These illiberal “liberals” are pushing stereotypes about black people that are crueler than most of what ordinary white society has EVER come up with about black people.
When are they going to look at themselves in a mirror ?!?
Yes, yes, I know, the bell curve and all. Which biases the distribution, and maybe it really IS true that we have more white mathematicians per capita than black mathematicians.
And exactly what should that have to do with a society of black and white people being able to live harmoniously? Exactly nothing, as far as I can see with my beady little redneck brain. I don’t go out there telling folks that if you ain’t a math major you ain’t s-—. If I did that to the contractors, both black and white, that I meet daily at the KFC where I have been eating (rednecks of all colors know where good food is), they’d pummel me into the ground! Well at least, with a look. What we don’t get in mathematicians we get in carpenters, plumbers, etc. All generally honest, stouthearted guys.
As a former math teacher and before that a student I can agree with one part of the article. We do use math as a sort of rite of achievement to pursue higher education. It has long been a requirement to take two math courses to apply to most four year schools. For many years the two courses were algebra to teach logical substitution and geometry, to teach reasoning to conclusions.
This has held a lot of students back, when they could not handle these subjects. (In fact they were easy for me but I have had to tutor and push many kids in my day because these subjects do not come easily to everyone.)
There does seem to be a cultural separation here as some people know but my guess is that it is rooted in the deep past for students who “don’t get it”. Probably if they had better teachers in the early grades, getting these fairly simple concepts in high school would not be the road block that the author is identifying.
Hence my support for charter schools and school choice. In particular when hiring and firing decisions are involved.