Surely you don’t think we should include questions about which race commits the most violent crimes proportionally? Because in this thread your claim is that dry simple facts should be fine even if they raise eyebrows. It seems to me that context is important and often people don’t agree on what the statements mean, and that these concerns have no place in a math class.

The race which committed the most violent crime in the last 5, 4, 3, 2, & 1 centuries are whites but I suspect you wouldnt like that answer. Just because we conveniently don't include mass murder (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, WW2, etc) durings wars on the white tally, it doesn't change that fact.

Generally, most framing in the western world is self serving to a particular group of people, so these kinds of facts don't go over so well.

So you are trying to say that any action of the US military is a white action?

Maybe check the statistics on that one.

If anything, what you are saying is racist and discounts ever person in the government and military that is not 'white' , a bizarre category of not actually being a race that is invented for arguments like your own

>So you are trying to say that any action of the US military is a white action?

How many of the commanders in chief were non-white?

I rest my case.

Barrack didn't have a problem with war

The fact that you're saying it shouldn't raise eyebrows implies that you know it raises at least some eyebrows. So I ask again: why are you asking a question that you know could raise some eyebrows when you could have asked one that wouldn't have raised any?

You can't ask a politically-charged question in a class that has nothing to do with politics and then act surprised when people accuse you of injecting politics where it doesn't belong.

I never said I was surprised

The difference is the example question isn't political, it merely puts a data set in front of students and has them analyze it.

> You can't ask a politically-charged question in a class that has nothing to do with politics

The question has nothing to do with politics. It would be political if the teacher said: "now draw these conclusions, vote for these people". I know the link I provided had questions that were more in line with this, but the specific example I gave isn't asking for any conclusions, only observations

Yeah, this is the bad faith argument in action. Of course it had to do with politics and you want to pretend otherwise.

The subject is MATH. The learning should be MATH. Other learning can happen where those types of critical thinking skills are taught.

That is not the purpose of a MATH class.

And you're saying analyzing a data set and making observations isn't math?

What about this hypothetical data set makes you so uncomfortable?

Once again you are arguing in bad faith.

This isn't about me. It's about whether children should be expected to deal with irrelevant topics in class. There are an infinite number of ways to ask the same mathematical problem that don't involve political issues. But you insist that it must be so, then deny that it is so. And to cap it off, you call anyone that disagrees a racist... not flat out, through insinuation.

Bad faith argument.

How is a question about ethnic groups in the US now not political? Where do you think those differences in food security come from?

>the specific example I gave isn't asking for any conclusions, only observations

Well, here's an observation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#/medi...

Setting the joke aside, is there really that much difference between giving you that (perfectly true) statistic and just telling you "pirates prevent global warming"?

>These examples aren't inflammatory unless you're in denial

Some facts can be both true and inflammatory. Complex and nuanced topics should be approached with respect, as it is very easy to mislead or confuse, especially children.

Imagine using homicide offense rate by race to teach fractions for an example how someone could draw wild conclusions from accurate facts. If a teacher used the example black men are 7 times more likely than white men as a math example, it would be incredibly reckless.

Race is a very loaded topic. You could teach a college course on this fact and still start to scratch the surface.