I also delved into acting as a hobby. So much so that I became the first Indian American to become a member of the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG) in the mid-Atlantic region section in 1993.

A call for representation

Acting roles in this area are cast first by announcements from the Washington or Baltimore region casting agencies. The announcements require you to be of a certain race, gender, and age range. 

They may call you in for an audition if there’s a fit. They select a few and call them back for a “call-back.” Then they’ll choose the actor for the role. Most union roles are for day-players and comprise just a few lines. Major roles are cast in Hollywood or New York.

These audition calls from SAG and SAG/AFTRA (now) always had a race requirement for the roles – but called for African Americans or Caucasians. What about us who do not fit into either category, folks? Needless to say, I complained to the unions but to no avail. 

Hollywood in Black and White

In theory, a union such as SAG/AFTRA should be the most open to all. In reality, it has been quite the opposite. How does that make sense? Having waited 30 years, the age range requirement, less than 50, has become the killer. But while I am out at this age, this piece is for the benefit of the younger generation of us “Neithers.”

The erasure of in-betweens

I still am made to feel that I am not part of this country despite the tremendous hard work I put in to become and be an American. Earlier, I was made to feel unwelcome by conservative Republicans when I came here in the 1970s. This persisted for a few decades. 

Now, I am made to feel unwelcome by the so-called liberal Democrats, the Hollywood engine, and the media. Indian Americans and many such minorities are between a rock and a hard place. They do not fit into the dominant categories that define American politics and society. It is time that the media took this on.   

Is this country made up of only blacks and whites? An alien coming here and watching TV or movies would think so. Almost percent of the commercials on TV have African American faces. Until a few months ago, 40-50% were white faces. 

According to the last census, this is a slap in the face of Hispanics and Asian-Americans, who make up 20% and 7% of the population, about twice as much as African Americans who comprise 13%.

Hollywood Does it Again

Do the media executives and Hollywood head honchos think we do not exist and that we  are thingamajigs who do not count? Or do they just want us to spend the money on their products and remain behind the scenes? 

Do these bigshots wish to avoid seeing our faces on your TV and movie screens? Or is it that if they cover, pay attention to the two extremes in skin color, the black and white, that they feel they have done their duty to be fair and that they can now brush the equitable representation off their jacket sleeves? Should all others, the in-betweens, go to hell? Are media bigshots that thick-headed?

Time for Limelight

Decreasing the white actors from 60% to 50% affects them marginally as a group. Increasing African-American participation almost doubles or triples their participation. This development is welcome. It is positive. However, should this take place at the cost of us Neithers?

We just get squeezed out to zero. Can’t anyone see that? Our representation would make for a fairer representation of the country. Also, wouldn’t that make the media scene more interesting?

This lack of representation of Neithers is a clear case of open discrimination in employment by race. All actors’ jobs are paid, and no such discrimination is allowed by law. A small variance may be an accident, but this conspicuous absence of Neithers clearly indicates systemic discrimination in the media.

So, I call upon media bosses to open our living rooms to Native Americans, Hispanics and Asians, as you have done with African-Americans. Give these Neithers space and acceptance. No, Hollywood, you damn well have not solved the race problem yet. There was more acceptance, curiosity and admiration for Eastern and Latin cultures 40-50 years ago than there is now. Hollywood, you have regressed and left us Neithers in the shadows.

Are all people in this world Blacks and Whites? If you think so, you are an ignoramus and not at all a globalist as you want to pretend to be. Asians and Latin Americans comprise almost of the world’s population. Do not be obtuse. If you think so, your movies will not sell worldwide – with half the revenue coming from international showings. 

How many do you know who can be counted as celebrities, as huge role models? And compare that to how many African-Americans or Whites. Then look at the percentages of the population in this country, let alone the world, and see if it makes any sense. 

Yes, we can come here, and many even are born, but we have to remain in the background, by your surreptitious designs. Wake up and smell the tea; it is also quite popular worldwide!

[ edited this article.]

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The answer is even more profound than the US getting there before some other country occupies parts of the moon for lunar resources or the potential minerals we someday may gain from some asteroids. The answer is definitely deeper than the US remaining number one in the space competition. It is also more important than having a place to migrate in case of planetary destruction due to internal or external actors. 

