Something that’s been on my mind a lot in the last week is how @ThePurplePage is largely uncelebrated for her work in creating @BlackandSTEM and making #BlackandSTEM into a community where many people found each other and began to build communities AND others learned about us

People don’t talk about how many identity group in STEM hashtags have their roots in #BlackandSTEM as a concept.

And what bugs me about this is Stephani is a Black woman who did this thing that changed #scicomm Black science community AND journalism and ppl barely acknowledge it

I am concerned about how the forces that hid the Hidden Figures now produce erased figures right in public

I’m concerned that people of all stripes don’t think history matters because the present is shifting so quickly

But Black history always matters and this is our history

I see people trying to ... basically do what @ThePurplePage already did as if she hadn’t already done it, without reference to her, and without involving her. And I have questions, largely: why? What icentivizes this?

Stephani hasn’t complained to me about it this. I see it.

So let me just say: I have seen nan a journalist profile Stephani recently or reach out to her about all of the social media activity promoting Black scientists and in my view this is a kind of erasure

And we Black scientists should not stand for or participate in this kind of erasure of our fellow community members because we know too well what it is like to be overlooked, not seen, not heard, and erased