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It's Official: Math is Racist

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Intersectional science already proved that everything is racist. Especially the things that aren't racist. 

You might think that 2 + 2 isn't racist, but how wrong you are. Math is racist. Numbers are social constructs. 2 + 2 = 5. 

Led by David Gillborn, a professor at the University of Birmingham, the professors argue that math serves white interests because it can “frequently encode racist perspectives beneath the facade of supposed quantitative objectivity.”

Math really needs to check its privilege.

“Contrary to popular belief, and the assertions of many quantitative researchers, numbers are neither objective nor color-blind,” Gillborn and his team assert in their article for the journal Race, Ethnicity, and Education.

Of course they're not. They have secret algorithmic privilege. No number knows what it's like to suffer oppression. And yet numbers refuse to check their privilege. 

To address the racism numbers reinforce, the professors advocate for the adoption of “QuantCrit”—a portmanteau for “quantitative analysis” and “critical race theory.” Quantcrit, they say, has five key tenets, including that “numbers are not neutral.”

I liked it better in the original Orwell.

"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense."

You would have to believe it or you're destroying the very existence of people suffering under the burden of racist math.

Anyway, back to 2017.

"In the postmodern tradition, Gillborn and his team also argue that racism can be reinforced through numbers because they are social constructs.

“Numbers are social constructs and likely to embody the dominant (racist) assumptions that shape contemporary society,” they write.

Ingsoc still wore it better.

'Do you remember,' he went on, 'writing in your diary, "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four"?''Yes,' said Winston. O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. 'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?''Four.''And if the party says that it is not four but five--then how many?''Four.' The word ended in a gasp of pain.
 

Why does the left hate math? Back to 1984.

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
 


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