The reason we explore space is is more encompassing and overwhelming.  

Our earth has been around for about four and a half billion years. Multicellular life emerged a billion years ago. During this period, there have been four to five  major mass extinction events like Devonian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, and the Cretaceous — best known because dinosaurs were wiped out. 

Civilization’s Swift Move Toward Outer Space

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Over the years, millions of species have gone extinct. The number may be as high as 50-95%. Yet life has reemerged in new forms. But the most intriguing, interesting, and, as yet, unexplainable thing is that not one single species out of those billions ever made something simple like clothing except for humans. How is that even possible? 

The Magic of the Drake Equation

It turns out that life is mysterious, even magical. And there might be life elsewhere in space. The Drake Equation, attributed to Dr. Frank Drake who passed away very recently, takes a stab at estimating extraterrestrial life. This equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. It is made up of these terms:

N = R_* f_P * n_e * f_l * f_i * f_c * L

N     =      number of civilizations with which humans could communicate

R_* =      mean rate of star formation

f_P  =      fraction of stars that have planets

n_e =      mean number of planets that could support life per star with planets

f_l   =      fraction of life-supporting planets that develop life

f_i   =      fraction of planets with life where life develops intelligence

f_c  =      fraction of intelligent civilizations that develop communication

L      =      mean length of time that civilizations can communicate

This equation cannot be “solved” or even accurately calculated. Yetit retains considerable utility for discussions about extraterrestrial life and intelligence. If we assign reasonable numbers to each term in the Drake Equation, this yields N equal to anywhere from the thousands to the millions. Remember that this is just for the Milky Way, one of the trillions of galaxies in the universe.

The Fermi Paradox

In the summer of 1950, and co-workers Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller, and Herbert York had several lunchtime conversations at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. During one of these conversations, Fermi blurted out, “But where is everybody?”.  Signs of life are hard to see in our observable universe, which has expanded considerably thanks to the Hubble and the Webb telescopes. The question still remains: “Where is everybody?”

Whether the Fermi paradox holds true or not, God, for those who believe, has granted us an immense responsibility: humans must find, connect with and preserve all lifeforms. On the other hand, If the Fermi paradox is false, we must be ready to protect ourselves if needed. In either case, the answer is the same. Space exploration matters.

The Calling: An Intellectual Effort

Humans are special. They have a large brain capable of imagination and exploration. After all, we are the only species to use clothing. Even our cousins, the great apes, do not do so. This does not mean our species is superior to others. However, we must shepherd  earth and all of its lifeforms to continue  evolution—the evolution now in the third dimension. In other words, space or for the nerds among us, the Z direction.

Evolution requires that more intelligent things are done almost continually. That requires that a society finds ways to demarcate and appreciate all life for its potential causes. This is perhaps a higher calling than others such as climate change or even human species survival. This is why devaluing appreciation of merit for other causes may hurt us as humanity, in future. 

An intellectual effort is needed. This includes merit in myriads of fields: from art, literature, science, space, sports, and others. This is what NASA and the space efforts of other countries are exploring. It is not just for the US or humanity, but for the entirety of lifeforms in this observable universe—whether the famous Fermi paradox holds or not!

For example, art produces visions and it assuages. They touch the “not-yet-imagined” part of this equation that we scientists need to fulfill the entirety of progress. We will need help from many strata of society: artists, writers, poets, philosophers, thinkers AND scientists can help realize the next step. We should care for the truly unfortunate, the truly downtrodden, but we should not lose sight of the stars in space above.

[ and edited this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The post How Space Exploration Can Lead Us to Our True Destiny? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

In 2016, Hollywood actress , indignant at the Academy Award nominations, joined the . Back then, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Yes, African-Americans were sparsely represented in all Oscar categories. But us guys, the other visible minorities—Asians, Indians, Hispanics, Middle Easterners and Native Americans—do not even have the kismet to be offered roles, let alone move to the next step on the nomination ladder, even though we are almost twice as many in numbers as African-Americans. Neither white nor black, we are the unfortunate “neithers” of today, the ones against whom unconcealed discrimination is allowed.

