Florida says it rejected math textbooks for referring to critical race theory
For those who find this and ask the question &quot;What does math have to do with white supremacy?&quot;, I will attempt to try and lay out the argument. I&#x27;m going to assume you&#x27;re asking this question in good faith.<p>I understand that the phrase &quot;white supremacy&quot; is equated with the idea that &quot;people who identify as white are superior&quot; (bad). I also understand the immediate reaction is to possibly think &quot;I am not a bad person and I identify as white, so there must be something wrong here&quot;. When you then tie it to a concept like math, the next thought then tends to go to &quot;how can a concept, not a person, like math, inherit a bad human trait like superiority&quot;? It can&#x27;t, so therefore there must be something wrong with these ideas.<p>If you look at the curriculum text from equitablemath.org and peek at page 9: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;equitablemath.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;sites&#x2F;2&#x2F;2020&#x2F;11&#x2F;1_STRIDE1.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;equitablemath.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;sites&#x2F;2&#x2F;2020&#x2F;11...</a>, there is a nuance here that I&#x27;m hoping to clarify to those who may feel the above.<p>First, the argument is not referring to a person, but a culture. Another way to think about it is a system. In this context, the system simply refers to the current methods of teaching.<p>If we all agree that the goal is to encourage as many people as possible to participate in STEM, enjoy it, thrive in it, and feel supported in it and we all agree that the data and studies show that our current system could be improved to accomplish this goal, the next conclusion is to criticize the system of which we teach fundamental concepts, like math.<p>Within our current system (or culture), we teach math a certain way. Some of those ways emphasize independent practice, mistakes are failure, teaching concepts linearly, and&#x2F;or grading students based on what they don&#x27;t know.<p>Because a lot of us learned this way and we are in the STEM field, we may ask ourselves &quot;what is wrong with that?&quot;<p>The argument is not that you don&#x27;t have a legitimate question. The argument is that stopping at the question does not achieve the goal. After years and years of social science study of what prevents people of color from getting into STEM fields (if you don&#x27;t believe these studies exist, that is ok, but only encourage your own investigation), the argument of &quot;white supremacy culture in math&quot; is providing points of how to center the experiences of people in color within the curriculum of teaching math to increase the thing we all seem to claim we want: the pipeline.<p>As a Black man, its really hard to be a part of this community and see people argue that is a pipeline problem, see scholars provide solutions to address the pipeline, then see those same people say &quot;but why do we have to change anything, why is this relevant?&quot;<p>At this point, it just feels like some people actually don&#x27;t want a solution. Even if this doesn&#x27;t work, why are we afraid to try? Isn&#x27;t that the point of being part of the scientific community?<p>Instead, we&#x27;re stuck demonizing the motives of people we don&#x27;t know who are trying to help others who may be outside of our own bubble.