There's an elephant in the room, and it's doing society a great disservice.
Often we're made to believe that diversity doesn't exist within intellectual history or accomplishments - or at the very least that most records of such work have been lost. This is not the case. From 19th century literary societies to today's ed-tech company creators, these elephants (aka Black scholars and innovators) exist everywhere. Their glaring absence from school curricula and media becomes that much more shameful when faced with their clear existence.
Jolie Radunich's Elephant Prints: Reconstructing Our Image of Brilliance is a wake-up call. Now is the time to extract elephants from obscurity. We need to use their stories to:
- become knowledgeable about the past.
- spread awareness in the present.
- and offer hope that the network of existing elephants will continue to grow in the future.
Frequently, the spotlighted accomplishments of elephants are treated as anomalies. There's so much more to honor, so much more innovation to encourage. We need to instill in the next generation a desire to inclusify their vision of brilliance, but this can only be done if they're aware of inspiring elephant legacies.