Yet this year, critics are shouting from the rooftop that the industry has suddenly changed, that the protest has been upended, and that racism in Hollywood has finally bit the dust. So, what did film executives do to atone for last year’s sin and to absolve themselves of condemnation?

For 2017, many minorities have been included, both in the Academy Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG), except that almost all these minorities are African-Americans. No “neithers” here or there: no Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans or Middle Easterners. Consolation crumbs were thrown at South Asians with a nomination for British actor Dev Patel, who failed to pick up the Best Supporting Actor award at the SAG but is nominated for the same category at the Oscars on February 26.

In the United States, as per the , there are 48.9 million (16.1%) Hispanics and 15.3 million (5%) Asian-Americans. Together, Hispanics and Asian-Americans are almost double the African-American population. But in the world of Hollywood, this doesn’t seem to matter. Hispanics and Asian-Americans simply don’t count.

But see it this way: Asia is the biggest and most populated continent in the world. So, when one in four people is and looks South Asian (1.75 billion) and one in three is and looks East Asian (2.3 billion), can we really be ignored?

To all Hollywood types who are protesting Donald Trump’s immigration policy, what have you done for your immigrant brothers and sisters in the Oscar nominations? Or, at the very least, by accepting them, even marginally, as part of American society by affording them some worthy roles in cinema?

Unfortunately, Hollywood still naively conflates taking care of the two ends of the color spectrum, black and white, as end all and be all—as if this has resolved the race, color and creed problem.

No, Hollywood, I would never be called to audition or be cast as a white or a black character, nor would most Asians and many Hispanics. Our equality will never occur until you accept that we too are American. Is this turning a blind eye so you feel slickly acquitted, scot-free, and you get permission to freely live your glib life?

As an Indian-American actor-wannabe for the past three decades, and a Screen Actors Guild member for 25 years, the main reason I heard was: “You guys—Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans—do not complain!” We hoped things would naturally change instead of through protest, but not anymore. Some of us at least do and will protest. I urge that Asians, South Asians and Hispanics in America join forces, relinquish their individual identities and protest on the streets of Hollywood.

In 2017, Hollywood has once again failed to show any willingness to even listen to the pained voices of other minorities. This year was no exception, contrary to the industry’s avid avowal. How long do we have to wait?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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I still remember the night when my siblings, my father, some workers on the farm and I sat around a fire on a cold night in the middle of a jungle, and listened to a decrepit old radio. It was the late 1960s in western and we were all very excited.

We were trying to listen, amid heavy static, to the live broadcast of a capsule splash-landing in the ocean after a journey around the moon. We were amazed and awestruck that NASA and the United States could send a craft hundreds of thousands of miles into space and still have it come back to Earth and land in a predesignated, three-mile radius—and do that safely.

Our respect for what the US could do, which was already fairly high, increased immensely. NASA was amazing, and it symbolized the United States for many around the world. What a country, this America! What incredible people! It was hard to control the desire to come here, study aerospace, get a PhD, become a rocket scientist and work in this field.

The Soviet Union also did spaceflight, but would announce its ventures after the fact. Not the US, I thought: “This is where the next stage of evolution of human beings is occurring.” An intellectual evolution. It was very exciting. It was very satisfying. It was transparent. And it was not just NASA. America, at that time, was abuzz with many creative questions, and with people’s free right to pursue the sometimes unlikely answers.

What happened to that excitement and spark?

It is sad for a child from the East to see this in the West. Innovation, talent and intelligence—mated with hard work that used to be appreciated in the West—have been replaced by dislike for those values in favor of mediocrity. Yes, the dumbing down of our values has occurred and should not be tolerated. While all people, the weak and strong, should be welcomed and embraced, society has to find ways to value the exceptional innovators as well.

It is time to marry that spark with the latest innovation of a robust, reusable, rocket revolution—or the “4R Club” as I call it. It is time to go to the moon, build small habitats and even small villages that humanity lived in 10,000 years ago at its civilizational dawn, as in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China.

