Thread by @michaelharriot

I know I tweet about history a lot, but for Black History Month, let's talk about math (OK, there'll be a little bit of history involved)

A thread:

The first thing you should know is that after the fall of the Roman Empire, there was so little intellectual & scientific progress, that historians later referred to this period as "the Dark Ages."

To be fair, that term only refers to white people

While Catholic-controlled Europe was experiencing widespread ignorance and illiteracy, parts of Africa, India, and the area we call the "Middle East" experienced an era of scientific, intellectual advancement.

Historians had a name for that, too.

The Islamic Golden Age.

One of the most important developments in the history of the world came when an Islamic caliph started promoting the "Translation movement. Basically, he wanted to take knowledge from around the world, translate it & give EVERYONE access to it.

It was a CRAZY idea.

See, even in Roman, Greek and other societies, knowledge and information was for the privileged. Luckily, the caliph found someone to help him do it.

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

Al-Khwarizimi was a Persian kid who was basically known for one thing:

He was smart AF

So the caliphate moved him to Baghdad and gave him a job in the administration as Secretary of Knowing Shit.

OK, that wasn't his OFFICIAL title. His actual title was Head Librarian at the House of Wisdom.

amnh.org/exhibitions/tr…

When Al Khwarizmi started, he began studying the works of ancient Greek and Roman philosphers, mathematicians and thinkers. He noticed something.

Almost everything they said was wrong.

Seriously, all of their maps were wrong. The astronomy was wrong. The math was CRAZY wrong

It's not that the white people from the past were dumb. A lot of it was due to mistranslations, different languages and different number systems.

So he redid the calculations using the Hindu-Arabic numerical system. Around 820, he completed 1 of the most important books EVER

In Arabic its called the "al-Kitāb al-Mukhtaṣar fī Ḥisāb al-Jabr wal-Muqābalah," or "The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing"

The name was so long, they just called his book "Al-Jabr" Or, as we know it now:

Algebra.

Now remember, this wasn't just for scholars. He wanted to make sure ANYONE could use and read this book, including merchants, workers and regular people. So he didn't INVENT all of the math he used, he just took everyone's ideas and explained them.

loc.gov/item/202166618…

For instance, he took an Indian concept that Europeans didn't really know about and made it mainstream.

We call it "zero."

And because he only used TEN whole numbers, he's credited with injecting another wild idea into the understanding of mathematics

The "decimal"

What does this have to do with Black history?

Well, contrary to the popular narrative, by the time Portuguese explorers Nuño Tristão and Antão Gonçalves captured 12 Africans and kickstarted the African slave trade, Islam had spread around the globe.

It wasn't that smart people enslaved ignorant Africans. Although we talk about the spread of Christianity, up to 40% of enslaved Africans t came from predominately Muslim parts of West Africa, where education & knowledge were not restricted by wealth & class like in Europe.

But because literate slaves were considered dangerous, reading & writing were FORBIDDEN, many enslaved people had to hide their knowledge.

Take Omar Ibn Said, for instance, who was captured, brought to SC, where he wrote his autobiography

Or Onesimus, a literate enslaved Muslim who was introduced America to vaccines. But because Onesimus' owner was a nepo baby who got an affirmative action scholarship to Harvard, Onesimus was considered "insolent" and his enslaver is described as:

Why is this important?

And what does it have to do with Black history?

One of the things we never learn is that the people who colonized America weren't very educated, partly because, in Early America, just like Europe, education was restricted to the wealthy, aristocrats

In the 1600s, when the African slave trade came to America, the white literacy rate was pretty low AF. In New England, where Dutch & German settlers lived, literacy was high. But in the South and rural places, many poor whites couldn't afford education

And in 1739, after a literate Congolese Warriot led the Stono Rebellion, the Negro Act of 1740 banned slaves from writing. Other states copied it.

Almost every state law governing the enslaved evolved from the Negro Act of 1740

You should read it for yourself:

If you notice, it wasn' READING they were focused on. It was WRITING!

Thanks to Al-Khwarizmi, a slave who WROTE could teach math & science

So enslaved, literate Muslims like Onesimus and Ibn Said had to hide their religion AND their education BECAUSE OF WHITE CULTURE

After slavery ended, this continued. But it wasn't just literacy, it was MATH.

For instance, the "Black Codes" that came after slavery forbade Black people from learning, teaching or practicing certain skills without a white person's permission and a LICENSE from a court.

