> In an undated interview at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Tyson talked about being black and one of the most visible and well-known scientists in the world. He told a story about being interviewed about a plasma burst from the sun on a local Fox affiliate in 1989. "I'd never before in my life seen an interview with a black person on television for expertise that had nothing to do with being black. And at that point, I realized that one of the last stereotypes that prevailed among people who carry stereotypes is that, sort of, black people are somehow dumb. I wondered, maybe ... that's a way to undermine this sort of, this stereotype that prevailed about who's smart and who's dumb. I said to myself, 'I just have to be visible, or others like me, in that situation.' That would have a greater force on society than anything else I could imagine."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson#Race_and_s...
Also, if we are really going to suddenly be meritocratic above all else, we must immediately remove a lot of names from things. I don't want to get too far removed from engineering, but it's a great argument for getting rid of Confederate names.