The Race to Innumeracy

 Some School Boards, acting on the calculations of social-justice-diversity-inclusion, have declared that math is racist. The Ontario Ministry of Education has ruled that two "Mathematics" exist (how do they count them?). There is both "euro-centric mathematical knowledge" and "indigenous mathematical knowledge". (Guess which one is "racist"?)

One, says the School Board, is about indigenous shape categories (as for canoes and baskets), and the other is about mathematical probabilities and prediction of how long jail sentences are for non-white criminals who re-offend.

Probably not many Humanities types understand mathematical probability, but we do think it improbable that 2 + 2 suddenly equals 5. And in a dizzyingly unstable world, we want at least arithmetic to hold steady, 100% of the time (that would be 100 of 100 times, in case you only took math recently). We may not have all been great at high school math in pre-woke times, but we count on the fact that some people were. Who wants a banker or an engineer that can't do math, or a pharmacist who can't measure the quantities of medications you've been prescribed? Who wants an accountant who can't add? For them "reconciliation" is about reconciling numbers on the income and the out-go sides of the balance sheet. Let's hope someone can balance it.

It's not rocket science -- except when it is rocket science -- but ordinary measurement, calculation, and balancing of weights, measures and distances do make the world of commerce, construction and transportation go round.

Regarding Math-Humanities Intersectionalism, there's a parallel downward race to innumeracy and illiteracy illustrated by constant media misuse of the term "decimate", as in "their rights are being decimated" -- apparently meaning devastated, although the word actually means reduced by ten percent. (cf. "decimal" etc. -- get it?) One fears that soon, school Math departments will be more than decimated.

If Math teachers are to be replaced by Social Justice Warriors, what will numbers "mean" in future? As for whether public trust in the statistics which politicians, experts and "influencers" trot out -- don't count on it.

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Municipalities demand elimination of white space from the Canadian flag

There's too much white space on the Canadian flag, charge municipalities and ethnic groups. They demand that the colours be changed to orange on a brown background. 

"What were they thinking in 1965 when this flag was adopted?" they ask. "Didn't they know white equals racist?"

Uh … no.  It seemed about as inoffensive and non-ideo-ethnically-divisive as a flag could be. It has a LEAF. Canada's full of LEAVES. 

Still, say those determined to be ideologically offended: "If there's a statue of that flag's designer (George Stanley) it needs to be knocked down. We will search the civic squares and parks where it may be lurking -- 'We shall fight it on the beaches, we shall fight it on the landing grounds, we shall fight it in the fields and in the streets …' "

Civil rights associations, however, advise that "caution" would be wise. Should there be a referendum? 

"No!" say anti-flaggists. "Referendums that include the whole voting public are artifacts of systemic colonialism smacking of systemic parliamentary f---g systemic democracy. We need to get past all that historical garbage."

The Society For Sane Thinking has issued a statement of disagreement. "Why adopt a background of orange and gloomy muddy brown on the flag?" they ask. "That seems to represent muddy thinking." Whereupon the rights groups charge that that just proves it.

Asked for their opinion, people in the street have varied reactions.

"Canada has a flag?" asks one.

"What a hue and cry about crying over a hue!" exclaims an exasperated senior.

"Canada Day should be a National Day of Pennant-Penance," suggests a morose skateboarder with dreadlocks.

Should George Stanley's statues be removed, if any exist, asks the journalist?

"Dunno," shrugs a teenager. "Is he the dude who made the Stanley Cup? Can't de-platform that."

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Is Kid-Lit Too White?

 How long before “systemic racism” comes for children's literature, with its shamelessly sparkly-white characters such as Snow White, Caspar the Ghost, and Frosty the Snowman? Christmas is of course already beyond the pale (if one may use such triggering language) and children's literature has always been a target of censorship, but formerly for reasons of eroticism or fairy-tale gruesomeness. The attack on all things white-suggestive is new.

Comfort-characters such as the shy, polite and kindly Rupert Bear, and T. H. White's “Wart” (boyhood name of King Arthur), are no longer vouchsafed to children, and innocence (“in-nocere”, not-knowing) is equated with silence, which is now considered "violence".

Rupert the cheerful bear-child was once in fact a brown bear, but was made white by editors who wanted him to show up well in illustrations when the Rupert Annual was printed in colour. He set forth each day in his yellow sweater and plaid pants for Nutwood Forest, where he had adventures and Did Good Things. It's surprising there hasn't yet been a march demanding the publisher “Make Rupert Brown Again”. (1)

In T. H. White's youth novel The Once and Future King, Arthur upon becoming king took up nobility as a “glorious doom”. Originally, to be noble meant having a known name, plus character traits like magnanimity and moral excellence. We however are only interested in “inclusion, diversity and equity”, which aren't necessarily magnanimous, moral and excellent. To admit the existence of excellence would be to acknowledge that not everything is equal. Nobility has toxic connotations, today.

No wonder everyone's at loggerheads, adding to what Matthew Arnold in Dover Beach called the confused alarms of “ignorant armies that clash by night”. (2) Some might say that the violence lies in that – manifested as street rallies and online attacks – not in the wise restraint of silence. Only the kindly decency of a simple hero like Rupert could sort it all out -- but we've moved a long way from Nutwood.

1 For the story of Rupert's transformation from brown bear to white, see:

http://www.canterbury-archaeology.org.uk/tourtel/4590809564

2 For Matthew Arnold's poem see https://poets.org/poem/dover-beach