Notice that they only forbade things that had to do with MATH.

While you might've learned about the racial terror of Reconstruction & how Black PEOPLE were lynched for exercising rights, there's 1 subject that's RARELY discussed.

Did you know they used to lynch SCHOOLS?

Some of this was because many uneducated white people were mad they lost their slaves and Literacy was STILL comparatively low in slave states.

Now, I'm not saying white people are less intelligent. All I'm saying is that white culture doesn't value education.

And it wasn't JUST in the South. Because northern schools were ALSO segregated and sporadically funded, in many northern states–especially outside of urban areas, Black children and poor whites had no schools to attend.

Until Black people did something about that.

In 1868, SC had to rewrite its state constitution to get admitted back into the Union. 72 of the 121 constitutional delegates were Black, and they created something that NEVER EXISTED in America:

A state-funded, constitutionally guaranteed, free, compulsory public school system

Other states had segregated public schools. Some communities paid for their schools. A Mass law guaranteed free public schools to all, but it wasn't enforced. When it was, towns like Salem MA held a "warning out" - they expelled Black residents who used public resources.

Anyway, after SC reimagined the public education system as we know it, violence and racial segregation INCREASED.

Because the 14th & 15th Amendments recognized Black people as citizens, they had to pay taxes, which meant Black workers were PAYING to educate white students.

For instance, Perth Amboy, NJ had no public schools in 1870. A Black man, Thomas Mundy Peterson helped organize the town's board of education & became the school's first janitor. Peterson was born to an enslaved woman who but taught him how to read.

But she also taught him math

So when he voted on March 31, 1870, he understood that his vote was statistically insignificant. Because he was good at math, Peterson knew his vote didn't determine the outcome.

But he was still known as the first Black man to vote after the passage of the 15th Amendment.

Which brings us back to math.

Even though Black people were 2% of the population, Salem residents blamed them for draining the city's resources.

Even though the WHITE PEOPLE were uneducated, they were afraid that Black people might learn skills and contribute to THEIR economy

Even though white people in majority-Black SC benefitted from the education system that BLACK PEOPLE created and helped pay for, they believed they needed to disenfranchise the people who essentially provided them with generational wealth and opportunity for advancement.

But this thread isn't about history. It's about math.

Since white people know about decimals and numbers and math, we should all be able to do a math problem

In the 2020 election, about 12% of Black men voted for Donald Trump.

Historically, that number is about how Black men have ALWAYS voted. Black men are only second to Black women as most non-Republican voting blocs.

But let's say, in 2024 Trump convinces Black men to do something they've NEVER done:

Vote Republican.

In fact, let's say Trump's Black male vote equals the highest Black Republican vote in 50 years. (To be clear, this is NEVER going to happen. We're just doing a math problem)

In 2020 Black men made up 4% of the electorate, but let's say Black male MAGAS REALLY turn out for Trump

Let's say they make up 6% of the electorate in the upcoming election (which would also be unprecedented).

How much impact would it have on the 2024 presidential race?

Well, now that we can use decimals and algebra and zeroes, let's do the math!

An increase in Black male Trump voters from 12% (in 2020) to 23% in 2024 would mean an 11-point uptick. But Black men only make up 6% of this hypothetical electorate, so even if we nearly DOUBLED the number of Black male Trump voters, and ALL THE WHITE PEOPLE voted the same...

It would mean that Trump gained less than one percent of the ACTUAL VOTE

HE WOULD STILL LOSE.

For comparison, white women make up 32% of the electorate. If only HALF of them voted Republican (instead of MOST of them), Trump couldn't win. If MOST white men didn't...

Trump couldn't win.

But wait... We haven't solved this math equation.

Let's say that all of the stories and narratives about Black men doing something they've never done in the history of the world are right. Let's say that Black male voters are tired of the Democratic Party

Why would any legitimate news organization do a bazillion stories about Black men?

Why would anyone who actually knows how to read or do math ask Killer Mike about what Black voters are gonna do?

Why aren't there any stories about how WHITE PEOPLE KEEP WHITE PEOPLEING?

WHY?

Now, there are only two logical explanations:

Perhaps the entire media industry has chosen this illogical narrative with no concern for the actual historical, political or mathematical evidence

I know that sounds like a conspiracy theory.

There is another possibility.

But this one is based on, history, education, and the demographics of the American journalism industry.

Maybe white people are bad at math.

It's almost like we're going back to the Dark Ages.