Black Lives Matter: A Message from the MAA Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics
By: Carrie Diaz Eaton, MAA Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics Chair, @mathprofcarrie
Image with permission from: @werepstem
To the Black mathematics community:
You are an important part of mathematics. We see your anger at police brutality, police murder, and active racism all against Black bodies and lives. We see that this extends beyond George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. We see COVID-19 is taking your lives disproportionately. We see the absolute dearth of Black mathematicians in our community. We are actively failing you at every turn as a society and as a mathematics community. We kneel together with you. #BlackLivesMatter
To the broader mathematics community:
This is an MAA issue and a mathematics issue as much as a broader societal issue. Mathematics instruction and research do not happen in a vacuum. We cannot be effective mathematics teachers if we think that students all enter the classroom with the same sense of value and safety. We cannot be effective colleagues if we think that all of our colleagues enter academia with the same sense of value and safety. We need to actively work to become anti-racist as individuals and collectively in our workplaces. In doing so, we must hold ourselves and our academic institutions accountable for the continued oppression of Black students, staff, and faculty.
The MAA Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics (CMPM) has worked since its inception in various ways to increase representation and inclusivity within mathematics. Our JMM lecture series centers the spotlight on how our minority colleagues have felt rejected within the spaces the rest of us comfortably navigate. We are working with the Committee on Faculty and Departments on new guidelines around inclusivity. CMPM has and will make a commitment to continue to collaborate to deliver relevant professional development, such as active bystander training. Individuals within and outside of their role on CMPM continue to have ongoing discussions with leadership to force an open articulation of their commitment to anti-racist work. We know we need to do more. We call on our own organization, the Mathematical Association of America, to examine its ongoing commitment. We recommend (as is in our charge) the (re)establishment of an Office of Minority Participation in Mathematics. We recommend ongoing professional development of its executive and elected leadership with regards to anti-racist personal reflection and organizational change so that we can all be better at supporting our Black colleagues.
We have failed in some efforts, we have succeeded in others. We hereby commit to continue to force the dialogue. In the wake of the cancellation of MAA MathFest, we are trying to push forward the online conversations around inclusivity in the mathematics community. However, extensive, official, and personal action by our entire community is absolutely crucial. Therefore, we also call on you as an MAA community member to:
Support the National Association of Mathematicians https://www.nam-math.org/. They have been the leading organization working to raise the voices of Black mathematicians and mathematics at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Join a reading group. We invite you to start your own community of learning within your department. You might start with “So you want to talk about Race?” by Ijeoma Olou or “How to be an Anti-racist” by Ibram X. Kendi. There are a lot of great books to select, but starting with defining the issues and language will help. You can follow this up with reading groups related specifically to STEM. Here is one such list of resources.
Check on the well-being of your Black colleagues and students. Do not burden them with your processing (save that for #2). Instead, show compassion and reflect on what actions you should extend beyond this moment in time.
Sign up for active bystander training, for example, Hollaback. Learn to identify hate-speech and harassment and build scripts for intervening.
Consider the narratives you have built and make space for your Black colleagues. Are you listening? Are Black colleagues valued in your institution and in your curriculum? Representation matters! See, for example, mathematicallygiftedandblack.com.
This is a short non-exhaustive list. It is not enough, but we want to get it out there. We welcome continued dialogue about the ways that MAA CMPM can better serve you.
Members of the MAA CMPM:
Carrie Diaz Eaton, Chair
Francesca Bernardi
Cesar Martínez-Garza
Edray Herber Goins
Cristina Villalobos
Marco V. Martinez
Margaret Reese
Kamuela Yong
Jason Aubrey
Selenne Bañuelos
MAA Members:
Rachel Levy, MAA Deputy Executive Director
Johanna Franklin, Secretary, Metro NY Section
Jennifer Quinn, President-Elect
Audrey Malagon
Emille Davie Lawrence, MAA Congress Representative At-Large for Minority Participation
Christopher Goff, MAA At-Large Member for Inclusion
Courtney Gibbons
James Álvarez, MAA Representative to Congress for Minority Interests and Member-at-Large on the MAA Board of Directors