse to deify them, given that they conducted science as part of such an exclusive club…This is probably a major reason why I appear so confrontational to my peers in astronomy. The fact that I don’t respect all points of view is seen as intolerance. But I see it as the result of a critical selection process. If an idea has merit, I’ll respect it. If it lacks merit, then the idea deserves to be dragged out into the light and squished. If that makes the person with the idea feel bad, then go back to the drawing board and try again. It’s the idea that was bad, not necessarily the person who made it.”
