You Know What Doesn't Further the Debate About Black-Focused Schools?

I'm wondering if this might be a reference to this only slightly more racist "joke," which itself is a ripoff of this piece, apparently circulating online as far back as 1993.

I know, I know, I know - they are just editorial cartoons, and sometimes they offend some people in pursuit of humour - in fact, they probably should offend some people...

But between this Globe cartoon and one a couple weeks ago that showed Jack Layton as a Taliban windup toy, I just shake my head: offensive, and worse, not funny. And I mean offensive in a different way than just offending *some* people. These aren't offending, they are offensive. WTF, Globe?

Derivative D-Y equals three R squared DR over three, or R squared D R, or R D R R. Har-dee-har-har. Get it?

As an Asian (albeit with only moderately crooked teeth), I feel compelled by stereotype to point out that the math depicted is ALL wrong!

(I'm hoping this is because the cartoonist simply isn't very good at math, as opposed to some disparaging comment on the quality of black math teachers.)

Okay back to practicing the violin and driving badly...

james a:

if you knew that just off the top of your head, i am mad impressed.

Re: http://www.snopes.com/humor/question/mathtest.asp

Jackson's getting seriously ripped off, and so is Billy!

Even by that explanation, it still doesn't make sense—it's just a poor execution all around, and I'll bet that most Globe readers coming across this out-of-context cartoon had no idea what the hell it meant. And why would the teacher be saying, "S'up, Dog?" It should be titled The Only Black People I Consistently See Are Judges On American Idol, and Boy Do They Talk Funny.

I think that in its attempt to address a legitimate issue, the cartoon unintentionally ends up becoming offensive for different reasons and Jenkins just comes across as embarrassingly archaic. Plus, if the point isn't clear (and the paper publishes it on the editorial page devoid of any accompanying opinion or indication what it's about), it's just a bad cartoon.

Even with all the explanations about what it could mean, I still don't really get it, and as a result, it just becomes reminiscent of old Jim Crow cartoons and World War-era bathroom readers.

One of the things I've been discussing with people about the new 'afrocentric' school idea is whether the students themselves will take to it. Leaving aside all the hand-wringing about this idea, at the end of the day the test will be whether the students are actually improved by the school's efforts, whether the students will engage themselves to the materials they're given. Do modern, urbanized African-Canadian youth even care about their heritage? Can they be indoctrinated to care? I also wonder how students will be selected to attend this school - parents pushing them to go, teachers sending their most-interested, or principals looking to get rid of their problem students hoping this will reinstil an interest? Or a lottery? Either way the result will be a challenge for any teaching staff.

Mathematics will mean something very different to an engineer than it will a physicist. It will also mean something different to a culture that builds nuclear bombs than it will a culture that develops wind power. And it will mean something different to an Africentric culture just as it will be different for a Eurocentric one.
Being blind to our faith in objectivity, or the so-called "neutrality" of the natural sciences, only betrays our cultured identities as inheritors of the European enlightenment. We demonstrate insensitivity when we insist our Western ideal of objectivity on other cultures, especially in the realm of education.

"Mathematics ... will mean something different to an Africentric culture just as it will be different for a Eurocentric one."

How?

candianire: i'm a little confused, and just curious about your argument, but are you saying that mathematics is just a cultural expression, along the lines of other cultural expressions such as art or (more controversially) ethics?.

Of course mathematics is a cultural expression. What else would it be?

'cultural expression' makes it sound relativistic, and suggests that mathematics can vary freely in the way that cultures can. which a lot of mathematicians, logicians, philosophers, among others, would disagree with, including the many non-european cultures that made great advances in those fields and also treated mathematics as an objective science.

judging by what you said at [17], though, i wonder if you're conflating the implementation of mathematics with mathematics itself, which seems to be what you are saying by using the notion of 'meaning something different' to different cultures.

I want to applaud canadianire for continuing this fight against colonialist mathematics and other concepts of "science". Too many people fall for the claims of universality, "objectivity", and "empiricism" of colonialist science, when they are mere tools for the continued oppression of women, native peoples, labour, alternative sexuality and the transgendered.

The sad thing is that candianire doesn't see the existing anti-colonialist movement in our schools, where the oppressed subjects have already rejected the notions of "math", "science", "law", and "success". Afrocentric schools are a mere tool of the oppressors, putting a gentle face on their continued oppression, while the real revolution is at CW Jeffreys, Central Tech, Jarvis, Malvern, etc. We should celebrate these revolutionary heroes and expand their approach to all schools, rather than trying to destroy their flourishing experiments at rejecting hegemony of "western culture".

oops...much of the above argument is a bit over my head...however, for all it's worth...at the end of the day aren't all these afrocentric kids going to live in canada and be prepared by the school system to do just that???

