Black and Excellent in Math
By: Haydee Lindo, Assistant Professor, Williams College, @HaydeeLindo
Mathematics is a beautiful discipline and, despite its challenges, it is worth pursuing. As an added bonus, jobs in STEM pay nearly twice the national average. However, only 4% of Bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics (1007 of 24,293) were awarded to Black and African American students in 2016. On the other end of the academic pipeline, of the 1,769 tenured mathematicians at the math departments of the 50 United States universities that produce the most math Ph.D.s. approximately 13 are black mathematicians. Previous blog entries have highlighted the historical and vital role that Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) play in supporting black students through STEM degrees. At the same time, gaining a Math BA, MA or Ph.D., and pursuing a STEM career, often necessitates the successful navigation of white (and male) spaces.
It is difficult to speak honestly about the fact that living, working and studying in Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) or primarily white spaces are often a fraught experience for Black students and professionals. This is compounded by the fact that our fellow students, colleagues, and mentors sometimes do not see, or fail to acknowledge, racial discrimination when it occurs. Such discrepancies in awareness and perception are an issue inside and outside of academia. Remember, there is a national conversation about being in a “post-racial" society at the same time that it has become necessary to make Emmet Till’s memorial bulletproof.
It is, however, in vogue to talk about implicit bias and that people are unconsciously perpetuating stereotypes and carrying out microaggressions. These are real and pervasive and must be addressed. However, we cannot ignore the overt aggression that students and faculty of color often face and, “that educational spaces too readily become breeding grounds for the systematic marginalization of Black students.” One can argue that this is a key source of the disparity in black mathematical achievement. In “Robust and Fragile Mathematical Identities: A Framework for Exploring Racialized Experiences and High Achievement Among Black College Students” Ebony McGee writes:
How do we make ourselves bulletproof? We can’t. But McGee explores the idea that high achieving STEM students develop coping mechanisms to prove their academic value in their intellectual communities. Under the name “Stereotype management” she explains that there, “is a learned competency that enables Black and Latinx students to recognize and negotiate social-psychological threats to their identities in ways that aid their STEM achievement.” One of the key ideas seems to be this: when we are younger our attraction to Mathematics is often fueled by external encouragement from our teachers, high scores on tests, etc. As we grow more mature, black mathematicians and engineers remain successful by progressing, “from being preoccupied with attempts to prove stereotypes wrong to adopting more self-defined reasons to achieve.” The truth is that our happiness and continued achievement may rely on the realization that our excellence and accomplishments may not, and more importantly do not, need to be validated by anyone but ourselves. This, of course, is much easier said than done.
It is therefore also extremely important for us to seek out and cultivate affirming environments. Attending an HBCU has been shown to improve the chances of success in STEM fields. If you are not at an HBCU, there are other ways to cultivate an affirming environment. Consider taking courses with faculty of color or attending conferences with a focus on the success of minority STEM students (SACNAS, Field of Dreams, etc). Of course, this burden should not be just on minority students and professionals. We all have the responsibility to move towards culturally sustaining pedagogies and to ask ourselves genuine questions and hold honest conversations about the structural reasons why rooms of mathematicians remain chronically and overwhelmingly white and male.
Dr. Haydee Lindo is an assistant professor of mathematics at Williams College. She is originally from Jamaica and received her Ph.D. from the University of Utah. Dr. Lindo is a commutative algebraist with research interests in homological algebra and representation theory.