Can you Spot the Racism?

I think I need to clarify a couple of things about this thread. The OP was discussing the subject of math and how it can, in and of itself, be racist (at least that was my professors take).When I refer to math, I do not mean the class room, or the teacher, or the desks, or the funding of the programs, etc. What I am referring to with math is the subject matter itself; particularly, what is it about the manipulation of numbers that can be racist? An English literature class can EASILY hit the mark of being racially insensitive, by, lets say, for example, not teaching any literature composed by minority writers. Or a music class that skipped teaching jazz; history class that downplayed the evil of slavery. These are things where the subject matter can be racist, and has in the past.With math, we have numbers. We don't teach where they come from; we don't care who came up with the theories. We just sit there like little machines as our teacher tells us how to manipulate these abstract thinga-majigs. Unless we can show that teacher have in some way not been focusing on the minority numbers (I think 6 is left out a lot, as is 8), and that that somehow translates to racism (or any other pickings we can translate), then there is simply no case to form an opinion that racism is something easily developed and inherent in the American math curriculum.J0N

Is this what the professor meant though? Was she saying that math in and of itself can be racist or that the programs as taught can be?

No, we were talking about many subjects, and about how the subject matter itself can be racist. We (she) were talking about how the actual math itself can be racist when taught from a U.S. "perspective."And of course, the obvious response is that it's math and it only has one perspective. Unless you want to teach every number system in the world--and that's just being picky and crazy!J0N

Perhaps the author of the OP misunderstood his professor?

What? Since when?Every math class I've ever taken has always covered the history of numbers and the names of Euclid, Euler, Pythagoras, Pascal, and other people who often were not the original discoverers of their theorems, but simply the first European discoverer.In that, math could easily be racist. The implication that a discovery is not significant until a white person discovers it is, of course, completely racist; that implication is put forth any time we name a theorem after its "traditional" namesake, even when the theorem predates that person (as in the case of Pythagoras.) For instance, the Chinese proofs of that theorem predate the earliest surviving attibution to Pythagoras by more than one thousand years, yet we still call it the "Pythagorean theorem" rather than the "Gougu theorem" (as they call it in China.)

hey jon, you might want to fix this.you state this:and then proceed to give examples that are class-room related, such as: A better example would be that the book itself is racist, such as Huckleberry Finn (which does not hide the fact it is being written in the language of the time).

I don't see how Huck Finn can possibly be considered racist.

perhaps that the people in it were? I mean, (if I've the period its about right) it's a pre-civil war book. Even the abolitionists were racists--they wanted the slaves free, but they also didn't want them up north (a generalization, yes).perhaps it was a bad example, but the point still carries. Jon was talking about how math in and of itself was claimed to be racist, not the classroom in which it was taught, etc, and gave us an example of what he was looking for, but it was the wrong example, because it is a classroom setting--the books one reads are based off of the curriculum.

---

Question. Always Question." . . .and some nights I just pray to the god of sex and drugs and rock'n'roll"--meatloafWant to help give back to the world community? Did you know that your computer can help? Join the newest TeamEvC Climate Modelling to help improve climate predictions for a better tomorrow.

It calls blacks "niggers." That's all some people need to know.Hell, some people don't even need to hear that word, just a word that sounds like it. People have raised a stink over a teacher saying the word "niggardly," even though the etymology of that word has absolutely nothing to do with any racial terms.It's far from unusual for people to cry racism where there's no reason to. I understand one loon has even cried racism because we use the names of European discoverers of certain mathematical principles even though non-Europeans may have discovered some of them sooner.Edited by subbie, : Just for fun.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

A frog, actually, and if you have an argument how that isn't racist I'd love to hear it, I guess.

Unless the Chinese made it known to us, how are we to know they invented it? Does it hold any significance to the European people if it is just sitting there in China?If they both discovered it, then they should both get credit. In this instance, I would agree though, that not giving any mention of the Chinese man who found it, is rather wrong.However, that still doesn't help us to understand how a racist spin can be put onto 4+5=9.J0N

How long do you think we've been talking to China? 200 years, maybe? Don't you think maybe, just maybe, we showed them the Pythagorean theorem and they said "oh, right, we have that, too, from about 500BC."Sure, we called it the Pythagorean theorem when the only people we knew who had it were the Greeks, and the Egyptians, and the Celts, and the Mesopotanians, and so on, but now that we know that the Chinese document the theorem a whole thousand years before anybody else appears to have, shouldn't we maybe have changed the name somewhere along the way?

Nope. I have no such argument for you.When Jon began discussing this topic in chat, I told him I had no interest in trying to explain to people who had goofy ideas about what's racism why they're wrong. Nothing in this thread so far has changed my mind about the futility of such an endeavor.I would, however, be interested in hearing you explain why it's nutty to think Huck Finn is racist but your idea is compeltely sound.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Huck Finn is about a kid who frees a slave. It's Mark Twain's most anti-racism book. To assert that it's racist because it has the word "nigger" in it is to reveal oneself as someone who didn't even read the book.As for what you call "my idea", I already explained the racism there.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

maybe because the people in the book are racist?oh, and why do we call something the Coloumb and not the Franklin?tradition. (well, and the europeans thought we couldn't do anything in science, nv mind that we actually did).