Brown Science
According to Cheryl E. Matias and Paul T. Le, both of the University of Colorado at Denver, the belief that the apprehension of, and substance of, scientific discoveries is independent of whatever one’s skin colour may happen to be, is a problem. One that results in the spread of “whiteness ideology,” and thereby “white supremacy.”
Nikita Vladimirov pokes through the mental wreckage:
According to Matias and Le, “our science is out of touch with the experiences of our students of Colour and, instead, represents post-colonial discourses of White power and control.” “Whiteness embraces White ideology, and because Whites are at the apex of the racial hierarchy, whiteness becomes normalized and is invisible to those who benefit the most from it,” the scholars observe. “This is particularly troubling because the normality of whiteness means that Whites do not believe that they are actively investing in White supremacy or racism, which keeps oppression intact.”
And Kafkatrapping, apparently, is the apex of woke scholarship.
Because if you demur, or suggest that the laws of electromagnetism don’t dramatically alter depending on the melanin levels of the person doing the maths, then you just don’t care about “students of Colour” being “victims of deculturalization” and being “invalidated.” Indeed, you are “erasing the values and culture of indigenous people,” and are bolstering “post-colonial discourses of White power and control over people of Colour via forcing the internalization of Western science knowledge.” Instead, all people of pallor must denounce themselves as oppressors, embrace “other ways of knowing” and “re-imagine what science education spaces can look like.”
Sadly, however, and despite the assertions above, the aboriginal alternatives to Maxwell’s equations and commutative algebra remain oddly unspecified.
Update:
In the comments, Karen M notes with amusement that science education is construed by Dr Matias as “forcing the internalization of Western science knowledge,” and adds,
This is called teaching. It’s why the students are there.
Indeed. One might even suppose that internalising Western science knowledge might help students pass science exams and perhaps find science-related jobs. Say, in the West, where the students in question happen to live. Or in fact anywhere, given its global nature.
However, like so many of her peers, Dr Matias shuns the obvious in favour of contortion. And so we’re told that “colour-blind” teaching – which is to say, treating students fairly, as individuals, rather than tribally, as racial mascots – is itself somehow “racist” and must be done away with. Apparently, we must have different rules for different groups, based on how brown they are. She also claims that white teachers cannot “effectively teach urban students of colour” unless they first “deconstruct,” and reject, their own “hegemonic whiteness,” an “invisible” phenomenon that makes them racist by default. Purged of their appalling whiteness, they may then begin “sharing the burden of race.”
Again, the basic conceit is that “urban students of colour” are incomprehensible creatures, akin to leprechauns, and not subject to normal proprieties; and that in order to impart even rudimentary information, one must first disavow one’s own values and standards, which other, paler students are nonetheless expected to meet. This, we’re assured, is “social justice.”
Needless to say, the logical terminus of this mindset is not a happy one.
They are writing about science education and the way that racist (white) norms effect the way that students of color are treated
Bull. Professors who treat dark-skinned students poorly are very rare.
That leaves people of African descent. They are the only ones affected by the “White” norms. Others manage. They, apparently, cannot.
And, from the reports I’ve read, it’s mostly American-born people of African descent, who are marinated in a culture of victimhood and resentment.
Colorado. Legal pot.
I think that is at the root of this more than anything else.
And don’t forget this somewhat related item.
Because standards of diligence and proficiency are, we’re told, racist and oppressive, mere tools of “privilege,” and therefore unfair to women and minorities, for whom rigour and competence are presumably impossible.
I was thinking of phones designed in South Korea and manufactured in (among other places) China.
They aren’t designed in South Korea.
Most of the core components (like the radios, or the SoC that runs the whole phone) that actually matter are designed in North America or Europe (by offices that often include large quantities of Asian engineers, so this isn’t a racial thing) by the American subsidiaries of these, or by third-party companies like Texas Instruments, Marvell, and Motorola. Some design work, like the bodies and the main board, may be done in Asia.
And Korean car manufacturers make good cars because they poached a ton of Japanese quality engineers. Prior to that event, Korean cars were poor quality.
low build quality is a product of dishonesty, not stupidity.
Well, it depends on how you define stupidity. Certainly many of these Chinese factories could outcompete their competitors on quality if they chose; there seems to be a lot of tribalism and short-sighted immediacy to a lot of the corruption. They’re not operating under anything like an open and fair economic system, either, so that may explain their choices.
“You gon’ be like, “Damn! A rose grew from the concrete?!”
Same thing with me, y’knahmean?”
AKA
“The thing about a bear riding a bicycle is not that she rides well but that she rides at all”
It is science knowledge.
But not if it’s not on Worldstar.
Fetch the good towels. And coasters, lots of coasters.
And extra Hamster Chow for the rodents that power the server.
There seems to be very real fear that lives and livelihoods can be ruined simply by mere whiffs of accusation of racism, etc… These SJW activist types appear to have the more sensible folk by the short and curlies.
It’s another example of the shakedown mentality, currently in fashion among pinheads. It’s racial spite in academic drag. The idea that black, Hispanic and indigenous students, who are often beneficiaries of racial favouritism in admissions, are somehow the victims of elaborate and systemic racial injury in class, including the alleged harm of being exposed to “white” science teaching, is risible. Likewise, the conceit that teaching basic physics is a form of “control over people of Colour,” whose “other ways of knowing” are being “invalidated,” tells us next to nothing about the world. But it does tell us quite a bit about the kind of person who peddles such claptrap.
