Lewis Latimer--the Black Man Who Helped Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and Steve jobs got credit for Apple but many more behind the scenes did the work, so what?

What is your point this happens everywhere everyday

Look at the guy at 3m who invented post its.

I wonder if the tables were turned, would you still be saying this?

A minority is credited as one of history's greatest inventors, but it was later discovered that a white man actually did much of the work. Guess what--he would be labeled a fraud and repudiated.

But when whites do it, it's okay?
Just goes to show you that minorities are held to double standards.

Minority here & couldn't disagree more.

I worked on the Hill for a while for a Minority politician. The politicians speeches, ideas, legislation, etc were all written by his White staff. He still got credit. For centuries, apprentices always assisted the master craftsman but the master craftsman always got credit.

Chefs, sous-chefs, same thing. Architects (think Frank Lloyd Wright and others), all the same thing.

This has nothing to do with race. It's just the nature of apprenticeship. The truly talented apprentices are able to "break out" later on to establish themselves under their own names. So on, and so forth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Morgan Garrett, creator of the traffic light and gas mask used in WWI.

The ENTIRE world has benefitted from his invention. How many people know he was African-American, the son of slaves?

http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventors/a/Garrett_Morgan.htm

Again, great for him but this is also not race-related. People simply have no clue who invented what, when, why, and by whom. I agree that people SHOULD care and become inspired but this same phenomena is not exclusive to minority inventors. If anything, I think that minority inventors in the US usually benefit from cultural months like hispanic heritage or black history month where we DO, rightfully, focus on these inspiration people. If you were to ask my son to name a black inventor, for example, he could give you a whole list because he learned about it during black history month. Now, ask him to name a single French invention and you'll get nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and Steve jobs got credit for Apple but many more behind the scenes did the work, so what?

What is your point this happens everywhere everyday

Look at the guy at 3m who invented post its.

I wonder if the tables were turned, would you still be saying this?

A minority is credited as one of history's greatest inventors, but it was later discovered that a white man actually did much of the work. Guess what--he would be labeled a fraud and repudiated.

But when whites do it, it's okay?
Just goes to show you that minorities are held to double standards.

Minority here & couldn't disagree more.

I worked on the Hill for a while for a Minority politician. The politicians speeches, ideas, legislation, etc were all written by his White staff. He still got credit. For centuries, apprentices always assisted the master craftsman but the master craftsman always got credit.

Chefs, sous-chefs, same thing. Architects (think Frank Lloyd Wright and others), all the same thing.

This has nothing to do with race. It's just the nature of apprenticeship. The truly talented apprentices are able to "break out" later on to establish themselves under their own names. So on, and so forth.

Wow-- it has nothing do with race. While I understand your point about apprenticeship, I think you are very off-base. Most of these things occurred during the time of segregation, jim-crow, legalized racism...but of course race didn't have anything to do with these folks not getting any credit. Naive much??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and Steve jobs got credit for Apple but many more behind the scenes did the work, so what?

What is your point this happens everywhere everyday

Look at the guy at 3m who invented post its.

I wonder if the tables were turned, would you still be saying this?

A minority is credited as one of history's greatest inventors, but it was later discovered that a white man actually did much of the work. Guess what--he would be labeled a fraud and repudiated.

But when whites do it, it's okay?
Just goes to show you that minorities are held to double standards.

Minority here & couldn't disagree more.

I worked on the Hill for a while for a Minority politician. The politicians speeches, ideas, legislation, etc were all written by his White staff. He still got credit. For centuries, apprentices always assisted the master craftsman but the master craftsman always got credit.

Chefs, sous-chefs, same thing. Architects (think Frank Lloyd Wright and others), all the same thing.

This has nothing to do with race. It's just the nature of apprenticeship. The truly talented apprentices are able to "break out" later on to establish themselves under their own names. So on, and so forth.

Wow-- it has nothing do with race. While I understand your point about apprenticeship, I think you are very off-base. Most of these things occurred during the time of segregation, jim-crow, legalized racism...but of course race didn't have anything to do with these folks not getting any credit. Naive much??

Okay, first of all your hypothetical situation did not include anything about jim-crow laws, etc. You're only now conveniently throwing them in. I'll play along in any event.

I'm sure Alexander Bell had plenty of white apprentices that never received credit for anything. I guess that's because of socioeconomic class? I'm sure they weren't all poor. Perhaps because they had the wrong last name? Where does this sort of thinking end, PP?

How did George Washington Carver do it? He made his numerous inventions in his own right and not under another person. The guy was brilliant and a trailblazer. He didn't dwell on the sorts of things that you are. He didn't waste his time proposing hypotheticals like "if i were a white man, imagine the things I could accomplish..." No, he just went out and did it.

I think oftentimes we (and I mean we because I'm a minority) hold ourselves back by focusing too much on the past, self-imposed limitations, and eternally playing victim. We shouldn't brush it under the rug. It was there, it existed, we suffered and we must remember. BUT we eventually overcame. So did many discriminated and persecuted peoples throughout history. There is still much to be done, but obsessively focusing on the injustices of this era (and again, many before it) will not better our community or this world.

