Brylee Waggoner

ENGL-1130

February 8, 2024

Reflection Final Draft

Color Means Nothing

As years go on, the view of African Americans is different but will never be changed

fully. In the movie Hidden Figures directed by Theodore Melfi in 2016, a very descriptive life of

three African American women is given. Their struggles of working in a field known to have a

majority of not only male, but white workers are shown very well.

When heading to their new jobs at West Area Computers, Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary

start off with the unbelievably bad luck of their car breaking down. Thankfully, Dorothy could

fix their car and a police officer kindly escorted them to their new job. Upon arrival, no one

believes these women are there for the mathematician jobs they claim they are.

As their jobs go on with time, Katherine is assigned a job with the Space Task Group.

She is immediately faced with discrimination due to her skin color and gender. This does not

stop her though. Katherine solves the equation needed to send John Glenn into orbit on the

Mercury-Atlas 6 mission.

While Katherine is sending men into orbit, Mary is attempting to go to school. She has

always dreamed of being an engineer. Due to the culture at the time, this was not the easiest

thing for her to do. This does not stop her. With the help of one of Mary’s coworkers, she can

petition the court to allow her to attend the night classes at an all-white high school. After her

schooling she became the first African American female engineer at NASA. This is a notable

example of how determination can overpower others' opinions.

 Dorothy takes it upon herself to learn programming. She sees that the use of IBM

computers could harm the jobs of her coworkers, so she is doing what it takes to prevent this.

Although she is faced with struggles, she does not give up. All her hard work pays off for

Dorothy. She became the first African American supervisor in her department. Her knowledge

also helps her transition her coworkers to working with the recent technology.

Even though this movie was created a few years ago, it portrays the problems from the

past and ones that are still occurring today. There is the idea that women are not able to do the

same work as men. Also, the skin color of a person gives someone different rights. These are

both not true. As the movie shows, three successful black women can change the world for the

space industry.

These three women prove the standards wrong. Dorothy, Mary, and Katherine are all

successful and smart in their departments. They have many huge accomplishments that no one

else was able to do before them. Many hardships were thrown at them, but that did not stop them

from working for what they believed they could do.