It’s about time we dealt with the white board question.
Did a recent physics study argue that whiteboards are racist?
“Observing Whiteness in Introductory Physics: A Case Study” was published last month in Physical Review Physics Education Research. The study observed three students as they worked to solve a physics problem and analyzed how “whiteness” is present in academia.
The study found that whiteboards can have racist undertones and perpetuate whiteness.
Seattle Pacific University Research Associate Professor of Physics Amy Roberton served as lead author. W. Tali Hairston, director of community organizing, advocacy, and development at Seattle Presbytery, served as the co-author.
Amy Robertson, your standard science womyn
W. Tali Hairston, your standard community negro
Your standard white boarder
Hairston told Campus Reform that although whiteboards “are not inherently racist,” the common classroom object can perpetuate racism.
“Whiteboards can be racist like how housing, employment, and the judicial systems were found to contain racist practices,” Hairston stated.
According to the authors, the role of the whiteboard as being the center of attention in classroom learning contributes to its role in student discussion and attention.
“Our findings support other studies that have found the study of physics to include racism and sexism,” Hairston added.
“Whiteboards display written information for public consumption; they draw attention to themselves and in this case support the centering of an abstract representation and the person standing next to it, presenting,” the authors argue in the study. “They collaborate with white organizational culture, where ideas and experiences gain value (become more central) when written down.”
According to this argument, when students use a whiteboard to display work, they are drawing attention to themselves that may portray characteristics of “whiteness.”
This can always get goofier.