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.
Those darn ions.
Like ions repel and unlike ions attract.
That’s why a black and white person attract - so the black will attack the white at the subway station.
It’s Physics. It’s Science. PhD thesis material right here.
Absolutely not. The white chalk is showing superiority over the black board by imposing its will over it. This would be very very bad.
The stupid is strong here even with the PhD in Physics!
A pathetic stunt for attention is my guess. Perhaps her promotion & tenure review must be coming up. An attempt to make herself bullet proof for the review! She needs it since she has little to no production in actual physics.
Unfortunately, most universities have gone this way en masse, across all disciplines.
Many students in universities today should never have gotten out of high school. So I guess the reasoning is that they can’t make use of real teachers anyway, so this pap is good enough.
“It’s research that is meant to explain why so few black people are in the field....”
I stopped reading right there! My great grandpappy worked the cotton fields, I ain’t doing ANYTHING like that!
Bring back the insane asylums!
I guess and if it’s a state school the taxpayers are paying for it!
Actually, if it’s a state school and the school has a sports rep, the taxpayers are paying for entertainment not higher education. Many taxpayers (Fans!) are fine with that!
“It’s research that is meant to explain why so few black people are in the field....”
Failure to to choose studying over partying is the obvious explanation. True for many white students too!
Where’s my Physics Ed grant?
+1, perfect use of Physics to illustrate your point.
👍
I will add:
🚁
.
🤸🏻♀️🤸🏿♂️
“Dust to dust.”
Little help?
Physics is probably ‘racist’ because you need a ‘Ph’ in order make the ‘F’ sound.
A very plausible theory.
The strategy didn't work out that well for Michael Sam or Colin Kaepernick. We'll see if the physics department at Seattle Pacific University is dumber than the NFL.
Interestingly — and as an aside — I note that the Wikipedia page on Michael Sam currently contains this line:
On August 14, 2015, Sam announced, on Twitter, he was stepping away from professional football due to mental health reasons. He currently shares his experiences as an author and motivational speaker.Perhaps this is a potential future path for Professor Amy Robertson.
Anything that is too hard or that requires hard work and dedication is racist to these people.
KNOWLEDGE is racist! We must all be ignoramuses.
What about dark matter—you can’t get more racist than that!
This is where the real ‘inequities’ lie in higher education - and minorities, especially, are really being taken for a very dishonest ride on this.
Students and parents are paying exorbitant amounts for education, and the young people come out in many cases with less true education than their grandparents received in public school.
They can parrot all of the D-E-I stuff, but many can’t get a good job in a field where they actually have to think and perform adequately in a practical way.
If I had a young person now, I’d make him or her go to a trade school first. Then they could go on to higher ed - and actually have the money to pay for it.
Amy is not really a physicist. Her grad school activities centered around TEACHING Physics. She’s really an Education major.
Given her actual field, and the certainty that blaming blacks for their own failures would be an instant career ender, it is not surprising that her research revolves around finding racism as a cause for failure.
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