Brothers on Another Planet.

By Torraine Walker

The Artemis II mission is the first time in over half a century that NASA has created bona-fide American heroes. Four imminently qualified individuals leaving the boundaries of planet earth to travel farther than the human race has ever been in space is a monument to what our species can achieve when we turn our energies towards science and exploration.

The pilot on this journey was one Victor Glover Jr., US naval officer, test pilot, astronaut and now, the first Black man to reach the moon. Not to say that particular milestone was his goal but for people who’ve historically had their worldviews limited to survival, Captain Glover’s success feels like the realization of collective dreams.

Black people in America have always kept our heads to the sky. From the North Star that guided our formerly enslaved ancestors to freedom, to the astrology that some of us believe guides our actions, to the music that moved our bodies into out-of-body experiences. Our grandparents welcomed the mothership with Parliament-Funkadelic, the avant-garde among our great-grandparents went to space with Sun Ra and Jimi Hendrix. Star Trek showed us a future where every human performed to the best of their ability and the only barrier was an individual’s skill. The combination of all these created psychological landscapes for Black boys emerging from the open air prison of Jim Crow to let their bodies join their minds to act on their wonder at the wider world.

Looking up at stars allows the mind to run free of limitations. It gives us an idea that something bigger than ourselves and our immediate surroundings is possible, and an idea is where everything starts.

We stand at a point in time where actualization of our ideas is simultaneously closer and farther away than it’s ever been. Black boys are underrepresented in STEM and other disciplines that guide those with universe sized dreams into the industries that make them real while at the same time owning smartphones with more power than the computers that took man to the moon in the 60’s.

Boys are inventive by nature. Where there are no games to play they invent them. But the imagination has to be fed just like the body, and if there’s nothing good going in, the imagination withers. The parameters of what’s possible for Black boys has shrunk to a few narrow roles: Athletes. Rappers. Jesters. Statistics. Tragically, too many boys believe this is all they’re meant to be but we were never meant to have lives that small.

My hope for the global attention on Victor Glover’s achievement is that boys who look like him with interests in science, math and space travel will find a way - and the environment - to connect their talents and dreams to reality.

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