A Canadian math education association put “2 + 2 = 4” on a white supremacy slide. In 2022, the Ontario Mathematics Coordinators Association ran a professional development webinar for math teachers across Ontario school boards. The slide was titled “White Supremacy in Math Education.” Under “covert white supremacy” it listed: standardized testing, “I don’t see colour in my math class,” and “Of course math is neutral because 2 + 2 = 4.” Not a fringe blog. Not a parody account. A professional association shaping how math teachers are trained. When the slide went viral in 2023, the OMCA released an official statement confirming that 2 + 2 = 4 is mathematically true — but argued the equation can be “weaponized to uphold bigotry and white supremacy ideology” when used to claim math is politically neutral. Their defense of the slide was the slide. Someone once wrote about a party that demanded citizens believe two and two made five. In 2022, a professional math association wrote a slide that said believing math is neutral is white supremacy. One was fiction. The other was professional development.
