Dr. Janet D. Stemwedel, PhD  🏳️‍🌈Verified account

Never forget that #MemorialDay started as another in the endless list of African rituals in US, emerging from #DecorationDay . On May 1, 1865, South Carolina Africans did what we've done forever: Pay respect to Ancestors. As usual, the US saw, imitated and erased memory of roots.

Somebody with more time than me to string together a list of all the times players skipped press because they didn't feel up to it, and the reaction to that. Because it was not...this.

As a long time follower of tennis, I cannot stress enough how unequal the treatment is of men and women in the sport, and Black women in particular. DO NOT enter this discussion unless you really know what the tournaments happily tolerate--even encourage--from the men.

I can't believe this is what protecting one's own mental health has come to. Disgusted by the tennis association. Also, the men in her mentions lecturing her and telling her to cheer up. Whew.https://twitter.com/naomiosaka/status/1399422304854188037 …

Little-known fact: Black people created Memorial Day. On May 1, 1865, over 10,000 people—emancipated men and women, Black schoolchildren, Black soldiers and their allies—held the first Memorial Day parade. They even sang "John Brown’s Body"... imagine that.https://twitter.com/TheRoot/status/1399416850379902978 …

Naomi Osaka withdraws from the French Open...https://twitter.com/naomiosaka/status/1399422304854188037 …

Interesting. Women’s tennis is threatening to expel one of its two biggest stars from the French Open because she won’t do press conferences? That’s not going to end the way they think it will.

I find this obsession a man has with a woman who ignores him frankly terrifying.https://twitter.com/DapsDraws/status/1399330977567154181 …

Elsevier really goes out of its way to be as harmful as possiblehttps://twitter.com/dominicboyer/status/1398987182367383552 …

Whitenesshttps://twitter.com/docfreeride/status/1399408506831212552 …

How did they die? Who killed them? Where are the living white descendants of this atrocity?https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1399382166862274562 …

So apparently conservatives are attacking Memorial Day BBQs and picnics? And I'm sorry, but what do they think 19th century Americans did, exactly, after the Memorial Day speeches and grave decorating? THEY ATE PICNICS

The diversity complex means these white (women) and NBPOC run diversity programs while doing fuckshit to Black scholars and they get rewarded and build careers off of it and I’m just supposed to move on. I was doing science last night when this shit started. Then I wasn’t.

I actually don’t want people harassing her and giving her a hard time. But: I have been through so much SHIT like this with white and NBPOC (woman) astronomers who say they are doing “the work” but are literally the problem. And this is why I attack the diversity complex.

This is the way whiteness works in astronomy. In academia. A self-described “Intersectional feminist” can gaslight a Black woman in public after 5 years of silence on an incident that was deeply upsetting and feel like a couple of apology tweets and an eventual email is

She apologized after there were receipts and a whole back and forth about what happened and then deleted her tweets so the only record of this incident that exists is in the screenshots some folks took, my tweets, and our memories.

The postdoc involved never once apologized or explained herself, until she decided last night to “make a public statement” because she did nothing that required an apology. I told her last night to email me but she persisted in a public gaslighting. Then I produced receipts.

At dinner that night, the grad students and some other postdocs explained to me and @MrProfChanda (in front of a reporter who may have notes on this) that the email had technically said “prioritize” but the clear effect was that they felt I didn’t want to talk to white people.