"Of course mathematics is a cultural expression. What else would it be?"

Is this a joke? Math being a "cultural expression" is not even remotely self-evident, you're gonna have to justify that in some way.

Pure mathematics, as (roughly) illutrated in the cartoon, is about as absolute as it gets.

That wiki link just seems to confirm that the notion of ethnocentric math is vague and undefined. Frankly it sounds more like the pseudoscience used to justify intelligent design than anything worth paying attention to.

What I find offensive is that the cartoon completely misses the fact that blacks in Toronto are first- or second-generation immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa. If he was saying "Whagwan" or something it would make the joke that it's hard to bring culture to math. But "S'up, Dog"? This looks like it was drawn by someone who thinks the culture is Rush Hour 3, not Jamaica & Somalia!

I'm embarrassed the editors of the (Toronto-based!) Globe would publish this. Do they even know any black people? Seriously, it makes me question the general editorial quality of the paper.

I'm black.

I thought this comic strip was funny.

Then again I don't take everything so damn seriously thus I'm not offended.

People will get riled up over anything these days.

@CanadianIre & @RealityCheck

The last time I checked, a brick falling from a roof towards you, whether you are white, green, multi-gendered or from outerspace (unless of course you have an exo-reverse-gravitational force field on hand, you can get those on Jupiter). It will fall and smash your head with the same speed and force.

It even works in Australia!

Mathematics is a cultural expression in that it takes place only within specific cultures, is nurtured, developed, evolved, improved, corrected by human beings who conduct themselves in cultural institutions (schools) using cultural symbols (+,-, 2,=, etc.) for distinctive cultural purposes (ie. accounting, engineering, space travel, etc.). Mathematics does not occur in nature -- it does not fall out of the heavens, and into our textbooks -- people use mathematics in an attempt to better understand a certain aspect of our reality (the numerical aspect) -- and that attempt is a far-from-perfect representation of that aspect of reality. This is why mathematics changes, why certain theories may be refuted, and why new discoveries are made. The alternative -- that mathematics is not cultural -- is to commit the Parmenidean error -- to confuse the idea of a thing with the thing you are thinking about.

yes, i think everyone would agree that the investigation of mathematics takes place within a culture; everything takes place within a culture except wild nature far away from our hands. and of course this investigation is incomplete and fallible, like everything else that we do. however, i think that you're again confusing mathematics itself with, in this case, how we go about discovering its laws and implementing them. the trouble is that saying something is a cultural expression implies that it is variable to the extent that culture is, e.g. that 2 cubed may have been other than 8 in the way that someone else may have been a prime minister (sigh). further, it implies the truths are deeply contingent in the way that matters about politics are, and that there is nothing problematic or contradictory about altering them (i am reminded here of frege, who in one of his moments of humour asked us to picture two mathematicians, one who believes mathematics expresses eternal unchangable truths and one who thinks it's just a game, the rules of which can vary; who would you rather have designing your bridges? the point was, of course, that it's hard to explain the infinite usefulness of mathematics if all it is is a cultural expression that has no real basis outside of that). the very fact that you say that discoveries can be made implies that you believe in some sort of stable base, a fact of the matter, that mathematics is investigating, even if it hasn't gotten everything about it right yet, and even if the way it expresses this varies from culture to culture (differing counting systems, differing symbols for expressing it etc.)

i understand the current fetish for cultural relativization, as a sort of backlash to much of the terrible domination of cultures seen in the 20th century, but i find it hard to believe anyone who isn't getting the issues tangled up could take it to be true in matters of mathematics. of course, arguing with someone who is a hardcore believer in cultural relativism usually ends up being kind of fruitless.

It's also a fallacy to assume that because something is a cultural expression it is therefore relativistic. There is no such thing as a relativist -- that's just a swear word thrown around between academics.

Mathematics is a human discipline -- it is our name for a particular kind of investigation. It is not, itself, the investigation. We do not investigate 'Mathematics'. 'Mathematics' is our name for that investigation. That we determine laws and stable structures within an abstract, theoretical frame, via our investigation, is not a testament to a firm basis to which we confess. Those firm bases change all the time -- just as much in mathematics as in other cultural expressions. That shouldn't be threatening. Bridges may crash despite the iron-clad faith of the mathematician whose math designed it. Her faith in math may be impressive, but that doesn't mean her math is.

Anyone can point to simple examples, like 2 cubed or "the sky is blue", but these conveniently omit a context. For instance, right now the sky is blue and white, because there are clouds in it. Yesterday it was all white. Last night it was black. That I do not profess to the truism 'sky is blue' does not make me a relativist. As for 2 cubed, maybe you can help me out with a context?