Okay, one more movie.
With Oppenheimer's release, there have been a lot of articles about the development of the atomic bomb, its testing, and those results.
There is a lot that can be looked over, about what other options existed and what the results would have been. We could spend a lot of time on that.
I want to focus on one aspect and its ramifications:
https://www.latimes.com/delos/story/2023-07-26/oppenheimer-atomic-bomb-new-mexico-cancer-aftermath
The articles talks about the survivors of those who died after the Trinity testing.
In the film, both the test site and the Los Alamos Laboratory in Northern New Mexico are remote, unpopulated areas — a depiction that’s largely in line with most historical accounts of the Manhattan Project. The reality is starkly different. The land acquired by the U.S. government to build and test the bomb was occupied, as was the 150-mile radius surrounding the Trinity Test — areas settled predominantly by Hispanic and Native American ranchers and homesteaders.
“There are some glaring omissions,” Cordova said of the film. “There was a level of racism, obviously [to the Manhattan Project]. They so easily invaded our lands, our lives, and destroyed them both.”
It is too easy to look at areas where the population is not white and then just kind of look through them: nothing to see there.
That is terrible enough. However, the point I want to make from it is that it doesn't stop there.
The article mentions how the fallout spread to other states, specifically mentioning Arizona and Oregon, but not Utah.
And yet, I already knew that it hit Utah. That was not so much the Trinity testing, but additional testing in the 50s, ending in 1962. Keeping that testing stopped was an important issue in the 1964 presidential elections.
I knew about it because I knew families who were affected, including children born after the testing was done.
Members tend to know a lot of other members; you probably know someone who was affected. Maybe you have read Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams.
This is the point I want to make: no matter how much more palatable different types of oppression can be made by targeting them at the marginalized, they never end there. They spread. The pool expands. New enemies need to be found to maintain momentum.
Frankly, it disgusts me that this point even needs to be made. We should want everyone to do well and we should have gotten over racism and every other bigotry long ago.
Since we haven't, maybe the occasional reminder of self-interest can be helpful.
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