Anti-Racist Mathematics

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

Thoughts on this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-racist_mathematics

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm skeptical. I don't believe science should become intrinsically ideological.

If mathematics is "Eurocentric", then how come Chinese people are so good at maths?

[The Grey Blur]

http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_eglash_on_african_fractals.html

[black magick hustla]

I'm skeptical. I don't believe science should become intrinsically ideological.

If mathematics is "Eurocentric", then how come Chinese people are so good at maths?
i think the approach is not so much about the subject matter but the pedagogy. i.e. nobody is gonna be saying 2+2=4 is a white thing.

[DDR]

Why is maths racist? It's because most of the things that are tought come from ancient greece or the renaisance/ilustration?

[Queercommie Girl]

i think the approach is not so much about the subject matter but the pedagogy. i.e. nobody is gonna be saying 2+2=4 is a white thing.

I'd say that what needs to become less Eurocentric is not the scientific discipline of mathematics itself, but the history of mathematics, which should assume a much more global perspective.

I majored in History and Philosophy of Science at university and for a while studied at the Joseph Needham Research Institute at the University of Cambridge in England. Needham is one of the greatest Historians of Science in history because he challenged Eurocentrism and made a great contribution to the study of the history of science, technology, medicine and mathematics in the ancient Chinese world. Joseph Needham (Chinese name: Li Yuese) is also a socialist, even though he isn't a Marxist.

There should be more focus on the history of mathematics in non-European regions of the world, such as China, the Middle East, pre-European Americas and Africa.

[Kronsteen]

This bullshit comes around periodically. I remember a presentation in the 80s which said the Mercator projection (the standard world map) was racist against icelandic people because it made Iceland look bigger than it really was.

There was the postmodernist Luce Iragaray who liked to claim numbers were feminine and mathematical operators (addition, multiplication etc) were masculine...which made mathematics sexist, somehow.

Still, it's nice to know fluffy liberals can be just as crazy as leftists.

[Sadena Meti]

If anything one MIGHT say that mathematical history might be racist.

But math itself can not be racist. It is the purest of all the science. The embodiment of pure logical reasoning.

[Queercommie Girl]

Why is maths racist? It's because most of the things that are tought come from ancient greece or the renaisance/ilustration?


There is nothing intrinsically special about Greek mathematics. Many of the key elements in Greek mathematics were also discovered independently by other cultures, such as ancient China, such as the use of quadratic equations and matrices for example. (Which demonstrates the universality of mathematical truth)

Due to the dominance of European capitalism in recent centuries, a large part of the symbolism in regular use in mathematics today comes from Greek culture. However, the numbers we use come from not the Greeks, but the Indians and the Arabs, who also invented the concept of "zero".

[jake williams]

i think the approach is not so much about the subject matter but the pedagogy. i.e. nobody is gonna be saying 2+2=4 is a white thing.
I think maldoror is right.

It looks like bullshit, but what they're really saying is math education shouldn't be racist, which is certainly true. And anyone who is seriously concerned about racism can recognize that everything from individually racist teachers or administrators to culturally-specific textbooks or examples (about math's application or history, not about math theory) is racist.

Mathematical operators aren't racist, that really is idiotic. But math education inevitably comes with a lot of cultural baggage, because we aren't organisms with the capacity to telepathically communicate abstract ideas to people, especially to children without a prior background in abstract mathematical thinking. Teaching math to children requires a lot of communication outside of the material, and there's a lot of space for racism. Not to mention the concerns about racism inherent in the structure of the educational system itself, especially in the United States which has a notoriously racist system of school funding.


tl;dr: Racism exists in the whole educational system, not in calculus or algebra per se. If you're against racism, you should be concerned about that.

[Kotze]

This bullshit comes around periodically.Yes, some older folks on this board might remember the New Math craze, where US kids were encouraged to learn various completely different ways of multiplication, and none of them very well. Kids were also asked to write very wordy answers to math questions.
I remember a presentation in the 80s which said the Mercator projection (the standard world map) was racistBad example, even if you had to endure a dumb presentation. Given that it's impossible to put a sphere's texture on a flat surface without distortions, there is a trade-off. What information has higher priority, shape or area size? Africa and South America appear disproportionally small with Mercator. Mercator has some usefulness for nautical purposes, but won't give information about area size at a glance, and I think that would be more useful in a classroom context.

