My non-stop flight from Oklahoma City to San Francisco gave me three plus hours to watch a movie on the flight and I saw that Hidden Figures was available and I had been wanting to see it. I graduated from high school in 1966 so the movie was contemporary for me, and the story line intrigued me when I read about it when it first came out. I highly recommend you see this and even if you are younger and weren't a part of the era it does bring back a painful past, one that i am ashamed of to this day. After Jim Crow laws were struck down in the courts, De Facto segregation was resurrected with Separate But Equal. This was where in order to keep African-Americans away from white people we built great schools for them, had separate bathrooms, and made Blacks go to the back of the bus so as not to mingle with us. I remember growing up in my all white high school being fed in the schools and churches about the inferiority of African-Americans, and to say I wasn't influenced by that would be a lie. It wasn't until I went to college in Washington D.C. and attended a party of college educated African-Americans as one of the four white people there who worked for the government that I for the first time realized what it would be to be in a minority setting. It was uncomfortable and that was good. We should be made uncomfortable with we create artificial superiority by race or any other standard.
Back to the movie now that I have unburdened my soul, the three featured woman had tow prejudices going against them which also included being women in a male dominated sector so there was much for them to overcome and they did overcome it with being superior at what they did and their contributions they made cast shame on our society for not recognizing them sooner. Growing up a white male I never had to encounter those burdens and this gave me a head start. Of course I still had to prove myself but I didn't have to be so much better in order to be recognized. This movie is truly inspirational and it corrects a little known part of the history of the space program and puts it into a new light. America is still not there when it comes to eliminating racial bias or even gender bias. We have come a long way since the 60s and I can personally attest to a change in attitude and you can escape bad ideas from your upbringing. Real Estate as a profession has been better than most about having equal opportunity but we must also remember that at one time our Code of Ethics codified racial discrimination. We have also come a long way but progress is still on the horizon and we can never stop striving. Hidden Figures should be seen, appreciated, and remembered for those few who fought the system and won.
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