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Math 1619
Show all of your work clearly and thoroughly. You may use an approved calculator, but the use of a tablet is not permitted. Once you have completed the problems, hand your test to the white man seated at the front of the classroom.
1. When a black girl has a question in physics class about double slits, does she not ask her question (and instead writes “HELP” on her paper next to the problem) because:
a. everyone else seems to understand the new concept.
b. she believes the students in her class will think that she is bad at physics because she is black and female.
c. when she was ten years old, she told her parents that she was trying her best in school. They told her that her best wasn’t good enough because people would always think poorly of her because she is black and female. They said that she had to do twice as well in order to get half of the credit. She isn’t doing twice as well in physics, but pretending she doesn’t have any questions may have the same effect.
d. with so few black girls at her boarding school she represents her whole race and can’t let the white and Asian students in her class leave Physics 230 with the idea that all black girls are inherently bad at physics.
e. All of the above.
2. A black girl is born light-skinned, but grows 0.8 shades darker each summer when she goes to Chattanooga, Tennessee. There, she plays all day under the beating sun in the waterpark, as water squirts from the mouths of giant rock animals. If her hairdresser believes she is too dark when she is 4 shades darker than she is currently, and her aunt’s standard for too dark is 1.2 times that, and her mother’s standard is when her daughter is only 1 shade lighter than herself, how old will the girl be when all three people tell her to stop playing out in the sun? When will the black girl start carrying an umbrella with her when the sun is out?
3. Below is a graph of the black girl’s pulse when she sees the blonde-haired woman slowly approach her from behind as she’s buying a Mother’s Day card. This is her first time getting followed in a store. The black girl is in a J.Crew sweater and jeans. The girl remembers to take her hands out of her pockets and slow her breathing. She softens any hardness in her eyes anyone could claim to see. The black girl smiles. The adjacent graph shows how close the saleswoman is getting to her over time. Find the speed of the girl’s pulse when the saleswoman is ten feet away from her.
4. By the eighth grade, the black girl knows to sit at the front of the classroom once history class approaches the year 1619. That way she can’t see everyone staring at her when their conversation about the start of slavery in America begins. She makes a promise to herself never to be associated with the slaves in her history textbook. Because the black girl can’t subtract her skin, create a function that will let the black girl subtract everything else she thought was “too black” about herself within three years. She could start by subtracting her black friends, subtracting rap music from her phone, or subtracting any sort of confidence she has. She could even start by adding a whole new group of white friends or perfect manners or fancy sweaters. Get creative! There are many different correct approaches and answers.
5. Credit will be assessed on the use of a fully algebraic approach to solve this problem. The first time the black girl tells her mother she wants to be white, it is in the car. The girl’s hair is thinning from the seven years of relaxer, and she tries to push one of the limp strands behind her ear. Her mother yells at her, saying, “You can’t do that, you know! You’re not white!” The black girl whispers, “I wish I was,” from the back seat. Her mother cries when she hears her. The second time she tells her mother she wants to be white is while attending a gymnastics camp where she becomes, for the first time, acutely aware of how black she is in the room of white faces. She calls her mother crying on the phone the very first night, says it would be easier if she looked like everyone else at camp. Her mother cries that time too. In seventh grade at summer camp, a white girl tells the black girl that she is the “whitest black girl (she has) ever met.” The black girl takes it as a compliment. In eighth grade, she thinks that if she avoids all black people, she won’t be associated with them. If she acts white enough, maybe she won’t get followed, won’t be thought of as ugly, won’t be thought of as angry. In ninth grade when she comes to her fancy boarding school, she promises herself she’ll have no black friends. In tenth grade, when a stranger insists the girl is in a “black prep posse,” she runs sobbing to the health center to the small, cozy room of a very nice white female counselor. She tries her best to explain how she doesn’t feel black enough. The counselor recommends she talk to a black teacher. She never does. In eleventh grade her friend tells her that the guy she likes “doesn’t date black girls.” If she is seventeen now, how long will it take her to think she is beautiful? (Hint: All of your answers must be doubled because she is black and female.)
How does your answer change if:
a. she is not a light-skinned black girl, but a dark-skinned black girl?
b. her parents never talked to her about how race would impact her life?
c. her hair is nappy?
Extra Credit: The black girl and her mother are traveling from their home (Point X) to a wedding (Point Y), winding down the back roads of Connecticut. The mother asks the daughter how she and her husband could do a better job of raising the girl’s brother as a black boy (note that the presence of male privilege in this equation may change your problem-solving strategies). The mother apologizes for not giving her daughter any culture, any roots to hang on to, and no concept of how to embrace her blackness. She says she is scared for her children. “What can we do differently for your brother?” she asks the girl, pleading. If the car can go 55 mph on the highway but only 25 mph on the dirt roads, how long does the black girl have to explain to her mother that she doesn’t think there’s anything her parents can do to make growing up black less painful?
