An Urgent Plea to Fellow Astronomers
Do not let the Thirty Meter Telescope begin (with the military at your side)
It is late at night where I am, but it is also still Sunday in Hawai’i and there is still time. I don’t want to write a lengthy piece, so I will just say the following:
When I was nine years old, the National Guard came to my home town of Los Angeles, and for weeks they occupied the community where I went to school, where my mother bought groceries, and where many of my friends lived. Why? Because a minority of our community had risen up in anger at and fatigue with white supremacy.
The whole community was punished for the actions of those who shouted in the language of the unheard. We shopped for food with armed guards at the stores, holding machine guns, making sure that only people allowed to buy food (people who could afford to buy food) were able to acquire it.
I want you to know:
It changes a child to see the National Guard act as enforcer in their community.
It changes and irrevocably damages relations when the military becomes part of the conversation, armed or unarmed.
Arresting people for crying out against injustice is a grave injustice. Taking police action against the protectors is not the way.
It will change how the world sees astronomy, forever, when there is a militarized, police response to Indigenous people who disagree with the way astronomers want to use what we all must admit are the traditional lands of the Kanaka ‘Oiwi — of Native Hawaiians. This will be our international headline.
The Hubble rate is large (although we are less certain of its value than we were a year ago, perhaps) — but on the scale of a human lifetime, the galaxies and most stars will still be there, later, when the project gets off the ground in the right way or somewhere else. After there is opportunity for consensus and healing.
But I said I would not be long-winded, so instead I will just beg you to consider the lasting consequences for Kanaka ‘Oiwi children and for the many generations after them, and if you will not think of them, think of the lasting consequences for us of being a community that partners with the military and the police on indigenous land and then publicly brands itself as being about wonder and the majestic.
There is nothing majestic about using military or police force against indigenous people anywhere, but especially on their lands.
So, astronomers, I beg of you: pause. Take a pause. It is still Sunday. Tomorrow can go differently from how it is planned. At the very least, send the police and the National Guard away. Do this like civilians and like the people in disagreement with you are civilians with big heart and a deep connection to the land, their family.
Please.
Maybe then, there will be time to talk about what it would mean to work toward consensus.
