Do Algebra and Geometry Encourage White Supremacy?
by Babette Francis
One would have hoped that the study of subjects like algebra and geometry would be immune to the culture of identity politics which is plaguing U.S. politics, but no such luck. University of Illinois mathematics professor Rochelle Gutierrez believes that algebra and geometry perpetuate "white privilege" because Greek terms give Caucasians unearned credit for the subject. She argues in a newly published maths 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. "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 the Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans."
Gutierrez claims that the importance of maths skills in the real world also places what she calls an "unearned privilege" for those who are good at it. Because most maths 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 maths professors get more grants than "social studies or English" professors. (My view is that maths professors get more grants and deserve higher pay because maths is inherently a more difficult but much more useful subject that the whingeing that passes for "women's studies"). "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 maths classrooms... [where people are] judged by whether they can reason abstractly".
To resolve the intelligence gap, Gutierrez calls on maths 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." This is an extraordinary statement from a maths professor. Knowledge of the number 10 is objective - and can be known subjectively by looking at our ten fingers and realising that is why humans developed a "decimal" arithmetic.
But back to Pythagoras. When I was at school among other
brown-skinned students in India, we were fascinated by his
theorem: "The square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the
right-angle in a triangle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the
other two sides". We wondered, in the event that bonfires were
lit in the Sahara Desert to illustrate his theorem, whether aliens
in passing space ships would realise there was intelligent life on
earth. However, they would probably sadly conclude there was
no intelligent life here after reading what a maths professor in
Illinois proclaims. 
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