(In response to a post asking about the possible cure for racism, by Ron Eglash on the Isgem mailing list (International study group on ethnomathematics)
Well Ron,
Let us ask what we and Isgem, in particular, can do about it.
The false sense of racist superiority was created and is supported by false church and racist history, and the appropriations of Egyptian and other achievements to Greeks, as articulated by James, Diop, Bernal, various Afrocentrists (and me). But how to correct this and bring the correction to the “mainstream” schools and universities?
The problem is that the Western academic world is still living in the era of the medieval church, and imagines it can continue to control “valid” knowledge through pre-censorship (secretive “peer review”) and censorship in the name of “quality”, while constantly avoiding transparent public debate to try to preserve its falsehoods.
You might recall my censored article “Was Euclid a black woman?” which was censored by a racist editor of Conversation, in South Africa, and then worldwide, because racists in South Africa were enraged at the thought of their pet fantasies being challenged. The article was later reproduced as part of another article: “Black thoughts matter: Decolonised math, acdemic censorship, and the “Pythagorean” proposition” in Journal of Black Studies and also in Rhodes Must Fall (Oxford), Zed books.
It is a very silly idea to imagine that “valid knowledge” can be decided by some semi-literate White editor or reviewer sitting in judgment of a knowledgeable counter-opinion, without any detailed public response. As explained in my booklet Ending Academic Imperialism, the simple alternative in the digital age is to have post-publication public reviews, which are NOT anonymous.
That is, one simple way to eliminate the numerous falsehoods responsible for continued racism is to allow open debate, and replace the present archaic academic system.
While the Isgem mailing list is open, the Isgem journal Mathematics and Culture follows similar regressive academic practices, and, for example, refused to publish my views on Euclid, though no one so far has come up with a single counter-point, or claimed my Euclid challenge prize for serious evidence about Euclid. That was just another attempt to preserve prejudices spread by racist and church falsehoods in the name of “quality control”. I never submitted anything to that journal again.
Incidentally, for a recent review of the issue see the blog post: Greediots and Pythagoras. 3: Was Euclid a black woman? The term “Greediots” is in response to the term “pyramidiots” invented by Gillings: it refers to people who believe without serious evidence that much science and math was invented in early Greece, though the early Greeks were bad even at basic arithmetic, as my censored article emphasized.
And look at the ridiculous “quality”that has resulted from this method of knowledge control called “quality control”.
Greek history for idiots: Greediots and Pythagoras. 1: No axiomatic proofs in Greek math.
See, also, part 2 of the blog on the foolishness of the Cambridge University math syllabus.
So, once again, I think the first step is to try to reform universities to abandon this attempt at knowledge control by force of authority. Let us demonstrate an alternative system in Isgem and in math education.
And if it is not done, that leaves only the inevitable alternative of violent overthrow. The US abandoned slavery only after the civil war, it abandoned segregation only after the agitation following the Rosa Parks episode, and abandoned its strong support to apartheid only after it became impossible to sustain that regime. Likewise, it took action against racist police officers for the first time after a sustained violent agitation.
But the situation is changing. The mess in Covid management in the US and Europe (compared to China), and the resulting economic recession has exposed the possibility that the temporary reign of the West is over, and the West is crumbling because of the social disharmony due to the excessively unjust system it set up.
So, the other alternative may be to do nothing and just wait for a few years!
