Posted on 04/03/2022 1:14:33 PM PDT by algore
A Seattle Pacific University professor claims that white supremacy permeates introductory physics classes. It’s research that is meant to explain why so few black people are in the field of study. But it reads like a parody.
Dr. Amy Robertson (“a chronically ill and disabled, physics-Ph.D.-holding, thin wealthy white woman”) and equity consultant Rev. W. Tali Hairston (“an African American male and lifelong learner, researcher, and educator of equity-inclusive frameworks”) use critical race theory to claim that racism and white supremacy are endemic to college- and graduate-level physics courses.
The study’s authors acknowledge that their research is instructed by their own political beliefs. And the research itself is stunningly racist. The authors capitalize “Black, Hispanic, and Students or People of Color” but “we choose not to capitalize white” because it is a “…socially constructed category that was created for the purposes of dominance and exclusion.” Oh, okay.
Robertson and Hairston argue that the physics classroom “constructs and maintains whiteness” in the field. The paper argues it’s white supremacy for a professor to call on students who raise their hands — regardless of the race of anyone involved. Remarkably, the research paper even maintains that using a whiteboard is an example of white supremacy culture. If you were to write a satire on whiteness in physics, you would not live up to this research.
The authors mind-bogglingly contorted their views to develop what was almost certainly a pre-determined outcome. They wanted to claim white supremacy in physics. It’s less a research study than an unintelligible, woke essay.
The ‘whiteness’ of physics
Robertson and Hairston focus on the whiteness of physics, but the dense, myopic research paper could apply to any discipline.
“Observing whiteness in introductory physics: A case study” was published in the March edition of the journal Physical Review Physics Education Research.
They argue that the “invisible nature of whiteness is a primary means through which white dominance goes unchallenged…” and that “making whiteness visible is one way to disrupt white dominance.” White supremacy dominance can be maintained by people regardless of their race. Indeed, whiteness “does not require actors be white in order to participate in whiteness, even if the benefits of participating may be conferred disproportionately to white or white-passing people.”
To conduct the study, Robertson and Hairston watched film recorded over four days at an unidentified, large, west coast university physics course. They provide anti-racist, woke play-by-play for each recording.
The video shows students discussing and solving physics problems for the professor. The two researchers then interviewed the professor and three racially diverse students, showing the portions of the video that Hairston believed showed “power and identity” influences in the classroom.
Everything is racist while the students answer a physics question
The analysis of the video borders on the kind of satire that is far worse than the joke that got the Babylon Bee banned from Twitter.
Drake is a middle eastern male student featured in the video. During a problem-solving exercise, he took the initiative, physically standing in the center of the workspace and using the whiteboard to jot down answers to the question. Drake refocused the problem-solving conversation of his female colleagues to what he wrote on the board. This, the researchers claimed, is an example of white supremacy guiding the classroom.
The racism was supposedly amplified when Drake raised his hand to answer a question from the professor. As bad, he was chosen by the group to be the lead, which is also white supremacy.
“Within whiteness as social organization, there is a center that has been ascribed transcendent value; all else is, in effect, marginal,” the researchers write.
There were multiple answers to the physics question that was posed. According to the researchers, the group prioritized this male student’s work on the whiteboard, which is how “whiteness masks” the other solutions.
Calling Dr Sokal. Please pick up the red phone.
So is gravity, the wind , the sun......ect
we really need to separate from these people and build a huge wall between us.
Sometimes, I honestly think that recipients of diversity, equity and inclusion (in this case, disabled) know they have their academic employers by the throat and just want to say, write, publish and act out the most ridiculous nonsense they can so they can sit back and have a big laugh about how those administration fools lapped up a bunch of horsesh!t like it was candy, asking for more.
Physics is a difficult task master. Get it wrong and bad things happen
They’re insane Jim
They only seem like fools. In reality, they know exactly what they are doing. Some Federal agency will give them a multi-million dollar grant to expand their “research”. And some universities might hire them as “consultants”.
If those two were dropped out of a helicopter as some governments less tolerant of Leftists might have done, they would find out that an acerbic, mentally ill white woman and a black racist affirmative-action-hire-of-a-man of roughly the same size fall at somewhat the same speed, and would splatter on the ground at close to the same time, debunking their “physics is racist” viewpoint.
White Knight here to explain racism to us.
A stunt for attention!
Easier then doing actual physics!
Rather than argue in favor of classroom strategies that the authors believe to be more inclusive (working more collaboratively is an example they seemingly approve of), they make this about white supremacy.
That is brilliance right there.
LOL, “Physics is Hard.”
When you hit the ground, that is...:)
Just about all of this person’s research and publications are about ‘responsiveness’, inclusivity, etc. in teaching.
PhD in physics, but not much hard physics at all...
(At least this one is ‘associate’ and not ‘adjunct’, as these stories usually go.)
Back when it was revealed that some college. ( U of North Carolina?) had created phantom classes for athletes, it turned out that they were PE classes. I thought ”Jeez...as long as you’re making stuff up, how about some physics or chemistry?”
Are Chinese people "white" ? What about Indian people?
So it is time to go back to blackboards. But, using their logic, wouldn't they be a symbol of black supremacy culture?
Blackboards were really nice, but only if real slate. We already know that black supremacy is nonsense. ;-D (Tongue in cheek)
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