[Anonymous]

I'd wager that blacks were behind many great US inventions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd wager that blacks were behind many great US inventions.

What makes you say that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and Steve jobs got credit for Apple but many more behind the scenes did the work, so what?

What is your point this happens everywhere everyday

Look at the guy at 3m who invented post its.

I wonder if the tables were turned, would you still be saying this?

A minority is credited as one of history's greatest inventors, but it was later discovered that a white man actually did much of the work. Guess what--he would be labeled a fraud and repudiated.

But when whites do it, it's okay?
Just goes to show you that minorities are held to double standards.

Minority here & couldn't disagree more.

I worked on the Hill for a while for a Minority politician. The politicians speeches, ideas, legislation, etc were all written by his White staff. He still got credit. For centuries, apprentices always assisted the master craftsman but the master craftsman always got credit.

Chefs, sous-chefs, same thing. Architects (think Frank Lloyd Wright and others), all the same thing.

This has nothing to do with race. It's just the nature of apprenticeship. The truly talented apprentices are able to "break out" later on to establish themselves under their own names. So on, and so forth.

Wow-- it has nothing do with race. While I understand your point about apprenticeship, I think you are very off-base. Most of these things occurred during the time of segregation, jim-crow, legalized racism...but of course race didn't have anything to do with these folks not getting any credit. Naive much??

Okay, first of all your hypothetical situation did not include anything about jim-crow laws, etc. You're only now conveniently throwing them in. I'll play along in any event.

I'm sure Alexander Bell had plenty of white apprentices that never received credit for anything. I guess that's because of socioeconomic class? I'm sure they weren't all poor. Perhaps because they had the wrong last name? Where does this sort of thinking end, PP?

How did George Washington Carver do it? He made his numerous inventions in his own right and not under another person. The guy was brilliant and a trailblazer. He didn't dwell on the sorts of things that you are. He didn't waste his time proposing hypotheticals like "if i were a white man, imagine the things I could accomplish..." No, he just went out and did it.

I think oftentimes we (and I mean we because I'm a minority) hold ourselves back by focusing too much on the past, self-imposed limitations, and eternally playing victim. We shouldn't brush it under the rug. It was there, it existed, we suffered and we must remember. BUT we eventually overcame. So did many discriminated and persecuted peoples throughout history. There is still much to be done, but obsessively focusing on the injustices of this era (and again, many before it) will not better our community or this world.

Idiot aren't we talking about the past?
Weren't these inventions happen in the past? These kind of asinine responses really piss me off, so excuse me. Especially since I certainly am the last person to cry racism about EVERYTHING. But for someone to say we overcame is so naive it's incredible. Tell that to the Supreme Court who just set back voting rights about 40 years. Tell that to North Carolina and their voter identification laws of yesteryear.
If you do not think that race had anything to with a black man getting credit for anything in 1876, you are living a world of delusion far being anything ever seen before.
P.S. Stop calling yourself a minority! People of color are actually the majority population in the world. Majority/Minority labeling is demeaning to people on both sides of the designation. It is also a not so subtle form of weilding power of groups of people.
If you are a person of color, just freaking say that.

[Anonymous]

^^ rant over

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Idiot aren't we talking about the past?
Weren't these inventions happen in the past? These kind of asinine responses really piss me off, so excuse me. Especially since I certainly am the last person to cry racism about EVERYTHING. But for someone to say we overcame is so naive it's incredible. Tell that to the Supreme Court who just set back voting rights about 40 years. Tell that to North Carolina and their voter identification laws of yesteryear.
If you do not think that race had anything to with a black man getting credit for anything in 1876, you are living a world of delusion far being anything ever seen before.
P.S. Stop calling yourself a minority! People of color are actually the majority population in the world. Majority/Minority labeling is demeaning to people on both sides of the designation. It is also a not so subtle form of weilding power of groups of people.
If you are a person of color, just freaking say that.

By stooping to the level of name-calling you are disrespecting yourself far more than you disrespect me. Let's be respectful adults here as we agree to disagree.

I'm sorry if you don't think that overcoming slavery was a huge victory, PP, or overcoming segregation, institutional racism and so on. I do see those as achievements against corrupt and often vile human nature.

As I stated in my previous post, we should remember, but I refuse to allow myself to become victimized. By perpetuating this "woe is me" mentality you are allowing yourself to be made into a victim, again, and when we do that as a community we so often hold ourselves back instead of progressing. The past is the past. You cannot change it. You should remember, of course, but I think you do a greater good by celebrate the achievements and working towards betterment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ rant over

& re: the part about getting credit for things -- this still happens today in situations that have nothing to do with race, socioeconomic class, religion and so forth. Sure, oftentimes you can site discrimination as the cause but it's not always the case. I can assure that had Lewis been white he still would not have received any credit. His being black may have even brought him more to the foreground of history than his non-black counterparts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Idiot aren't we talking about the past?
Weren't these inventions happen in the past? These kind of asinine responses really piss me off, so excuse me. Especially since I certainly am the last person to cry racism about EVERYTHING. But for someone to say we overcame is so naive it's incredible. Tell that to the Supreme Court who just set back voting rights about 40 years. Tell that to North Carolina and their voter identification laws of yesteryear.
If you do not think that race had anything to with a black man getting credit for anything in 1876, you are living a world of delusion far being anything ever seen before.
P.S. Stop calling yourself a minority! People of color are actually the majority population in the world. Majority/Minority labeling is demeaning to people on both sides of the designation. It is also a not so subtle form of weilding power of groups of people.
If you are a person of color, just freaking say that.

