R.I.P. David Blackwell | Hacker News Reader

R.I.P. David Blackwell

nytimes.com

60 pointsyarapavan17 comments

Incredibly great quote from the article: “Basically, I’m not interested in doing research and I never have been,” Professor David Blackwell said. “I’m interested in understanding, which is quite a different thing. And often to understand something you have to work it out yourself because no one else has done it.”

That is an amazing story. It should remind us all of how ridiculous society can be, especially when it comes to denying advancement to a truly talented person simply because of their race. Thank you for submitting this to HN.

Thank goodness we live in the now. Imagine all you want to do is study mathematics, and people are constantly pushing you here and there because of the color of your skin.

Equality really is a great thing.

Racism is still very much alive today, yes, thank goodness we live in the 'now', but there is lots of work to be done in this respect, and skin colour is unfortunately not the only factor that people will use to discriminate.

The following is probably the best-known result bearing his name:

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Rao-Blackwell_theorem

Tangentially related, The Souls of Black Folk, by W.E.B. Du Bois, the first black American to have gotten a PhD. from Harvard, is not only a great window into the struggles of black Americans in the generation after the Civil War, but also some of the finest writing in the English language:

I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between the strong- limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Souls_of_Black_Folk

Why is it acceptable to mention his race at all in an article like this?

Dr. Blackwell was born in 1919. If you are unaware, at this point in US history there was both de facto and de jure segregation in the United States. As the article states, he was initially denied an invitation to become a faculty member at both Princeton and Berkeley due to his race.

Although society is more colorblind today, the United States was a racially biased society for most of its history, and most of Dr. Blackwell's life.

But maybe he would want to be remembered for his academic accomplishments only.

Sure.

But the historical context of his achievements is an important part of his life story.

Especially working for RAND with his background.

I could buy that he'd want to be remembered primarily for his mathematical work, and he doesn't really emphasize his biography in interviews. But he doesn't avoid talking about it either, and discusses it matter-of-factly. From this interview, it seems like he doesn't see himself as a big pioneer or civil-rights activist, but it was still a factual part of his life that being black had impact on his career trajectory: http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.ss/1177013814

So I guess I'd agree this article probably devotes more space to his race and less to his Bayesianism than he'd do himself, but I'm not sure he'd object to the mention of his race. And in a mainstream media article, it's not particularly unreasonable to assume that his biography is more interesting to most general readers than his Bayesian-statistics advocacy.

We don't remember people based on what they want to be remembered by.

I believe that the NYT still has all their obituaries "approved" in advance by their subjects. I.e., when a person the NYT considers notable gets older, the NYT sends a copy of their proposed obit to the individual for suggestions. That's what they used to do, at any rate.

ROFL. Let me guess ... you "don't see race."

It seems an article that tells somebody's life story should mention their race. Furthermore, the article centered on the guy's professional carrier, and his race was a very relevant factor there (as you would know if you read the article).

His race seems to have profoundly affected his career trajectory. See also: Alan Turing, Albert Einstein.

Why wouldn't it be acceptable?

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