Math, Algebra And Geometry Promote ‘White Privilege’

[Danke]

A University of Illinois math professor believes that algebra and geometry perpetuate “white privilege” because Greek terms give Caucasians unearned credit for the subject.


But that isn’t the professor’s only complaint. She also believes that evaluations for math proficiency perpetuates discrimination against minority students, if they do worse than their white counterparts.


Rochelle Gutierrez argues in a newly published math education book for teachers that they must be aware of the identity politics surrounding the subject of mathematics.


“On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness,” she argues with complete sincerity, according to Campus Reform (https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10005). “Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White.”
Gutierrez argues that subjects like algebra and geometry, which relate to arithmetic, also perpetuate racism and white privilege. She worries that “curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.”


Gutierrez claims that the importance of math skills in the real world also places what she calls an “unearned privilege” for those who are good at it. Because most math teachers in the United States are white, white people stand to benefit from their grasp of the subject disproportionate to members of other races.


“Are we really that smart just because we do mathematics?” she asks, raising the question as to why math professors get more grants than “social studies or English” professors.


“If one is not viewed as mathematical, there will always be a sense of inferiority that can be summoned,” she says, claiming that minorities “have experienced microaggressions from participating in math classrooms… [where people are] judged by whether they can reason abstractly.”


To resolve the intelligence gap, Gutierrez calls on math professors to develop a sense of “political conocimiento,” a Spanish term for “political knowledge for teaching.”


She concludes her argument with the claim that all knowledge is “relational,” or is, in other words, relative. “Things cannot be known objectively; they must be known subjectively.”


Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter (http://twitter.com/stillgray) and on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/IanMilesCheong).

[Sonny Tufts]

How in the world did someone as immensely stupid as this airhead ever get to be a professor?

Oh, right...she's in the College of Education, not the Math Department.


She concludes her argument with the claim that all knowledge is “relational,” or is, in other words, relative. “Things cannot be known objectively; they must be known subjectively.”

A claim whose self-contradictory nature is blatantly apparent to everyone except the idiot who uttered it.

[RJB]

What about Muslim privilege? There are a few apologists on the forum who excuse the Islamic conquest because they came up with the numeral zero.

[shakey1]

Weird, just weird.

[euphemia]

White Privilege? Really? Does this loon know it takes math to issue her undeserved paycheck?

[AZJoe]

How in the world did someone as immensely stupid as this airhead ever get to be a professor?
Oh, right...she's in the College of Education, not the Math Department.

That is the leftist cult privilege speaking. Once you're fully indoctrinated into the leftist cult, logic, reason, sanity, are no longer important. In fact they are a detriment.
You can spout mad hatter level nonsense and still get paid in a cushy teaching job in academia - leftist privilege.

[fedupinmo]

If we all drop to the level of understanding of the lowest common denominator, progress grinds to a halt for everyone. Good luck princess...
For a quick laugh, drop by youtube and search for African airplane. Aircraft engineering is raciss as well...

[dannno]

Did she type that on a computer? In a building? That she needed to use an elevator???

Come on!!!!!

[shakey1]

That is the leftist cult privilege speaking. Once you're fully indoctrinated into the leftist cult, logic, reason, sanity, are no longer important. In fact they are a detriment.
You can spout mad hatter level nonsense and still get paid in a cushy teaching job in academia - leftist privilege.

Leftist privilege?... I've never heard that term dropped on MSM.;)

[Ender]

That is the leftist cult privilege speaking. Once you're fully indoctrinated into the leftist cult, logic, reason, sanity, are no longer important. In fact they are a detriment.
You can spout mad hatter level nonsense and still get paid in a cushy teaching job in academia - leftist privilege.

And w/o one functioning brain cell. Sounds like she needs some real edumacation:


Now it appears that the Babylonians invented trigonometry, almost 1,000 years before Pythagoras was born.

University of New South Wales mathematicians Daniel Mansfield and Norman Wildberger discovered this after a breakthrough analysis of an ancient cuneiform tablet, written between 1822-1762 BCE in the Babylonian city of Larsa. Long a mystery, the tablet shows three columns of numbers. Describing their work in Historica Mathematica, the researchers call the tablet "a trigonometric table of a completely unfamiliar kind and... ahead of its time by thousands of years."


https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/ancient-tablet-reveals-babylonians-discovered-trigonometry/


The "Kerala school," a little-known group of scholars and mathematicians in fourteenth century India, identified the "infinite series" — one of the basic components of calculus — around 1350.

"The beginnings of modern maths is usually seen as a European achievement but the discoveries in medieval India between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries have been ignored or forgotten," he said. "The brilliance of Newton's work at the end of the seventeenth century stands undiminished — especially when it came to the algorithms of calculus.
"But other names from the Kerala School, notably Madhava and Nilakantha, should stand shoulder to shoulder with him as they discovered the other great component of calculus — infinite series."

