Posted on 02/27/2015 5:35:37 PM PST by Steelfish
Trigonometry Is Racist! KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON February 27, 2015
An African-American scholar says that emphasis on STEM education is bad for blacks. Earlier today on Sirius XM Urban View, an African-American talk station, the guest was Daryl Scott, president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
The conversation turned to STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math — education, and the origins of the ongoing push to encourage institutions and students to focus on those subjects. Can you guess what happened?
In 1983, the guest explained, a commission empaneled by the secretary of education issued a report titled “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform.” In a memorable phrase, it warned of “a rising tide of mediocrity” in the nation’s public schools. That phrase, he said, was a “euphemism.” A euphemism for what? “For us — for African Americans.” There is nothing that happens in these United States that will not be impugned as secret racism. Nothing.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
“Math is hard.”
- Barbie
Opps, that's geometry.
You could have probably made the same point without trying to pass off a fake news clip as a real one.
Anything named after one of Sarah Palin's kids must be racist!
-PJ
“An African-American scholar says that emphasis on STEM education is bad for blacks.”
....
So is this LIBERAL black man saying that Black are genetically incapable of handling math.....
I see this as an indirect attack and smear on the great Thomas Sowell...
Although I like the spirit of your post, I’d disagree with “what’s important”:
cursive handwriting - Other than your signature, I wouldn’t spend much time on it. Reading, maybe. Writing, probably not. There is no market for it now and I don’t see one developing.
“math calculation by hand” - To a point, perhaps - I believe that understanding the relationships between numbers is more easily done with learning math “by hand”.
BTW, I challenge anyone over 40 to divide two fractional numbers by hand, for example, 0.034345 / 0.75634 and come up with the correct answer. I just barely did and I was a math wizard at one time. I hadn’t done that in 35 years!!
know how to use a slide rule
No market for it, although it MIGHT help one understand the relationships between numbers.
operate a manual typewriter
Only of historical value. Typing, however - is an absolutely critical skill.
understand the dewey decimal system
A vague familiarity with it might be useful, but I wouldn’t spend much time on it unless you plan on becoming a history major.
The #1 problem I see is lack of critical thinking skills, which I believe stems from the “no consequences” mode of living young people seem to have now. Cause doesn’t seem to have much of an effect, and liberal thinking further muddles this (”bad choices” being the least likely cause of personal failure).
Yes.
I took Calculus I in college from a black female instructor, and it was pretty effing difficult!
I have to disagree with you there.
The Islamic hustlers really do want to kill all the Jews and us too. They aren't in it for the buck. They are really insane.
The Al Sharptons of the world including this hustler who claims math is racist are just after the money. They are smart enough to not kill the geese who lay their golden eggs.
Meanwhile our government is intent on busily importing more cheap foreign tech workers, although all those millions of USA citizens who follow(ed) your advice now, and decades ago, are being laid off, or are working in retail sales or service positions.
And all those formerly mid-level to high paying, blue collar physical labor intensive skills, are sub-contracted to illiterate cheap foreign legal/illegal employees, even though buildings and bridges now fall down, pipes aren't laid properly, the food supply is riddled with dangerous QC issues from seed to consumption, (again, etc...)
SMH.
It is not that hard, but does require a mental discipline that the urban culture is incompatible with. I had no trouble with trig or geometry. I only started stumbling years later with vector calculus.
But then, I was working full time and trying to get a degree at night, not the best way to learn advanced math.
Yes, Mr. Interviewer, I majored in Black Studies and minored in Women’s Studies. I’d like to apply for the job as CEO since I is obviously kalified.
The Blacks. Affirmative Action dictates they get the good jobs even if they are not qualified. It has been happening for decades, is happening now, and will keep happening in the future.
Don't I know it.
I wanted to be a geologist, and then a physicist before I realized I hadn't the discipline for either.
But math and science are a great pleasure in my retirement. 'Got a lot of great books. But I could never go back to school again.
Signs be ok, co-signs be racis! So I goes off on a tangent.
I was never an accountant or bookkeeper, but when I learned the basics of the double entry system with a couple of semisters of accounting classes, I was amazed by the genious involved in developing it. It was both very simple, yet very sophisticated.
An absolutely beautiful system that we take so for granted.
Maybe for flipping burgers or punching cash registers or stocking shelves and stuff like that ...but not where they are designing planes, bridges and buildimgs ... LOL ...
People are not very friendly towards the idea of buildings topping over, planes dropping out of the sky and bridges collapsing ... :-) ... [ ... and, of course, that’s where you find trig ... ]
Sure, it rhymes with ‘bigotry.’
I recommend The Bell Curve for you.
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