By stooping to the level of name-calling you are disrespecting yourself far more than you disrespect me. Let's be respectful adults here as we agree to disagree.

I'm sorry if you don't think that overcoming slavery was a huge victory, PP, or overcoming segregation, institutional racism and so on. I do see those as achievements against corrupt and often vile human nature.

As I stated in my previous post, we should remember, but I refuse to allow myself to become victimized. By perpetuating this "woe is me" mentality you are allowing yourself to be made into a victim, again, and when we do that as a community we so often hold ourselves back instead of progressing. The past is the past. You cannot change it. You should remember, of course, but I think you do a greater good by celebrate the achievements and working towards betterment.

No one is woe is me. Dude got jacked for his ideas. That is not woe is me -- that is thievery. It is amazing to me that when people talk about current or even past incidents of racism -- it is considered victimization or the woe is me mentality. Why can't some instances just be plain and simple racism ? Geez -- it's people who refuse to see that are doomed to repeat history. By the way, sorry for the "idiot" comment. But you posted on DCUM, if you can't take the heat.... maybe stop being so woe is me about a little name calling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Idiot aren't we talking about the past?
Weren't these inventions happen in the past? These kind of asinine responses really piss me off, so excuse me. Especially since I certainly am the last person to cry racism about EVERYTHING. But for someone to say we overcame is so naive it's incredible. Tell that to the Supreme Court who just set back voting rights about 40 years. Tell that to North Carolina and their voter identification laws of yesteryear.
If you do not think that race had anything to with a black man getting credit for anything in 1876, you are living a world of delusion far being anything ever seen before.
P.S. Stop calling yourself a minority! People of color are actually the majority population in the world. Majority/Minority labeling is demeaning to people on both sides of the designation. It is also a not so subtle form of weilding power of groups of people.
If you are a person of color, just freaking say that.

By stooping to the level of name-calling you are disrespecting yourself far more than you disrespect me. Let's be respectful adults here as we agree to disagree.

I'm sorry if you don't think that overcoming slavery was a huge victory, PP, or overcoming segregation, institutional racism and so on. I do see those as achievements against corrupt and often vile human nature.

As I stated in my previous post, we should remember, but I refuse to allow myself to become victimized. By perpetuating this "woe is me" mentality you are allowing yourself to be made into a victim, again, and when we do that as a community we so often hold ourselves back instead of progressing. The past is the past. You cannot change it. You should remember, of course, but I think you do a greater good by celebrate the achievements and working towards betterment.

You are correct -- slavery is over so we're all good. And I guess you are saying that institutional racism is also a thing of the past. Check - that's done -- let's all relax now. By the way -- what "community" are you speaking of --last I looked all black people, cambodian people, east indian people don't all belong to the same community. They may share an ethnicity but i bet the millions of them don't all live in the same community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what he would have become had he been white?

probably the same, he didn't take it to the next level, it happens all the time. some people are not head coach material and are assistants all their life

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am surprised he got any credit. Edison and Bell stole most of "their" inventions.

OP here:

I think that's a bit of a overstatement. Edison and Bell were very fine inventors and very fine men.
I don't think I'd go so far as to say that they stole their inventions.


On another note, here is a book that Latimer wrote about his discoveries/the light bulb in the early 1900s: http://books.google.com/books?id=RlY4AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=lewis+latimer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RtVvUrPTNqPr2wWZoYGoAQ&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=lewis%20latimer&f=false

NP here. But I read numerous accounts of Edison bribing employees at the patent office to get his hands on new technology amd setting it up that his inventions received favorable treatment. He was a great inventor....but a good deal of his work was reverse engineered from other's people's work. And he was widely known to be ruthless in suppressing other inventors' work. Think Tesla. Brilliant inventor but a pretty well known asshole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and Steve jobs got credit for Apple but many more behind the scenes did the work, so what?

What is your point this happens everywhere everyday

Look at the guy at 3m who invented post its.

I wonder if the tables were turned, would you still be saying this?

A minority is credited as one of history's greatest inventors, but it was later discovered that a white man actually did much of the work. Guess what--he would be labeled a fraud and repudiated.

But when whites do it, it's okay?
Just goes to show you that minorities are held to double standards.

Because whites are generally assumed to have done most of the work--because racism. Your scenario virtually never happens. Whites taking the lion share of credit was and in some ways with some people, whites still do this.