The diversification of academia can inadvertently result in the definition of genius expanding enough to accommodate a few truly phenomenal marginalized physicists while continuing to accept white male mediocrity.

Privileged physicists are collectively encouraged to deny their own behavior and biases in order to maintain their self-image as physicists.

A genius is someone whose mind by itself is considered an asset to the settler colonial state.

Physicists, at least white men, are not trained to be wise. They are trained to be emotional infants with a high h-index.

So yes, decolonizing physics scares me. It should scare me. And if you’re a settler like myself, it should scare the sh*t out of you too. Now let’s go make it happen.

Like so often throughout history, (comparatively vulnerable) white women act as emissaries for white supremacy in the name of progressive activism.

Becoming a more mature activist meant taking ownership of my own feelings and behavior . . . It meant learning to heal myself rather than blaming my trauma on others.