It seems that Mathematics has the potential to be seen as ‘Racist’

Commentary

Is mathematics racist?

According to Professor Rowena Ball at the Australian National University (ANU), it is.

Professor Ball is leading the Mathematics Without Borders initiative at ANU, which aims to broaden the cultural base and content of mathematics.

She recently stated, “Mathematics has been gatekept by the West and defined to exclude entire cultures. Almost all mathematics that students have ever come across is European-based.”

It is not surprising that the claim that mathematics is racist and needs to be “decolonized” is not unique to ANU.

In the United Kingdom, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) mentions that universities should present a multicultural and decolonized perspective of mathematics.

The QAA suggests that students should be informed of problematic issues in the development of the mathematics content they are being taught.

For example, it points out that some pioneers of statistics supported eugenics, or some mathematicians had ties to the slave trade, racism, or Nazism.

In New Zealand, Jodie Hunter, a professor in Mathematics Education at the Institute of Education at Massey University, says that rather than implementing interventions for academically struggling students, we should focus on addressing the effects of institutionalized racism related to colonization.

She emphasizes the need to examine how cultural and cognitive imperialism in classroom interactions and the curriculum perpetuate inequality.

In the United States, a proposed mathematics curriculum framework suggests that teachers utilize guidance and resources from Equitable Math, an organization that promotes developing an anti-racist math practice.

Equitable Math argues that “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom” is evident in situations where there is a strong emphasis on accuracy, individual practice is prioritized over teamwork, or math is taught in a linear manner with sequential skills.

Its History Transcended Borders

The notion of white supremacy and racism in mathematics is a peculiar one, particularly given the multi-ethnic nature of the development of the discipline.

The earliest evidence of written mathematics dates back to the ancient Sumerians, who built the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia—modern day Iraq.

More advanced maths can be traced to ancient Greece and Pythagoras, who coined the term mathematics.

Ancient Romans used applied maths, and Chinese maths made contributions including a place value system and the first use of negative numbers.

The Hindu–Arabic numeral system, in use throughout the world today, evolved over the course of the first millennium AD in India and was transmitted to the Western world via Islamic mathematics through the work of Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, a ninth-century Persian mathematician and astronomer known as the “father of algebra.”

Contemporaneous with, but independent of these traditions, were the mathematics developed by the Mayan civilization of Mexico and Central America, where the concept of zero was given a standard symbol.

Medieval Europe and Renaissance Italy contributed significantly to the discipline, as did Englishman Isaac Newton and the German Gottfried Leibniz.

This history does not align with a white supremacist narrative.

Universal, Neutral Language

Mathematics is a universal language that transcends cultural, social, and racial boundaries. It operates on principles of logic, reason, and abstraction—qualities devoid of human biases.

Mathematical truths are objective and independent of the identity of the mathematician who discovers them.

For example, the Pythagorean Theorem holds regardless of the race, ethnicity, or background of the person applying it. The angles in a triangle will always add up to 180 degrees and a circle, 360.

This truth is consistent regardless of skin color, nationality, or community.

Mathematics, by its very nature, is neutral. It is often used to reveal disparities in areas like income, education, and healthcare access, shedding light on issues that disproportionately affect certain racial or ethnic groups, but it is not the cause of those disparities.

The fundamental principles, concepts, and branches of mathematics, such as addition, subtraction, geometry, and algebra, are based on immutable laws that do not change based on the race or background of the individual studying them.

Efforts to introduce racism into mathematics fundamentally misrepresent the subject and its principles.

Around the world, an objective academic subject is being weaponized and turned into a form of activism.

Mathematics is a crucial part of education, providing a foundational skill set that supports various academic fields and career opportunities.

The inclusion of ideological content in the curriculum actually hinders academically struggling students by depriving them of the interventions needed to achieve mathematical literacy and access numerous opportunities.

Opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and may not reflect the views of The Epoch Times.