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The Virgin Galactic SpaceShip is pictured flying above New Mexico on Sunday. | Source: PATRICK T. FALLON / Getty

Everybody has priorities. It just so happens that for the vast majority of humans, going to space is probably not at the top of our lists.

Instead, there are basic human needs that warrant much more immediate attention, what with the scourges of poverty, homelessness, unemployment, oh, and a little something called the COVID-19 pandemic — to name but a few urgent matters — refusing to budge from their evil perches across the world.

But never mind those very fixable socio-economic and public health issues — many of which have lingered since Neil Armstrong became the first American to walk on the moon nearly 52 years ago when those same issues also appeared to be much less of a priority than sending people to space.

It was in that context that Gil Scott-Heron in 1970 penned and performed his iconic poem-song, “Whitey On The Moon,” which was a nod to the privileges enjoyed by non-Black people at the time, allowing them to pursue their prideful pet projects that did not necessarily make the world a better place for most Americans.

It may have also been in that same context that some cynics viewed Sir Richard Branson‘s flight launch on Sunday to the “upper sky” (© Michael Harriot). The mega-billionaire had the news cycle in a stranglehold after billing his Virgin Galactic company’s sleek new space aircraft launch as all but the Second Coming for the aerospace industry, flying just 50 miles above the earth with a crew of civilians over a New Mexico desert.

At face value, the flight seemed to accomplish a little more than bragging rights for Branson, who has made a career by living out his greatest adventures in the public eye. But if you look a bit deeper, you’d see a couple of his fellow mega-billionaires also making similar efforts to fly to space — almost like it was a competition or a race.

See more on Jeff Bezos — the richest man in the world who, valued at about $187 billion, is also planning to fly to space on July 20 in a spacecraft made by his own company — and Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company continues to launch missions into space.

CNBC has acknowledged “the billionaire space race” and said Musk is “winning” it.

But peeling back a few of the superficial layers exposes the likely true motivations — or, priorities — that are fueling these space expeditions: making more money.

Beneath Branson’s aerospace ambitions lie plans to monetize his trip on Sunday by helping to normalize commercial space travel, an industry from which he stands to greatly and further enrich himself. Virgin Galactic CEO referred to it as a  “commercial space endeavor.”

(Another way to look at it is that billionaires are trying to further enrich themselves in an industry that has historically excluded people of color — you know, the folks who make up the bulk of us struggling to live on earth — but we won’t go there… yet.)

The launch played out as one huge infomercial, complete with being hosted by … Stephen Colbert?

Unlike when Armstrong planted his feet and the American flag on the craterous surface of the moon in 1969, this latest wave of billionaire-funded space trips increasingly seem less for scientific and discovery purposes and more for reasons of the ego-stroking and sport varieties.

All of which is why the aforementioned Gil Scott-Heron song still resonates in 2021.

Using the “whitey” euphemism absent of racist intentions and to underscore the racial lines between privilege and poverty, Scott-Heron brilliantly breaks down the bigger picture that was surrounding space travel in the late 1960s and early 1970s — a bigger picture that remains largely intact to this day.

Listen to it for yourself and read the lyrics below, courtesy of the Genius website, and see if you notice any parallels more than a half-century later.

We have a poem here, it’s called “Whitey On The Moon”

It was inspired by some whiteys on the moon

So I wanna give credit where credit is due

A rat done bit my sister Nell

With whitey on the moon

Her face and arms began to swell

And whitey’s on the moon

I can’t pay no doctor bills

But whitey’s on the moon

Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still

While whitey’s on the moon

The man just upped my rent last night

Cause whitey’s on the moon

No hot water, no toilets, no lights

But whitey’s on the moon

I wonder why he’s upping me?

Cause whitey’s on the moon?

Well I was already giving him fifty a week

With whitey on the moon

Taxes taking my whole damn check

Junkies making me a nervous wreck

The price of food is going up

And as if all that shit wasn’t enough:

A rat done bit my sister Nell

With whitey on the moon

Her face and arm began to swell

And whitey’s on the moon

Was all that money I made last year

For whitey on the moon?

How come I ain’t got no money here?

Hmm! Whitey’s on the moon

Y’know I just ’bout had my fill

Of whitey on the moon

I think I’ll send these doctor bills

Airmail special

To whitey on the moon

Where is the lie?

SEE ALSO:

From The Streets To The Suites: Two Black Men Poised To Lead New York City

5 Times Georgia Governor Brian Kemp Failed Georgians

‘Whitey On The Moon’: Gil Scott-Heron’s Song Resonates In 2021 As Billionaires Race To Space  was originally published on newsone.com

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