Professor proposes 'living mathematx' which acknowledges that trees are sentient

Just this weekend, this editor looked at a published paper presented at the 2023 Joint Mathematics Meetings conference called, “Undergraduate Mathematics Education as a White, Cisheteropatriarchal Space and Opportunities for Structural Disruption to Advance Queer of Color Justice.” We’ve been trying to remove “whiteness” from mathematics. Asking students in math class to “show their work” is “white supremacy.” Why? Because it requires students to worship the written word as well as exhibit paternalism, both of which are building blocks of white supremacy culture as well. Math class is sick with white supremacist thinking.

Just as with womxn and Latinx, you knew it was only a matter of time until someone came up with mathematx, right? Well, here it is.

The math-is-racist professor also thinks that rocks are alive and apparently should have the same rights as humans. pic.twitter.com/6qrClwxc4G

— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) January 23, 2023

Don’t squint; we’ll repeat that below. Rochelle Gutiérrez from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign gives this as the abstract to her paper:

This paper offers specific implications for teaching and learning and brings into conversation ideas from ethnomathematics (including Western mathematics), postcolonial theory, aesthetics, biology, and Indigenous knowledge in order to propose a new vision for practicing mathematics, what I call mathematx. I build upon the work of sustainability in mathematics education and suggest we need to think not only about more ethical ways of applying mathematics in teaching and learning but question the very nature of mathematics, who does it, and how we are affected by that practice.

So what’s this about living rocks? Gutiérrez suggests we need to break up the human/non-human binary just as queer theory has eliminated the gender binary:

Indigenous knowledges recognize that we are part of a system of intelligent and sentient beings, also referred to as persons, with interconnected spirits, including rocks and bodies of water. Plants, for example, have lived on this planet for millions of years before humans. In that sense, plants are our older brothers/sisters and have developed ways of efficiently using space, relating with other living beings, and sustaining life not just for themselves but for others, often with few resources at any given moment. They have been able to withstand long droughts, communicate about impending dangers, and collaborate in order to protect others in the community in ways that appear to be selfless acts. They have much to teach us; and we may have something to teach them. Breaking with a human/non-human binary is consistent with queer theory, which recognizes the violence that is justified when some are viewed to be more human than others (Chen 2012).

Our choice to destroy the planet to serve our immediate/capitalistic/technology needs is a form of settler colonialism that perpetuates violence. That is, because a Western worldview does not consider plants, animals, and rocks as living beings of equal value with the same rights to this universe as humans, the result is that plants, animals and rocks suffer the same treatment as Indigenous peoples have endured throughout time.

"…plants are yanked from their families and forced to assimilate into Western ways of doing thing (e.g. to become suburban gardens)."

As a matter of fact, I gave my lavender permission to go and do whatever it wants, but it preferred to stay where it would get regular water.

— Joel Engel (@joelengel) January 23, 2023

Understood. My engineered garden rocks recently built a wall of themselves to keep out what they feel as "the unpleasant filth" of naturally occurring local glacial travellers.

— Laura Love (@Panopticonomy) January 23, 2023

pic.twitter.com/Y41Gl8JR5B

— Arthur B. 🌮 (@ArthurB) January 23, 2023

Identitarian idiots will be identitarian idiots. (It is all they have the mental and moral wherewithal to be.)

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) January 24, 2023

You mean rocx.

— ShipofTheseus (@JewishSpaceLazr) January 23, 2023

“Her main focus is changing the way in which mathematics is taught to the minority and the effects of race, class and language on teaching and learning…”

— Isengrimm3 (@isengrimm3) January 23, 2023

Yep … away from colonialist and capitalist white mathematics instruction.

I hope she properly credited the Unabomber's Manifesto for those "ideas."

— Robert Lax (@RobertiLax) January 23, 2023

The best part for me is the implication that human existence on earth is a form of settler colonialism, which is the reductio ad absurdum of that paradigm.

— Alex Joffe (@DrAlexJoffe) January 24, 2023

OMG. Speechless.

— YesItsMe (@anncantweet) January 23, 2023

Just shoveling “woke” word salad terms out in the hope something sticks and she gets granted tenure. I’ll give her credit for using “ethnomathmatics.” That’s a good one. Even Kamala Harris would be impressed. pic.twitter.com/PS37pnFZe8

— TheRealDeal 🇺🇸 🏴‍☠️ (@TheRealDealMD) January 23, 2023

"Breaking with a human/non-human binary is consistent with queer theory, which recognizes the violence that is justified when some are viewed to be more human than others."

This *has* to be a (highly creative and extended) troll.

— Jade Breeze (@jadejadebreeze) January 23, 2023