When You Think About It, Is Hayden Planetarium Director Neil deGrasse Tyson Sort of the Barack Obama of Astrophysics?

I don’t know how much you know about Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, above, astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose Director of the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium, right, here in New York City, or if you know anything about him at all. Even though he’s a big guy, was a 2007 TIME 100 leader, and is on TV more than most scientists, you may not have noticed him, as most Americans don’t pay attention to the people who head knowledge-based organizations.

Yet, even if you hadn’t heard of him, you’ve lived on this planet long enough to know that, if someone, at random, asked you who’s the person that has run the nation’s best known public science education institution since 1996, you almost certainly wouldn’t think of a Black guy.

That fact led me to wonder: Is being Neil deGrasse Tyson a little bit like being Barack Obama?

I don’t mean in the sense of being the first African-American in his position, which he is. I mean in the sense of having to deal with white people.

That is, in certain surface ways, Obama and Tyson are somewhat similar. They’re 47 and 50, respectively. Both went to Columbia and Harvard. (Tyson also graduated from the exclusive Bronx High School of Science, and was on staff for three years at Princeton, where Michelle Obama went to college.) Both are physically dominant, good-looking, humorous men, noted for their easygoing manners. Both are married, with young children.

I guess what I’m wondering, though, even though, from a distance, I have some sense of it, is when you’ve got all that going for you, how does race affect your life?

Like, for example, how much of that overt friendliness—ready humor, a wide smile, and a gentle (or big) laugh—is, though genuinely you, also a key way of putting white people at ease? Also, how much of your day is dedicated to that?

In their work, both Obama and Tyson deal with a lot of really smart people. But there have got to have been more than a few occasions, for them both, and especially for Tyson—whose CV has 29 sections, and who deals a lot with the aforementioned ignorant public—where they’ve been the smartest, or one of the smartest guys in the room, yet knew someone was talking down to them, or trying to go around them, because of their racial classification. (We’ve already discussed this happening to Obama.)

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the guest today on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, January 2, at 2 pm ET.

In this repeat edition of the broadcast, Dr. Tyson, who’d stopped by WBAI to discuss his book, The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist, talks about some of these issues, while also discussing his love for both the universe and its methodical study.

You can hear his ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state, check out our stream on the web. If you miss the live show, dig into our archives for up to 90 days after broadcast.