The debate about the apparant eurocentrism of Mercator maps was started by Arno Peters, though the map he peddled is also screwing over Africa and South America, this time by giving them an elongated shape. If he cared so much about Africa, why didn't he squeeze the shapes in the north instead? He said his decision was made under consideration of the number of people living in each country, it's in a way more democratic to distort the shapes in Eurasia less. He also considered the ratio of TV screens, since a world map which shows Africa in pretty much both correct shape and in fitting size relative to the other continents looks like a towel. /derail

[Reznov]

I'm skeptical. I don't believe science should become intrinsically ideological.

If mathematics is "Eurocentric", then how come Chinese people are so good at maths?

A positive stereotype is still a stereotype.

Please, stop using them and don't make huge generalizations of an entire people simply because of some features.

[Queercommie Girl]

A positive stereotype is still a stereotype.

Please, stop using them and don't make huge generalizations of an entire people simply because of some features.

Yeah, technically you are right, "positive stereotyping" is still strictly speaking a kind of discrimination as well.

But I am actually Chinese, and a Chinese person using the term "Chink" isn't the same as a non-Chinese person using it, for example.

[Sir Comradical]

There is nothing intrinsically special about Greek mathematics. Many of the key elements in Greek mathematics were also discovered independently by other cultures, such as ancient China, such as the use of quadratic equations and matrices for example. (Which demonstrates the universality of mathematical truth)

Due to the dominance of European capitalism in recent centuries, a large part of the symbolism in regular use in mathematics today comes from Greek culture. However, the numbers we use come from not the Greeks, but the Indians and the Arabs, who also invented the concept of "zero".

The Indians invented it, the Arabs transported it.




Yes I'm Indian.

[hatzel]

But I am actually Chinese, and a Chinese person using the term "Chink" isn't the same as a non-Chinese person using it, for example.

But a Chinese person saying 'we Chinese are great at maths' is also very different than a non-Chinese saying 'you Chinese are great at maths', and in this case, the situation is the inverse; it's not self-deprecating, or an attempt at nullifying disparaging stereotypes or insults, and instead verges on chauvinism...

[Queercommie Girl]

But a Chinese person saying 'we Chinese are great at maths' is also very different than a non-Chinese saying 'you Chinese are great at maths', and in this case, the situation is the inverse; it's not self-deprecating, or an attempt at nullifying disparaging stereotypes or insults, and instead verges on chauvinism...

I didn't say "we Chinese". Also, "positive stereotyping" is actually a form of discrimination technically, (e.g. the "model minority" myth) not necessarily "positive" at all.

[Franz Fanonipants]

I'm skeptical. I don't believe science should become intrinsically ideological.

it already is, hate to tell you.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Anyways, yeah. It's an effort to "globalize" mathematic thought, to show conceptual connections beyond just briefly mentioning that the Arabs invented Algebra and etc.

I don't know about its pedagogical value, frankly, but it does show how conventional histories of science/math are eurocentric to a fault. Unless you're really stupid and think that science is some kind of divine force that exists in a vacuum of class struggles, this isn't too challenging.

[Queercommie Girl]

Anyways, yeah. It's an effort to "globalize" mathematic thought, to show conceptual connections beyond just briefly mentioning that the Arabs invented Algebra and etc.

I don't know about its pedagogical value, frankly, but it does show how conventional histories of science/math are eurocentric to a fault. Unless you're really stupid and think that science is some kind of divine force that exists in a vacuum of class struggles, this isn't too challenging.

The history of mathematics is Eurocentric, mathematics itself is not. That's what I've been saying all along.

On the contrary, the very fact that mathematics was discovered in history by various cultures around the globe and not just Europe demonstrates the essential universality of mathematics in an intrinsic sense.

[Queercommie Girl]

it already is, hate to tell you.

Of course everything is inevitably influenced by ideological elements objectively speaking, but theoretical science, unlike applied science or technology, in principle and subjectively aims to be completely objective and free of ideological influences, even though in reality it is always impossible to completely achieve this.

One shouldn't subjugate everything in the world to a Marxist-Leninist framework. Freedom of thought is important. One doesn't want to dictate which scientific theories are "reactionary" and which are not like Stalin did. The "thought police" is very un-socialist.

[Tim Finnegan]

Is it perhaps best to approach science as something which is able to generate ideology, rather than something which should be subjected to it? I understand that Marx and Engels seemed to regard Darwinian Theory as significant in generating an understanding of the world as a dynamic and immediate conditions as impermanent.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Of course everything is inevitably influenced by ideological elements objectively speaking, but theoretical science, unlike applied science or technology, in principle and subjectively aims to be completely objective and free of ideological influences, even though in reality it is always impossible to completely achieve this.

