#ShutDownMath

In this post, we join the call for the Strike for Black Lives that will be taking place on Wednesday June 10th, but first, we want to give some context. The editors of the inclusion/exclusion blog join our voices to the calls for justice and action that we are hearing across the nation in response to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and so many Black people at the hands of police and white supremacists. We emphatically affirm that Black Lives Matter. But we also recognize that a message is not enough. If our majority white professional societies’ actions do not match our words, our words are empty and a form of ally theater. For our Black mathematician colleagues, it is just another reason not to trust these organizations and to be understandably angry.

We also want to make a distinction here — the problem is systemic racism, not just underrepresentation (even “underrepresented minority” is a terrible term to use). If we continue business as usual, it is disingenuous to focus only on recruiting more Black, Indigenous, Latinx students into our programs. Our goal needs to be to create an environment in which any person who WANTS to be a mathematician, can. To change mathematics itself so that it actually serves Black and Indigenous communities. White and non-Black POC don’t need to recruit people as props to make us feel better, we need to get out of the way.

We are not alone in this — many academic disciplines have been long entrenched in systems of white supremacy that have marginalized many groups, but especially Black and Indigenous people of color (BIPOC). Not only that, many of the structures and traditions operate as a form of “slow violence” (a term I first heard from Rochelle Gutiérrez) and cause irreparable harm.

But, as some brilliant colleagues from Physics and Astronomy have said, we can act to eradicate structural and systemic oppression at all levels in our academic disciplines. In their campaign to #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia, these organizers have called for a Strike for Black Lives on June 10th. “No research, no meetings, no classes, no business as usual.” So let’s all step up. We invite you to join the strike, and head over to the main page of Shut Down STEM to see recommendations on what non-Black mathematicians can do, and take the day to share on social media your plans using the hashtags. The main call is not, however, to just share a hashtag and then call it quits — stepping up, in this case, means sharing plans and strategies along with the hashtags. In the words of the organizers: “Use the hashtags #ShutdownSTEM and #ShutdownAcademia to show us YOUR plan to take action for Black lives!”

So yes, go to Black Lives Matter protests, donate to bail funds for protestors, use hashtags to express your outrage at police brutality, but be prepared to commit for the long haul. Donate to NAM (or better yet, get your department to become a departmental member!), donate to Mathematically Gifted and Black, donate to Data 4 Black Lives. Get your department to read anti-racism books. Design your classroom around rehumanizing principles that center your Black students. Change your hiring practices. Think about how you may be complicit in gate-keeping by accepting the status quo. And given that the current national focus is on the police state and how it’s implicated in the murder of Black people, demand that your colleagues stop contributing to the development of algorithms of oppression. Demand that we stop rewarding work that supports policing, inequality, and surveillance. Be intentional and mindful about mentoring graduate students. Read this letter in its entirety. And then do something.

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5 Responses to #ShutDownMath

  1. Brian Katz says:

    The post above calls us to action. I was sent and asked to post these resources by someone in support of that action.
    (1) Letter Templates:
    https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1LbwCj5Il7SO8ap6tFV0KrcU4MOYDYQ1NIYFmlTe7qvo/mobilebasic?fbclid=IwAR21GD102WY9xrYG5dzEzChXGiqcpx_gC7MzV-EuAZ3wlLA2RnqTtyoE38g

    (2) Connections between mathematics and policing:
    https://www.americanscientist.org/article/first-person-andrea-l.-bertozzi-and-p.-jeffrey-brantingham?fbclid=IwAR2MvPM6xRJcIgSXSQEqsImd5DM9FPMDmuyH_G6A1Fc54QKVaMTlq-DvbZQ,
    https://www.webservices.site/news/2016-08-19/policing?fbclid=IwAR2X7Mv-tnHpxR8I5U3Gsi332QmvEbibGkiCaUQ2BBczt16SOm211CkgqNA

  2. Christina Sormani says:

    Videos of Inspiring Talks by Mathematicians that could be shared with your undergraduates:

    https://sites.google.com/site/professorsormani/home/outreach/inspiring-talks

    Particularly recommended and related to Black Lives:

    The Statistics behind Driving while Black
    by Dr. Omayra Ortega

    https://youtu.be/Tkph3i3snnI

  3. Bjorn Poonen says:

    Thank you, Adriana Salerno!

    Yesterday, researchseminars.org, in solidarity with the #Strike4Lives and #ShutDownSTEM movements, posted a banner on its front page urging organizers to consider rescheduling talks on June 10, 2020, and we are adding functionality to make it easy for them to do so and to highlight rescheduled talks, to give additional momentum to the movement.

    Edgar Costa, Bjorn Poonen, David Roe, and Andrew Sutherland

  4. Farrah Yhee says:

    Please read the tweets on #BlackintheIvory:
    https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackintheIvory?src=hashtag_click

  5. Michael Harris says:

    In response to this call, the (online) Beijing-Paris-Tokyo joint Arithmetic Geometry Seminar, scheduled for June 10, has been postponed until the following week. Here is the statement (also at the seminar website http://www.ihes.fr/~abbes/SGA/suron-kika.html and at

    The organizers of the Beijing-Paris-Tokyo Arithmetic Geometry Seminar stands in solidarity with our black colleagues, in the US and around the world, in the struggle against the plague of systemic racism. In response to the call launched by #ShutDownAcademia, #ShutDownStem, and #Strike4BlackLives movements, we decided, in agreement with the speaker, to move Christophe Breuil’s lecture from Wednesday June 10 to Wednesday June 17 at 10:30 am (Paris). The lecture will be given by webinar. If you have not yet registered, you can do so until June 16 on the seminar web page.

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