Dear friends,
Years ago, I read a great book called A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, by John Allen Paulos. As a newspaper reader who is not a mathematician, I appreciated how Paulos laid bare the ways that numbers can be used to mislead the reader, exaggerate a problem, or organize ideas in a way that is somewhat arbitrary AND tells a story (top ten lists!).
Living through a pandemic, a contested presidential election, and a period of spurious debate about the scale of the climate crisis has only made me more alert to numbers and the ways in which they are so frequently abused. As a Sesame Street fan, I need to stand up and defend numbers, which are not interested in misleading you.
I am sure I am not the only one getting cross-eyed looking at vaccination, positivity, and hospitalization data. The Guardian published this wonderful piece to show how proper data visualization is a powerful tool to fight misinformation about the effectiveness of COVID vaccines.
It contrasts the presentation of raw data — that in New South Wales, 97 vaccinated people (age 50 or over) died of COVID as compared to 31 unvaccinated people in the same place and age cohort — with the contextualized version. There are, of course, many more people who are vaccinated, so the raw data is quite misleading.
The graphic above, from The Guardian, provides a clear and accurate picture of who is getting severely ill and dying.
Of course, numbers are never a substitute for humanity. This piece about the mockery heaped on anti-vaxxers who die of COVID got my attention. The writer makes many good points:
So what, then, is the proper response to the deaths of anti-vaxxers or other determined foes of public health? First, we must acknowledge that the enemies needing to be stamped out are the misinformation, lies, and stupidity being injected into the fight against COVID.
Second, we must view every one of these deaths as a teachable moment. They demonstrate in the most vivid way imaginable the folly of vaccine refusal and of flouting responsible public health measures. They underscore the dire consequences of turning public health into a partisan football.
He somehow reaches the faulty conclusion that mockery is an effective teaching tool:
But mockery is not necessarily the wrong reaction to those who publicly mocked anti-COVID measures and encouraged others to follow suit, before they perished of the disease the dangers of which they belittled.
Making people feel stupid is not educational. Show the graphics and explain.
If part of the ethical task for quantitative researchers of slavery is to preserve the humanity of the enslaved despite the nature of the sources, then connecting this data to Black genealogists is one way to underscore the fact that these were real people with real legacies.
. . . .
We may not have many statues of the enslaved — we may not have anywhere near enough letters and portraits and personal records for the millions who lived and died in bondage — but they were living, breathing individuals nonetheless, as real to the world as the men and women we put on pedestals.
I am not going to offer more summary or quotes from Bouie’s column, because you really must read it yourself. First math, and now Monday homework. Who do I think I am?
Read Jamelle Bouie’s We Still Can’t See American Slavery for What It Was.
Fun fact: a friend confessed that her solution to tl;dr is to get her partner to provide her with summaries from the wiffij. In tomorrow’s good news, I will explain why the wiffij posts are likely to get shorter.
Here are some numbers I don’t know how to interpret: school enrollment has shrunk during the pandemic and there’s some raw data to consider along with Chalkbeat’s analysis.
I would love to hear your insights into falling school enrollments.
If we’re talking numbers, I feel compelled to talk a little bit about money. At some point after the 2020 election, I reassessed how I wanted to allocate my political donations. Generally, I am moving away from supporting individual candidates and toward organizations that build a long-term political ground-game.
Working Families Party is one of my favorites. They sent me a reminder that early voting in the Texas primaries begin in two weeks. Below is some data from a Texas Election Analysis Memo. Turnout matters.
Support Working Families Party efforts to elect progressives in Texas.
It’s not too soon to support the organizers who will get out the vote for a challenge to Kyrsten Sinema.
Support Living United for Change (LUCHA) AZ.
According to Americans for Tax Fairness, some folks are not paying their share, not only because the system favors the wealthy, but because there’s inadequate enforcement. The numbers are huge — hundreds of billions of dollars each year.
The U.S. lost $600 billion in revenue to tax evasion and noncompliance in 2019―roughly 15% of taxes owed. It will total $7 trillion over the next decade if we don’t stop it.
The richest 10% are responsible for three-fifths of unpaid taxes. The richest 1% evade $163 billion a year in taxes they owe.
Tell Congress to fund the IRS!
I will end today’s post about numbers with a some budget talk. This comes from Fair Pay for Home Care campaign leaders Julia Solow, Gemma Calinda, and Zahara Zahav:
The Governor missed an opportunity to address the home care crisis in her executive budget. In response, Caring Majority leaders released a powerful 3-min film that has reached over 69,000 New Yorkers and has been shared by dozens of state legislators.
Many brave leaders have also shown up and attempted to speak to the governor directly, including home care worker Mark Ressl.
Hear and retweet Mark's message to Governor Hochul on Twitter.
Fair Pay for Home Care Act (A6329/S5374) has 120 bipartisan co-sponsors in the Assembly and Senate. I was curious enough to count and found that five of the 20 Republicans in the Senate support the bill. This is one of those human issues that cuts across party and regional differences.
NY Caring Majority’s monthly organizing call will be devoted to preparation for lobby visits to solidify support for Fair Pay in the legislature. The goal is to find our way into the so-called ‘one house budget’ that legislative leaders use in negotiations with the governor.
Get more involved in the campaign for Fair Pay for Home Care.
Thanks for staying with Math Monday. I have no idea what came over me.
with love,
L