[Schifference]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1mmePD549o

[Occam's Banana]

What about Muslim privilege? There are a few apologists on the forum who excuse the Islamic conquest because they came up with the numeral zero.

Actually, Muslims did not come up with the numeral zero. They borrowed it from the Hindus. Europeans, in turn, borrowed it from the Arabs. Whence, the "Arabic" or "Hindu-Arabic" number system used today by just about everyone.

Specifically, the Persian (i.e., Iranian - i.e., not Arabian) scholar and engineer al-Khwarizmi wrote On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, which introduced the Hindu numeral system to Arabs/Muslims. (Side note #1: al-Khwarizmi's name was latinized as "Algoritmi" from which we get the word "algorithm.")

This system was then transmitted to Christian Europe in the Middle Ages (primarily by way of Moorish/Saracenic Spain), where it was later popularized by Leonardo of Pisa (a.k.a. Leonardo Fibonacci, he of the famous "Fibonacci sequence") in his text Liber Abaci ("Book of Calculation"). Prior to Fibonacci's seminal work, the cumbersome Roman numerals (which had no symbol for zero) were used by European mathematicians. (Side note #2: Fibonacci's Liber Abaci also introduced the use of the decimal point.)

[Jamesiv1]

I am literally shaking right now.

[Schifference]

The Obama's have black privilege.

[RJB]

Actually, Muslims did not come up with the numeral zero. They borrowed it from the Hindus. Europeans, in turn, borrowed it from the Arabs. Whence, the "Arabic" or "Hindu-Arabic" number system used today by just about everyone.

Specifically, the Persian (i.e., Iranian - i.e., not Arabian) scholar and engineer al-Khwarizmi wrote On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, which introduced the Hindu numeral system to Arabs/Muslims. (Side note #1: al-Khwarizmi's name was latinized as "Algoritmi" from which we get the word "algorithm.")

This system was then transmitted to Christian Europe in the Middle Ages (primarily by way of Moorish/Saracenic Spain), where it was later popularized by Leonardo of Pisa (a.k.a. Leonardo Fibonacci, he of the famous "Fibonacci sequence") in his text Liber Abaci ("Book of Calculation"). Prior to Fibonacci's seminal work, the cumbersome Roman numerals (which had no symbol for zero) were used by European mathematicians. (Side note #2: Fibonacci's Liber Abaci also introduced the use of the decimal point.)

Wow! Most of the world is privileged!

[axiomata]

If we all drop to the level of understanding of the lowest common denominator, progress grinds to a halt for everyone. Good luck princess...
For a quick laugh, drop by youtube and search for African airplane. Aircraft engineering is raciss as well...

Racist

[oyarde]

These kids in school today do not even wear pants in winter . I never thought of Algebra as white Priv but I guess if Danke was a student today standing in class in his boxers it would make him look extra white . Personally I always thought of algebra like dental extractions , something to be avoided if possible .

[DamianTV]

This guy might disagree. Oh, and he is black and one of my personal heroes.


https://youtu.be/Fl1nJC3lvFs

[specsaregood]

These kids in school today do not even wear pants in winter . I never thought of Algebra as white Priv but I guess if Danke was a student today standing in class in his boxers it would make him look extra white . Personally I always thought of algebra like dental extractions , something to be avoided if possible .

meh, my 1st grader figured out the answers to the algebraic equation bonus questions on his recent math quiz. And he had never specifically been taught it. It always just made sense to me as well.

edit: also this story was posted over a month ago: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?516226-Math-Skills-White-Privilege

[fedupinmo]

Racist

If it's racist to desire for every child to be educated according to his or her ability instead of everybody being held to the lowest standard in the classroom to avoid offending someone, then so be it. :D

[Swordsmyth]

Math is a means of representing reality, what the SJWs can't handle is reality.

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdepts.washington.edu%2Fcritgame%2 Fwordpress%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F09%2Freality-worst-game-ever.jpg&f=1

[axiomata]

If it's racist to desire for every child to be educated according to his or her ability instead of everybody being held to the lowest standard in the classroom to avoid offending someone, then so be it. :D

No, it's racist to use math jargon like 'lowest common denominator' ... some people can't understand mathspeak.

...

;)

[r3volution 3.0]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashionable_Nonsense

[Dr.3D]

I wonder why he left out Trigonometry.

[Swordsmyth]

I wonder why he left out Trigonometry.

He probably is ignorant of it's existence.

[Dr.3D]

He probably is ignorant of it's existence.
And doing so would probably mean he was going off on a tangent. :p

[r3volution 3.0]

And doing so would probably mean he was going off on a tangent. :p


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcYppAs6ZdI