Yes, 2 + 2 = 4 Is Cultural! An Exploration of Imperialism and Antiblackness in Mathematics

• In Event: Interrogating Mathematics Classroom Teaching Practices for the Pursuit of Racial and Intersectional Justice

Abstract

Mathematics is a tool of Western imperialism that centers whiteness and perpetuates anti-blackness. Mathematics, and by extension mathematics education, is traditionally seen as neutral, universal, and devoid of culture, which I refer to as logics of the discipline. Logics are assumptions, norms, and values (Acker 1990) that shape how mathematics is viewed and how people engage with mathematics. This theoretical paper interrogates traditional logics of mathematics by unpacking how different cultures used mathematics before being colonized, and how mathematics has been used to further Western imperialism. It also discusses how mathematics education positions racially minoritized students as underachievers and contributes to racial income inequalities.

Throughout human history, people developed ways to compare quantities, recognize patterns, and measure time and space. One example of mathematics being cultural is how Papua New Guinea’s 750 spoken languages contain at least 600 different counting systems, many of which were not base ten (Lean, 1986). I argue that the field of ethnomathematics exploring the relationship between mathematics and culture (D’Ambrosio, 1977), directly disrupts the notion of mathematics being universal. Just as different languages have words that do not translate perfectly into English, Spanish, or French, different cultures’ mathematical symbols and values vary and do not always translate perfectly to Western numbers and symbols. However, due to the domination of Western mathematics through both imperialism and settler colonialism, so much cultural knowledge around mathematics has been violently erased as it was either lost or stopped developing.

One traditional logic foundational to Western mathematics is neutrality (Author, 2016), or the belief that mathematics is void of power and cultureless. However, Alan Bishop (1990) explained how current mathematics uses the values of rationalism, objectism, and power/control, making it representative of Western culture and therefore, not neutral. Today, these three values are reinforced through the logic of neutrality that seek to dominate both people and the environment, completely erasing ethnomathematics.

In contemporary classrooms, the logic of neutrality is used to push individualism, competition, and mathematics ability being innate to maintain a racial hierarchy of white supremacy. Districts’ hyperfocus on standardized tests, or gap-gazing (Gutierrez, 2008), while appearing neutral, uses mathematics to condemn Black, Indigenous, and Latin* (BIL) students and communities for their intentionally-neglected schools, racism, and other oppressions enacted in society. Teachers enact the myth of a racial hierarchy of mathematical ability (Martin, 2007), which explains how certain students are positioned as deficient, in both intelligence and behavior, just by being BIL, and therefore in need of ‘learning’ white norms or the continued colonization of the mind. Conversely, white students are assumed intelligent and have an innate mathematical ability. For example, despite mathematics achievement tests consistently showing Asian children outperforming white students, the U.S. never pathologizes white students as underachievers in mathematics (Martin, 2007).

Traditional mathematics logics, I argue, reinforces Western imperialism and perpetuates white supremacy/anti-blackness. Specifically, it enacts anti-blackness in mathematics through regulation of student behavior, the perpetuation of the myth of racial mathematical ability, and controlling the majoritarian narrative of whose mathematics is valued.

Author

• Brittany L. Marshall, Rutgers University
  Presenting Author