The Peoples' Republic of Oregon claims "Math be raaacist "

The Oregon Department of Education is promoting a course for teachers that links math to racism and a culture of “white supremacy.”

The department has sent teachers an online notice of a course called “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,” which includes a section on “Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.”  The Department promotes the course as “an integrated approach to mathematics that centers on Black, Latinx, and Multilingual students in grades 6-8 [and] addresses barriers to math equity.” 

The opening paragraph sets the tone for the 80 pages that follow with this:

The framework for deconstructing racism in mathematics offers essential characteristics of antiracist math educators and critical approaches to dismantling white supremacy in math classrooms by visibilizing the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture with respect to math.

One of the goals of the course is to get teachers to stop teaching that some answers are simply wrong.  The course also claims America’s founding principles are raaaacist and oppressive.  Really.

The course claims math is racist, and the syllabus lists five steps (or in the vivid imagery of neo-Marxist jargon, “strides”) that can help math teachers banish this alleged math racism.  In fact there's an entire section titled "dismantling racism," in which teachers are told to examine their “actions, beliefs, and values around teaching mathematics” with the apparent goal of getting them to make math lessons built around identity politics.

The course claims “White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions. Coupled with the beliefs that underlie these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on [minority] students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics.”  That's a quote.

It also identifies “ways in which white supremacy shows up in math classrooms.”

The course materials claim that "when solving math problems is connected to white supremacy" there's too much focus on asking students to get the “right” answer.  Working independently is criticized. Instead the course materials push group math work.

“Often the emphasis is placed on learning math in the ‘real world,’ as if our classrooms are not a part of the real world. This reinforces notions of either/or thinking because math is only seen as useful when it is in a particular context,” the dismantling racism section states. “However, this can result in using mathematics to uphold capitalist and imperialist ways of being and understanding of the world.”

The course targets both “capitalism” and “imperialism,” and asks teachers to "identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.”

The materials claim “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so.” [sic]  “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”

Wait...they're complaining about "objectivity"?  Didn't realize that was a bad thing.

”We cannot dismantle racism in a system that exploits people for private profit," it claims.  "If we want to dismantle racism, then we must build a movement for economic justice.”

"Economic justice," eh?  How about starting by capping NFL and NBA salaries at, say, $140,000 per year?  Oh, you don't want THAT kind of "economic justice"?  Yeah, didn't think so.

If you’re wondering where something so brazenly anti-American originated from, the notice thanks the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for its “generous financial support.”

Source.