They aren’t designed in South Korea.
Ah, I didn’t know that. Still, the broader point remains. To regard “Western science knowledge” as some oppressive and parochial subset of scientific enquiry is faintly silly.
“The thing about a bear riding a bicycle is not that she rides well but that she rides at all”
She?
“Related”
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10661
Meanwhile, I’m unsure as to whether or not this is a spoof of Elfwickian proportions.
And so I suppose the extent to which one might find the authors’ claims absurd or disagreeable depends in part on one’s appetite for racial essentialism and racial condescension.
That.
That.
Well, Dr Matias insists that “colourblind” teaching – which is to say, treating students fairly, as individuals, rather than tribally, as racial mascots – is itself somehow “racist” and must be done away with. Apparently, we must have different rules for different groups, based on how brown they are. She also claims that white teachers cannot “effectively teach urban students of colour” unless they first “deconstruct,” and reject, their own “hegemonic whiteness,” which makes them racist by default, and then begin “sharing the burden of race.”
Again, the conceit is that “urban students of colour” are incomprehensible creatures, alien and mysterious, and not subject to normal proprieties; and that in order to impart even rudimentary information one must first disavow one’s own values and standards, which other, paler students are nonetheless expected to meet. This, apparently, is “social justice.”
The logical terminus of this mindset is not a happy one.
I sometimes wonder if the Clown Quarter of academia might actually be a massive and rather perverse behavioural experiment, the point of which is to see just how credulous and mentally deformable human beings are.
It’s an abusive relationship, so yes. The core of it is to answer the abuser’s compulsion: How much can I bend this person into an ornament for my own ego?
And, unfortunately, psychological disease can be contagious.
It’s an abusive relationship, so yes… And, unfortunately, psychological disease can be contagious.
And that’s the thing. “Social justice” ideology isn’t just riddled with errors, dishonesties and evasions; it’s, as it were, encoded with pathology.
Because standards of diligence and proficiency are, we’re told, racist and oppressive, mere tools of “privilege,” and therefore unfair to women and minorities, for whom rigour and competence are presumably impossible.
This!!
The article linked, describing the engineering education/diversity classes/division/department established within the College of Engineering disturbed me greatly when I initially read it.
When the FIU bridge collapsed after they touted all the Female Specialness of the company involved in building it/managing the project, then the “move along nothing to see here” scrubbing of all that and the walkbacks of that one female engineer’s participation – all that and this article seem related somehow. Maybe I am just cynical.
Call me crazy, but regardless of how anyone feels about rigor, civil engineering would seem to be one of the few places where it is absolutely necessary, if you want the structures built to … I dunno – stay up!
[shrugs]
But what do I know.
“psychological disease can be contagious”
And what better way to spread them than via an anonymous (mostly, for those technologically adept), almost instant worldwide communications system that includes thousands of people seeking attention and wanting to impress their adopted special interest group?
Meanwhile, I’m unsure as to whether or not this is a spoof of Elfwickian proportions.
I have no idea. This far down the rabbit hole parody is understatement.
MC,
For reasons I can’t fathom, the spam filter has taken exception to you. If more comments get intercepted, email me and I’ll plead on your behalf and make offerings. Puppies should do it.
forcing the internalization of Western science knowledge.”
As opposed to….?
She knows Wakanda isn’t real, right?
She knows Wakanda isn’t real, right?
It’s off to the correction booth for you, my lad.
She knows Wakanda isn’t real, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wauconda,_Illinois
Regarding the FIU bridge, the unfortunate thing (besides some of the terribly unfair generalizations coming out of it) is that the system is really the problem. Governments (in the interest of ‘diversity’) give all sorts of goodie points to the bidding advantage of minority and female owned businesses and distorts the natural process of bidding and validation. I have worked with vendors who expect special consideration because of the genetics of their workers.
Which means that engineers who happen to be female or minority, but are working side by side with men in the conventional business world are actually at a disadvantage.
tsk, tsk
Surely Filipina, at least or, more correctly, Filipinx
I denounce myself.
I denounce myself.
I’ve rigged it to play the hits of the Eighties.
I’ve rigged it to play the hits of the Eighties.
Fiends, both of you!
Puppies should do it.
You know, you keep throwing puppies at this problem and yet it persists…Might I suggest switching to kittens? Just a suggestion…
Yes, why is that, David? Does Glenn Reynolds give you a discount on his smoothie supplies?
She knows Wakanda isn’t real, right?
Wait until she reads What Chinese people allegedly think about Black Panther.
Wait until she reads What Chinese people allegedly think about Black Panther.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Chinese simply don’t care about black peoples delicate feelings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtsa0MT2H4I
She?
“But the gentlemen will not expect too much from Flora; she is a female bear, and – ’ He whispered in the gendarme’s ear. ‘Ah, ah? Just so,’ said the gendarme.”
Chinese simply don’t care about black peoples delicate feelings
“You were governed by a European country for so long. You should have learned how things work.”