Brooklyn College Professor of Math Education Laurie Rubel took to Twitter to argue that the mathematical equation 2+2=4 “reeks of white supremacist patriarchy.” Several academics at universities and colleges around the nation discuss how mathematics is rooted in “white supremacist patriarchy” and white social constructs.
Laurie Rubel, who teaches math education at Brooklyn College, says that the idea of math being cultural neutral is a “myth,” and that asking whether 2 plus 2 equals 4 “reeks of white supremacist patriarchy.”
“Y’all must know that the idea that math is objective or neutral IS A MYTH,” she tweeted.
Spencer Bagley, a math professor at Westminster College in Pennsylvania, retweeted Rubel’s assertion.
Rochelle Gutierrez, who teaches “Sociopolitical Perspectives on Mathematics and Science Education” at the University of Illinois, responded o a tweet from a former educator claiming that the U.S. “colonizes” math.
“By now it is well known, for example, that other cultures were using the theorem we call Pythagorean, yet we still refer to it with this name. This is colonization and erasure,” the tweet from the former educator read.
Gutierrez responded with, YES! This attends to the Cultures/Histories dimension of RM (addressing Western/Eurocentric maths). And, we also want to attend to the Living Practice dimension (which is more about imagining a version that builds upon ancestral knowings, but does not yet exist).”
Kareem Carr, a Ph.D. student at Harvard University, weighed in with, “People say it’s subjectivism to ask if math is Western. I don’t get that. It’s an objective fact that some groups were more involved in the creation of modern math than others. They may have been *trying* to make it objective but it’s not stupid to ask if they actually succeeded!”
Source: Campus Reform
Image: CUNY / Audrey C. Tiernan
I can’t decide whether this would make the extra-terrestrials scratch their heads or laugh their a**es off (assuming their anatomy is humanoid in any way). Math is. If we’re losing touch with that too, the Rapture must surely be in the offing!
Why don’t you people get real jobs and quit inventing things to bitch about. Try to do something positive.