One shouldn't subjugate everything in the world to a Marxist-Leninist framework. Freedom of thought is important. One doesn't want to dictate which scientific theories are "reactionary" and which are not like Stalin did. The "thought police" is very un-socialist.

Theories aren't "reactionary."

But, theoreticians are.

No, but real talk, science doesn't behave that way. Not in my experience of it. It might aim to be completly objective and free of ideological influence, but it exists within the society it occurs in. As a result, scientific inquiry (which I guess you could separate from the Science itself) is tied into the economic mode it occurs in.

As to your prior point, exactly. That's why "anti-racist mathematics" exist, to shine a light on the broader mechanical processes behind mathematics existing in ALL cultures.

[IndependentCitizen]

1 racist + 1 anti-racist = 1 dead racist.

10 racists + 1 car bomb = 9 dead racists + 1 severely wounded racist.

Amidoingitrite?

[Tim Finnegan]

1 racist + 1 anti-racist = 1 dead racist.

10 racists + 1 car bomb = 9 dead racists + 1 severely wounded racist.

Amidoingitrite?
1 racist + 1 clear, concise campaign detailing the evils of racism = 1 penitent ex-racist
1 penitent ex-racist > 9 dead racists
.'. 1 clear, concise campaign > 1 car bomb

:p

[Meridian]

1 racist + 1 anti-racist = 1 dead racist.
And the anti-racist ceased to exist?

[bezdomni]

This is ridiculous fodder for conservatives to invoke as an example when dismissing multiculturalism. I cannot imagine any other possible reason for such an absurd idea.

The only eurocentrism in mathematics is when really old discoveries are named after the ancient Greek thinker that first wrote them down, even though now we know many of these discoveries were independently discovered by eastern (Chinese or Indian usually) ancient mathematicians at an earlier point.

Maybe this is some clever way for "anti-racist" liberals to justify sucking at math.

Von Neumann described himself as "violently anti-communist" and "militaristic" (this was, of course, in front of the HUAC at the height of McCarthyism -- so perhaps this is a slight exaggeration). So his politics kind of sucked, but his mathematics were rock solid and he was without question one of the greatest scientific thinkers to ever live.

[syndicat]

the title of this thread is misleading. the cited Wikipedia bit is not about mathematics. It's about the teaching of mathematics.

Now, there is in fact an element of truth to the claim that the teaching of math can be more or less elitist. This happens when it is not organized to allow slow, incremental attainment of additional skills. This is how math is taught in Korea and Japan. Those countries have among the highest average attainment by students in math.

In the USA standardized tests are used to sort the student population. These tests are well known to be class (and to some extent race) biased. That's because of the different circumstances related to learning in the critical 2 to 4 year old period, and in general various situations of more affluent households that favor quicker development of cognitive abilities, such as more books, larger vocabularies of the parents and other things.

Now, the result of sorting is that working class students & students of color tend to be dumped into very rote classes that teach to the standardized tests, so they do not have the opportunity to gradually advance in math, to things like trigonometry and so on.

the upshot is that the USA has very low average proficiency among students in math (at the same level as Latvia and Malaysia) but the very highest level of proficiency among students from the elite classes, who get the special high track educations thru high school, admission to relatively more elite universities, etc.

[Quail]

Discussion of the mathematical knowledge of ancient civilizations outside of Europe, and non-European contributions to mathematical knowledge and discovery.

The avoidance of racial stereotyping when forming and communicating expectations of pupils' attainments in mathematics.

The avoidance of racial stereotypes or cultural bias in classroom materials, textbooks, coursework topics and examination questions.

Effective and unprejudiced methods of distinguishing between the merits of individuals.
All of the above are very valid points, and actually could apply to most if not all subjects taught, not just mathematics. Racist stereotypes can be very damaging to students in that if you're expected to do badly, the teacher may have less confidence in you and not push you to reach your potential, or the opposite might happen and they might put so much pressure on you to do well that you end up not doing so well because of the stress of trying to live up to that expectation.

When I was at school, I actually didn't learn much, if anything, about the history of maths. At university I'm doing a module at the moment which focuses a lot on European maths, although there is a section about ancient Egyptian and Babylonian maths. The book the course is based on covers other parts of the world, but the course doesn't mention any of their achievements.