Ladies and Gentlemen: The saddest and funniest testament to American bigotry we've ever seen in our data. pic.twitter.com/Bh3FBsl8sR
— John Dick (@jdcivicscience) May 11, 2019
That's right: LVI% of Americans are, well, ignorant and bigoted to boot.
You probably don't need to be told that the Arabic numeral system is the one that we use today. The concept of zero was in use in Arabia when Europe was firmly stuck in what was formerly called the Dark Ages. Because of the use of zero, Muhammad al-Khowarizmi was able to develop algebra at a time when Europeans were still using Roman numerals.
I'm reasonably sure that if the pollsters asked if "the Arabic system of al-Gebra" should be taught, a lot of people would say no.
I'd like to see the same poll using "French numerals"or or "Indonesian" before you claim racism.
ReplyDeleteGoethe's Ignorance in action would seem to cover it without jumping to any conclusions.
ReplyDeleteFunny, B., racism was never mentioned. Arabic is not generally considered a “race” or “ethnicity”, but Arabs are, by definition, Caucasian. Bigotry is a hatred of those who hold differing views, such as perhaps the religious views common in the Middle East. Why the reflexive defense of the ‘Merican people by assuming that any complaint about them is about racism?
ReplyDeleteWhile this shows that Americans are woefully uninformed about many of the things that used to be common knowledge, or just taken for granted, I don't see that it shows anything about racism.
ReplyDeleteOf course there is racism in America, from people of every possible walk of life. But to indicate it is 56% is just not supported by this data. A poll could be designed to try and find out just how bigoted people are, but I suspect that we all have our own bigotry in varying degrees, and about different things, not simply racial.
I was raised in a home with parents who had many friends of all colors and religions and no religion. And when those friends came to visit my parents, they brought their kids and my twin brother and I would go outside and play with them.
I spent 35 years in a foundry working with many different people, who were my friends. And while I don't consider myself to be a bigot, I still understand that there are remaining parts of myself that, if I look closely, I find that I will have to agree that I have some bigotry simply due to the fact that I was raised in a very small village, with seldom more than a few families of any ethnicity other than caucasian. And even if I acknowledge that, I am probably going to have to work at getting rid of my bias for my entire life. It's not that I want to have that within myself, it is just that I don't think there would have been any way to avoid those biases, due to whatever you wish to call it. White privilege is the popular term for it, although that is not as accurate as it should be.
I also think that you can have some bigotry within yourself and not hate others. At least not in the traditional sense. I would rather think that rather than hatred, what I have inside of myself is simply the feelings that I am somehow on a higher level than some others. And I don't like that about myself, but as I said, I have been working on it for quite some time now. Understanding it, I believe, might be the first step in changing.
I think some people suffer from the soft bigotry of ignorance, because they “know” in their hearts that they’re right.
ReplyDeleteAl-Gebra — weren't they the heartless vandals who mercilessly bombed quadratic equations?
ReplyDeleteYours crankily,
The New York Crank
If I had been asked in junior high I would have definitely supported a ban on al-jabr.
ReplyDeleteKind of liked algebra, it was that creep Cal Q Lus that really ground my gears.
ReplyDeleteI was OK with differential equations. Integrans busted my chops, but hard.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost inconceivable that Isaac Newton invented calculus in a few months.