The latest exercise in “critical thinking” comes courtesy of “Professor” Rochelle Gutierrez at University of Illinois:
“On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness. 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 argued.
Gutierrez also worries that algebra and geometry perpetuate privilege, fretting that “curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.”
Math also helps actively perpetuate white privilege too, since the way our economy places a premium on math skills gives math a form of “unearned privilege” for math professors, who are disproportionately white.
“Are we really that smart just because we do mathematics?” she asks, further wondering why math professors get more research grants than “social studies or English” professors.
Okay, you can all stop laughing now.
Did I slip through some wormhole in the time/space continuum to end up somewhere around April 1, 2018?
You know, I recall how people reacted with stunned incredulity when Hitler’s Nazis referred to “Jewish” mathematics, “Jewish” physics or “Jewish” chemistry, because the terms are not only not apposite, they’re also fallacious. The Jewish Einstein coming up with the Theory of Relativity does not make that “Jewish” mathematics — a point with which I’m sure the worthy (ahem) Professor Gutierrez would agree, she being “woke” and, no doubt, sympathetic to the anti-fascist cult.
So why then, applying the same “White patriarchal” [sic] theory of logic to the argument, would the same not be true of her fallacious (and idiotic) position on the topic?
Warning note to all undergrads at U of I: if you’re scheduled to have this cretin Gutierrez teach one of your Math classes, you may want to change to another one. She’s nothing but a pseudo-intellectual poser masquerading as an academic.
Unless you too subscribe to her “woke” argument, in which case you deserve everything that happens to you in later life.
Is it too early for Scotch?
I think you mean “not apposite”. Aside from that quibble, I agree 100%. This nonsense from the Clown Quarter of academia would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic.
Many similar such examples of brain-dead “professors” are highlighted at David Thompson’s blog. If you’re not familiar with it, I highly recommend a visit.
Serve me right for posting something before waking up properly. Fixed, thankee.
/1984
Nitwits teaching college kids can’t even figure out to make change from a ten dollar bill when they buy coffee. They have little knowledge of history, teaching students who have no knowledge of history and they take all of the engineering wonders, roads, bridges, causeways, interchanges and airports for granted. Pretty much designed by white men and built by men, working men.
Math and engineering used to build large buildings and operate tiny phones/computers/cameras/TV’s they carry in their pockets are taken for granted with no appreciation for the changes brought about in the past century. Marketing and merchandising in order to succeed require extensive mathematical models and these liberal college professors get upset when their grocery store runs out of the ingredients for their vegan chili and papaya smoothies. They just know that the USA is the worst, meanest, most unfair country that ever existed and white men hurt people’s feelings which is the cause of all injustice.
Have known for a few decades now that all the sane people left the U of I a long time ago.
Jeebus. Is she clueless or what?
There it is, the stupidest thing I’m going to read all week and it’s only 9:30 on Tuesday.
My oldest grandchild is supposed to start college in five years. I’m going to try to get him to think about trade school (carpentry or plumbing or electrical). Seriously. Anything to keep him away from nitwits like this.
Heating and air conditioning is a pretty good career field too – this is from a guy who learned the refrigeration cycle in Great Lakes Il while an employee of Uncle Sam. I branched off into a bunch of other things but I’ve still got my system gauges, can of R-22, and multi meter. When the snowflakes start to melt, they’ll pay just about anything to get comfortable again. Throw in some basic business courses, buy a decent truck and don’t be afraid of hard work. Its a license to print money for an ambitious young person.
Give her what she wants. People like her who deny the accomplishment of Western Civilization, which happens to be primarily by white males, get no electricity, no gasoline, and are not allowed on boats, buses, trains, or airplanes. They do not get the use of homes made with factory produced materials, grocery stores or machine-made clothing.
That will obligate them to accomplish something on their own, and will have a fringe benefit of reducing AGW fer shewerrr.
Their end state would be existing naked in the wild, living in caves or hollow logs, grubbing for worms and roots with a sharp stick, talking to clouds about their condition not being fair, and finding out that in their long sought-after stateless, white maleless anarchy, you gotta pull your own weight or die.
Or die regardless.
The massive hypocrisy of Progs like her just gobsmacks me. After all, she could move to a small village in equatorial Africa right now, where there is no white privilege. No whites at all.
I’m becoming a Johnny-One-Note putting this up, lately:
Are White Men Gods?
“We put probes on Mars and invented the thousands of technologies needed to do it. We developed the symphony orchestra, the highest form of musical expression. We invented the airplane, the computer, the internet, and tennis shoes. Putting it compactly, we invented the modern world. A degree of privilege, however you may conceive it, goes with the territory.”
Those who dislike white people sure do seem to exert themselves to move to where all the white people are. What a mystery.
I would not say that white men are gods. But engineers have a good case for being demigods.
And are therefore due a demi-tithe. 🙂
As for this “professor”, the only question should be whether she should learn the importance of math through the formula (PE)=mgh, or (KE)=(0.5)mV(V).
Not. Going. To. Happen.
She doesn’t teach Math classes.
She’s not a Mathematics professor.
She’s a Mathematics Education professor:
That’s from her faculty profile.
Put down the beverage before clicking.
You have been warned!
And apparently her classes are mandatory for at least some courses (and given her political activism, probably for a lot of courses, as political indoctrination is more important than teaching things actually useful for the curiculum at places like this)…
If they didn’t make this kind of nonsense mandatory, then nobody would take these classes, and then what would they do with all those otherwise unemployable squishy studies profs?
Crash test dummies. Organ donors. Fertilizer.
In her case, “Gutiérrez” translates to Gutting Knowledge For Feelings
I partially suspect that our ivory tower specialist knows that what she is posting is a load of old cods.
But, in the Game of Victimhood, this sort of nonsense is the type of thing to gain the author a whole lot of Intersectionality Points, and a new way of Smashing the Patriarchy.
I can also guarantee that she uses good old fashioned White Patriarchal Math when it’s time for her to pull out her own wallet, or when someone owes her money.