Entry 446: More Men Behaving Badly...

... specifically, Neil deGrasse Tyson.  If you hadn't heard, the nation's "personal astrophysicist" has been accused of sexual misdeeds by four women, ranging from kinda creepy behavior to rape.  This news was a big blow to me because I love Neil deGrasse Tyson.  I love his book; I love his podcast; I love the way he thinks and how he explains complex systems of the universe with simplicity and eloquence.  He's smart, funny, charming, etc.  He's also a person of color succeeding in a field that has not traditionally been welcoming to people of color.  This is a nontrivial part of the story.  Of all the famous men who have been accused of sexual transgressions, Neil deGrasse Tyson is the one who disappoints me the most, even more so than Al Franken.

I had a long post written on this, about what I believe and what I don't believe concerning these allegations and his response to them, but I didn't like how it turned out, so I deleted it.  I felt like I couldn't say what I was trying to say, and so the best thing to do is probably to not say anything at all.  I've written a ton about sexual assault on this blog over the past year and a half -- three posts on Bart O'Kavanaugh, a post about Al Franken, a post about Aziz Ansari, and this general overarching post -- and I think I'm tapped out on the subject right now.

I'll just say that I find Dr. Tyson's defenses less than compelling and leave it at that.

Until next time...