With the 4R Club, it can be done considerably more cheaply than otherwise done using expendable rockets. The relative cost to put one pound into orbit, which is now $7,000 to $9,000, can be reduced to about $500 for the fully . The same ratio of cost, about 12-15, would hold for sending payloads to the moon.

Setting up moon habitats, and perhaps small villages, would necessitate many launches, which can be done much more cheaply using the 4R Club. We can perhaps start with the so-called hybrid option, which normally means a reusable first stage and an expendable upper stage, which may be less cheap but would amount to smaller vehicles.

NOT MARS, THE MOON

SpaceX, Blue Origin and are already developing this technology for the first stage. To go to Mars, SpaceX wants to refuel the upper stage in orbit a few times before sending it off to Mars. A good idea and an innovative one, but we should do that for the moon instead. Why not then use the tanks of the expendable upper stage as habitats? It is the shape of things to come. DARPA’s plan of 10 flights in 10 days is certainly a step in that direction—in fact, a real .

Why the moon and not a jump to Mars? Because we need learn to live and work in an atmosphere with very little pressure, or none at all, for hours at a time and maybe even days. And because we need to learn to build structures in those environments first—to the tee. We need to become solid, unmitigated, confident experts in it before venturing out, which with Mars could be too far to send help if needed. We need to iron out all the kinks first, certainly the major ones.

We have the moon to experiment on and it is close enough. With the moon, it is considerably less risky than putting many persons’ lives at risk by going to Mars, and it is more rewarding and cheaper. Imagine how much easier and surer our venture to Mars would be after having such experience and expertise.

No, wishing to go to Mars is not wrong. We will someday but not just yet. It should not be the next step. Not without having spent years on the moon. Not without having learned how to survive without air. Not without learning how to walk and chew gum at the same time in much less gravity than Earth.

AND NOT AN ASTEROID EITHER

Looking for an asteroid to learn from or learn on? Why? We have this beautiful shiny object that the “force” has already brought very close to us and has been our constant companion for billions of years, with zero chance of orbital changes. Why look for an asteroid when the opportunity has been staring us in the face every night?

The Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) needs to be shelved. Why find and study an asteroid? Well, again, the same “force” sent one to Earth just a few years ago. Sure, there are differences as the skeptics would again say. But are they worth the heavy cost?

The moon village can be called “Manhattan,” representing the seat of United Nations. It would surely be another “Go West, Young Man” project. In this case “Go Up, Young Person.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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As a “person of color”—and how I hate being identified this way—in the acting field, I couldn’t feelĚýanyĚýsympathy for the protest. Forget about not being nominated for the Oscars; we, the people I talk about here, the other larger “visible” minorities, are not even welcome in your homes on TV or movie screens. Forget major roles, forget “roles with some meat.” We “neithers” (neither black nor white) get almost no roles. Period.

I still did my best. I joined the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG) in 1993, the first Indian-American to do so in the Washington-Baltimore area.

The year was 1990. The response of a major casting agency here in Washington, DC was: “When we need an ‘Indian’ we will call you.”

A certain detriment to my desire to assimilate. I had become a US citizen just a few years prior to that, and this I found quite painful. This is precisely something I didn’t want. I was hoping to be called when they would need someone to play an “American” engineer (I am one by education and profession) or a doctor, lawyer or taxi driver—any one of these and not just an “Indian-looking” something. I didn’t want something just because of being or rather looking like an Indian-American, nor did I want to be denied the part for “looking” that way.

The Land of Taxi Drivers

But it hasn’t worked out that way at all. Far from it. One would think that Hollywood would be a bastion of acceptance, of breaking down the stereotypes, but it has turned out to be quite the opposite. Here, stereotyping ethnic looks has been the norm. It has gone to bat for African-Americans but has shown no propensity to do that for many other minorities. Yes, we look different. Anyone can tell. And almost two-thirds of the world population looks that way. If an alien were to visit Earth and watch Hollywood movies or TV shows, itĚýwouldn’t seem that was the case at all.

