White Supremacy Culture on Science
Science is a privilege many take for granted. Science can be abused, as well as manipulated if fallen into the wrong hands. Striving for better science is important, but deciding on what to do when we do discover that science is even more important. In 1939, Leo Szilard wrote a letter to President Rosevelt Franklin warning him about a new source of energy used to creat bombs and the nuclear arms race against Hitler backed with his Nazi’s. In 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Nazi’s lust for creating the first atomic bomb created tension within the scientific community in the United States. Scientists, like Frank Oppenheimer, explained the work “most of us were working from twelve to sixteen hours a day … Before the attack, getting the job done had been a challenge; afterwards it was an obligation” (Cole Pg. 57).Scientists worked tirelessly trying to win the race of who develops the first atomic bomb.
After manufacturing the first successful atomic bomb, scientists questioned the destructive power and the aftermath of dropping the bomb. A petition was created which was signed by more than 150 Manhattan Project scientists. It proposed staging a demonstration and setting off a bomb in some deserted area to which Japanese officials could be invited. Truman never saw these documents and gave the go ahead for two of the only atomic weapons to be used in Japan. Eisenhower and General Curtis LeMay argued that “since Japan was already defeated, dropping the bomb would serve no legitimate military purpose.” (Cole Pg.62). Many argued that the war was won and defeat for the Japanese was inevitable. This is where Okun takes on white supremacy culture comes into play, “the organizational structure is set up and much energy spent trying to prevent abuse and protect power as it exists rather than to facilitate the best out of each person or to clarify who has power and how they are expected to use it”. (okun) Truman undermined the destructive power that he possessed and wanted to show that the United States was a force never to be reckoned with. The sheer destruction inflicted by the United States is nothing more than disgusting and horrific.
Many of the scientists working on the bomb were doing ‘science’ for their country and attempting to save the world from itself. They didn’t really think about future implications. The science they were studying wasn’t humanized until it took hundreds of thousands of lives. Robert Oppenheimer, considered the father of the atomic bomb, later admitted to President Truman, “I feel I have blood on my hands”(Cole Pg. 65). Truman told his Under Secretary of state Dean Acheson, “I don’t want to see that son of a bitch in this office again”(Cole Pg. 65) . A year later, Truman called Robert a “cry baby” (Cole Pg. 65). Truman’s insensitivity shows his power as prideful and anything not showing power is considered weak in his eyes .This is also a link to Okun once again, “those with power assume they have the best interests of the organization at heart and assume those wanting change are ill-informed (stupid), emotional, inexperienced”. (Okun). Robert’s feelings of empathy and sorrow for the hundreds of thousands of lives his invention took were viewed as weak and unfit.
Work Cited:
Cole, K. C. (2009). Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the world he made up. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Okun, T. (n.d.). White Supremacy Culture. Retrieved from https://www.dismantlingracism.org/uploads/4/3/5/7/43579015/okun_-_white_sup_culture.pdf
