It’s been obvious for a while now to anyone paying attention that the currently hot progressive policy agenda going by the name “antiracism” is actually itself racism, and a particularly virulent and insidious species of racism at that. The use of the term “antiracism” reflects Orwellian abuse of language taken to a whole new extreme.

As the “antiracism” cause took over public discourse during the last couple of years, I have offered several comments, for example here and here. In the first of those posts, from April 6, 2019, I noted that the “antiracism” agenda evidenced:

the utter contempt in which the self-anointed elites of our country hold members of minority groups, most particularly African Americans. Somehow, these elites — or at least some very substantial number of them — have decided that African Americans are not capable of accepting personal responsibility in life or of being treated like adults.

And it’s not just African American adults. This post from August 2020, based on research from Thomas Sowell, considered the current progressive campaign against discipline in K-12 schools, by which children from minority groups are increasingly given a free pass for disruptive classroom behavior. My comment:

The question is whether there is an expectation that minority students are capable of becoming responsible adults, and whether their education reflects such an expectation, versus an expectation that they are on track become sub-adults in a lifetime of permanent dependency.

And just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, we now have something called the “Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,” just issued by some huge collection of West Coast “educators.” The list of collaborating entities that issued this document starts with the Association of California School Administrators, and then the California Math Project, the California Partnership for Math and Science Education, and on and on for dozens more such. Oh, and with the “generous financial support” of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

You mean that up to now you had not realized that math instruction was “racist”? After all, doesn’t 2 + 2 = 4 whatever your race or ethnicity might be? If you think that, then you just don’t understand the current progressive obsession with race as pervading everything. And to fix the racism in math, the clear solution proposed by these activists is of course “antiracism.” In this case, “antiracism” means precisely the very most vile sort of racism, namely treating the black and other minority kids like dopes and refusing to require them to learn the material or hold them to any standards.

Of course, the perpetrators of this document never make their point in quite those words; but still it comes through very clearly. The document is divided into five main parts, called “Strides.” The first “Stride” has the title “Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.” I’ll give you a few choice quotes from that one. This “Stride” proceeds month by month through the school year, starting before the school year begins in September. The task for that time of year is to set “expectations” — and the important point is that there are to be no expectations for the minority students. Indeed, to set expectations and expect minority students to meet them is classic “white supremacy.” From page 12:

What are my expectations for the year? . . . White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when. . . Expectations are not met.

This is a classic example of either/or thinking. If parents don’t show the characteristics of what I think a good parent is, then that parent is bad. If students don’t show the characteristics of what I think is a good student, then that student is bad. This thinking creates meritocracy in the classroom: Students have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and if they fail it is their fault. It does not give room for the systemic reasons students fail, which often lie in problematic expectations.

Well, we certainly must not have any of that “meritocracy” thing. By February in the school year, it’s time to figure out if the students have learned anything. How about the idea of giving math tests consisting of problems having right and wrong answers, and issuing grades based on the results? Obviously, that is also “white supremacy.” From page 51:

White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when. . . Grading practices are focused on lack of knowledge.

Grades are traditionally indicative of what students can’t do rather than what they can do, reinforcing perfectionism. In addition, math teachers also focus grades on what is more easily measurable, rather than the knowledge that we want students to have, reinforcing quantity over quality and often evaluating procedural or skills-based knowledge rather than conceptual knowledge.

What is truly remarkable is the incomprehensible word salad that they are able to spew forth in the effort to obscure the obvious fact that what they are saying is that minority kids must be given a pass if they fail to learn the material.

Well, how about asking the kids to “show their work”? In my day, that was how the teachers tried to figure out if a kid was progressing versus, for example, making a lucky guess of the right answer or, maybe, copying from the kid sitting next to her. Well, asking kids to show work has now become yet another example of the dreaded “white supremacy.” From page 54:

White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when. . . Students are required to “show their work” in only one way.

Math teachers ask students to show work so that teachers know what students are thinking, but that can center the teacher’s need to understand rather than student learning. Teachers should seek to understand individual student perspectives and focus on students showing their work in ways that help students learn how to process information.

The document goes on and on (and on and on and on) from there. But you get the gist.

Have the vile racist “antiracists” finally gone a step too far with this one? At least a few iconoclasts seem to be catching on. Columbia professor John McWhorter has a post at Substack on February 28, titled “Is it racist to expect black kids to do math for real?”, that fairly captures the gist:

There is a document getting around called Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction, a guide put together by a group of educators. It has a black boy on the cover. . . . [T]his is in essence a document that could be called “Math For Black Kids.” . . . [T]his lovely pamphlet is teaching us that it is racist to expect black kids to master the precision of math. To wit – its message, penned by people who consider themselves some of the most morally advanced souls in the history of the human species, is one that Strom Thurmond would have happily taken a swig of whiskey to.

As another push back against this nonsense, we have Bari Weiss on March 1, also at Substack, publishing a piece by Princeton math professor Sergiu Klainerman with the title “There Is No Such Thing as ‘White’ Math.” Key quote (it’s the concluding paragraph):

There is no such thing as “white” mathematics. There is no reason to assume, as the activists do, that minority kids are not capable of mathematics or of finding the “right answers.” And there can be no justification for, in the name of “equity” or anything else, depriving students of the rigorous education that they need to succeed. The real antiracists will stand up and oppose this nonsense.

It will take a lot more than just these few to push back successfully against the juggernaut of “antiracism.” But at least it’s a start.