Does Hollywood think that if it covers the two ends of the “color spectrum”—black and white—it covers us all? And even more than that, if the differentiation is thus (implicitly) based only on skin color, isn’t that quite racist, if not obtuse?

The problem isĚýthat this was not an isolated incident. On four occasions, calls came to audition for the TV series Homicide that was filmed in Baltimore—over a four-year period, few and far in between. Twice, the part was a clerk at a convenience store, and the other two times it was as an owner or manager of a sleazy motel. It would be fun to audition for one of those roles. The problem was that it was only for such roles.

When the fifth call to audition for such a role came, I had to decline just on principle.ĚýThe sixth time it was as a taxi driver—another example of stereotyping. I acquiesced, auditioned (with a thick Indian accent to boot), got the role and played a taxi driver on the show Law and Order.

There are probably 20 times more Indian-American doctors and maybe 50 times more engineers or scientists than there are Indian-American taxi drivers. Why the stereotyping—and a proclivity for an inaccurate one? Surely something wasn’t kosher.

The Other Americans

With the US Hispanic population at 48.9 million (16.1%) and the Asian-American at 15.3 million (5%) making them together almost one in five Americans according to the , one would think that about one in five characters on TV shows or commercials would be one of them, everything else being equal. After all, that was precisely the argument made by African-Americans and others who took up their cause to make a case for inclusion in Hollywood productions. Pick one hour on TV, any hour, and when youĚýdo not find even one-fiftieth of airtime rationed to ethnic minorities, there isĚýa reasonĚýto wonder.

And then there are Native Americans. This country used to belong to them, but now their presence on screen or in other media is near absolute zero, as if they have been wiped off clean and intentionally so for the second time.

What is happening to us is much larger and the media refuses to talk about it.

Was my experience in the acting arena more than merely a reflection of what Hollywood does to emulate what it perceives to be prevalent in society at large?ĚýOr, more painfully, was it actually an interpolation from a more generalized sentiment?

Yes, you can come and work here but, about being part of society here, oh, we’re not too sure. More than half of revenue of a Hollywood movieĚý. Well, Hollywood, one in four people around theĚýworld is and looks South Asian (1.75 billion out of 7.2) and one in three is and looks East Asian (2.3 billion out of 7.2). You cannot ignore us, nor is it fair. Wake up and smell the tea.

Demand Change

And when we have one Indian-American playing a major role, like Rajesh Koothrappali on the highly successful The Big Bang Theory, and more recently Priyanka Chopra on ABC’s Quantico,ĚýIndian-Americans express supreme elation at being included.

Really? We have been on Earth just as long as anyone else and deserve the same share, even in the US. We are one of the oldest and most advanced civilizations of that age. Why then this squeamishness, this reticence about asking for a fair share? Come on Indian-Americans: Start asking for things, for the sake of your children who do have other aspirations than just be an engineer or a doctor.

51łÔąĎ provides you deep and diverse insights for free. Remember that we still have to pay for servers, website maintenance and much more. So, to keep us free, fair and independent.

The funny and tragic thing is that some people, in the media and in Hollywood, are still making the same argument they made in the 1950s and 1960s: that white homes did not want to have black faces on their TV screens, hence a dearth of roles for African-Americans. That argument got superseded and overwhelmed by people with a conscience saying that was wrong. Many African-American-themed shows were and continue to be created, movies made, celebrities adored. We have Denzel Washingtons and Halle Berrys.

As an Indian-American actor-wannabe for the last three decades, I have seen this firsthand against all non-whites and non-blacks. Hollywood did start to change its attitude toward African-Americans over last 20 or so years, but it has shown no predilection to do so for other visible minorities. The main reason I heard was: “You guys—Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans—do not complain!” We hoped things would change based on cerebral arguments rather than through protest.

It is well-known that Indian-American kids have been doing fabulously well at the National Spelling Bee, which itself can be an interesting storyline for Hollywood. For several years now, the top three spelling bee have been Indian-American kids, as were the champions of 12 of last 16 years and all since 2008. But when Hollywood made a movie on this subject, called Akeelah and the Bee, it was about an African-American contestant.

We can spell but we do not count.

How would the country react if the roles were reversed?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:Ěý

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