Alexander Wilson

In 2020-2021 I co-organized a racial justice seminar for the Dartmouth math department. We met periodically over Zoom to discuss readings. This page summarizes the resources that Carolyn Gordon and I prepared for the seminar.

Discussion Guidelines

We formed the following guidelines for discussion as a group at the first session. Some guidelines were added or revised at subsequent sessions.

1. "I" statements.
2. Moderator will call on people in order if more than one person tries to speak at once.
3. Abandon rank. Treat all as peers. Hear ideas, not authority.
4. "Principle of Charity": Try to ascribe to each other the best possible intention.
5. Avoid inflammatory/antagonistic language.
6. Respectful anonymity. Avoid naming.
7. Specifics are private to the group, but lessons can be shared.
8. Step up and step back. (Make sure everyone has an opportunity to speak.)
9. "Call in, not out": When someone says something that makes you uncomfortable, express your discomfort and invite them to say more.
10. Allow yourself to step back and take a moment before responding.
11. Express without trying to convince.
12. Don't pressure anyone to share more than they might be comfortable sharing.

Sessions

• Session 1 (8/26/20)
  • Levels of Racism: a Theoretic Framework and a Gardener’s Tale
  • Why Acknowledging That Racism Exists Isn’t the Same as Being Anti-Racist
• Session 2 (9/9/20)
  • Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.
  • Discussion focused on some ways we can help support students in the Fall term given the charged political climate
• Session 3 (9/21/20)
  • “When They Call You a Terrorist”: The Life of Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors (Video)
  • Discussion involved both the above video and the essay read for last session
• Session 4 (10/5/20 3:45-4:45pm)
  • Exploiting black labor after the abolition of slavery
  • Rooted in Slavery: Prison Labor Exploitation
  • Recommended: Slavery by Another Name
  • Recommended: A book review of "Twice the Work of Free Labor. The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South." by Alex Lichtenstein
• Session 5 (10/26/20 3:45-4:45pm)
  • The Drug War is the New Jim Crow
  • Trends in U.S Corrections (Statistics on rates of imprisonment. You may want just to skim the tables with the statistics. Much of the commentary overlaps with other readings.)
  • The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor
  • Optional: Wiki page on ALEC
  • Optional: Op-Ed: Think prison labor is a form of slavery? Think again (An opinion piece from a former prisoner who felt it was important to have a job while in prison)
  • Optional: 13th (a documentary about the 13th amendment and the U.S. prison system. Warning: contains graphic images
• Session 6 (11/9/20 3:45-4:45pm)
  • Why the racial wealth gap persists, more than 150 years after emancipation
  • Optional: There are many links embedded in the Washington Post article above that you may wish to explore
  • Optional: The Economic Legacy of Racism, an interview with Sandy Darity (Prof at Duke), talking about the psychology of economic disparity
• Session 7 (12/14/20 3:45-4:45pm)
  • African-American youths' perceptions of K-12 education (This is a study by the United Negro College Fund. Please read up through page 14.)
  • Dianis on Racial Inequality within Education (In this 11-minute video, Judith Browne Dianis, a civil rights attorney and co-director of the Advancement Project, talks about the need to address racial disparities in discipline and student outcomes by sharing an anecdote about her own daughter's experience.)
  • Optional: Inequality at school, an article from the American Psychological Assoc.
  • Optional: “When They Call You a Terrorist”: The Life of Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors (Video) (This was already assigned for session 3, but it's worth watching or rewatching as she discusses her school experiences)
• Session 8 (1/4/21 3:45-4:45pm)
  • Mathematics for Human Flourishing, Francis Su's retiring MAA Presidential address
• Session 9 (2/1/21 3:45-4:45pm)
  • Living Proof—Take a look at whichever stories pique your interest
  • The power of believing you can improve, a 10-minute TED talk by Carol Dweck on growth mindset
• Session 10 (2/15/21 3:45-4:45)
  • Rehumanizing Mathematics, a talk by Rochelle Gutiérrez
• Session 11 (3/8/21 3:45-4:45)
  • Cultural competence in the college biology classroom
  • Mathematical microaggressions by Francis Su
  • Optional: 3 approaches for confronting microaggressions
• Session 12 (3/29/21 3:45-4:45)
  • Teaching more by grading less (or differently)
  • Chapter 10 of Ungrading: Why rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) available at the Project Muse link
• Session 13 (4/26/21 3:45-4:45)
  • Why Citing the Japanese Internment as a ‘Precedent’ for a Muslim Registry Is So Alarming
  • Chinese Immigrants Now Make Up the Largest Group of New Arrivals to the U.S.
  • The mental toll of being a 'model minority'
• Session 14 (5/10/21 3:45-4:45)
  • The Betrayal of Samson Occom
  • Choose one:
    • Unspoken: America's Native American Boarding Schools (Video)
    • American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many (Article)

Materials Recommended by Members of the Department

What follows are resources that members of the department have engaged with and recommended to us.

Articles

• Toward an Expanded Canon of Black Literature
• For a Black Mathematician, What It's Like to Be the 'Only One'
• Resources for learning how to be an anti-racist from the MAA
• This Is the Casual Racism That I Face at My Elite High School
• The Case for Reparations
• It Is Time for Reparations (NYT magazine)
• Race, Space, and the Conflict Inside Us (Francis Su)
• Mathematical Microaggressions (Francis Su)
• Does one have to be a genius to do maths? (Terry Tao)
• On Proof and Progress in Mathematics (William Thurston)
• The Missing Physicists a collection of articles in Science about barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change

Books

• Mathematics for Human Flourishing by Francis Su
• How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender by Eugenia Cheng
• Asked and Answered: Dialogues On Advocating For Students of Color in Mathematics by Pamela E. Harris
• Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks

Films

• 13th (a documentary about the intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States)

Other

• The AntiRacist Table 30 Day Challenge
• The 1619 Podcast from The New York Times
• Mathematicians of the African Diaspora