Standing Astride "Wokeness" And Saying "Stop!"

Math is racist?  What's next, gravity?  At least some eminent mathematicians are standing up against this sort of silliness:

Californians have witnessed many foundational pillars of society come under siege by fringe activism. They shouldn’t be too surprised that now even eternal, ubiquitous, infinite, and perfect mathematics is the next target in the crosshairs.

It’s only the chic excuses for decades of abysmal math results in U.S. schools that change, and with approximately four in 10 of California’s public school students proficient in math currently, the latest blame shifting should stretch parents’ patience.

A Seattle public schools pilot program has adopted framework for a K-12 curriculum teaching that “math has been appropriated by Western culture” and beyond that, is currently being used “to oppress and marginalize people.”

“The mathematicians of Alpha Centauri are doing the same math as us,” says UC Berkeley Professor Richard Borchends, winner of the planet’s most prestigious math award, the Fields Medal. “Life’s too short to waste on such folly.”

The Fields Prize is mathematics' equivalent of a Nobel, there being no Nobel Prize for Math.  Let's return to the article:

Harvard Professor Emeritus David Mumford says, “The idea that math is ‘racist’ is absurd,” he shot back. A second professor emeritus at uber-prestigious Harvard, David Kazhdan, says, “Empty claims without any concrete examples.”

Another Fields medalist, Prof. Martin Hairer at London’s Imperial College, says that context matters and that “no one truly suggests math in itself has a racist or bigoted component,” offering the understandably frustrated observation that “culture wars raging in the U.S. seem distant and incomprehensible.”

Bruce Berndt, named among the 10 most influential mathematicians, says that there may be some prejudiced “potholes” along the way, as in any human endeavor.

“In the thousands of mathematical papers I’ve read, I have never found anything that could be identified as racist. It’s a sad fact that science is being politicized by those who prefer ignorant prejudices over facts. Mathematics, thankfully hasn’t suffered too much.”

One of the world’s top-tier female mathematicians, requesting anonymity, is unconvinced that race or sex has anything to do with manipulating numbers successfully. “Math isn’t racist or sexist,” she says. “The problems of teaching mathematics in school have less to do with math and more with politics. Anyone who doubts that is blind to the sort of society in which we live.”

All I can offer is a "hear hear!" and an invitation to read the complete article.