Check out Jonathan Farley – a professor of mathematics who has received death threats from the KKK and was once wrongly detained on suspicion of being a bank robber – writing on racism in academia.

John Derbyshire, a columnist for the National Review, wrote an essay last week implying that black people were intellectually inferior to white people: “Only one out of six blacks is smarter than the average white.” Derbyshire pulled these figures from a region near his large intestine.

One of Derbyshire’s claims, however, is true: that there are no black winners of the Fields medal, the “Nobel prize of mathematics”. According to Derbyshire, this is “civilisationally consequential”. Derbyshire implies that the absence of a black winner means that black people are incapable of genius. In reality, black mathematicians face career-retarding racism that white Fields medallists never encounter. Three stories will suffice to make this point.

Let us know what you think.

• Tags:
• Politics
• mathematics
• race issues
• racism
• justice

Let us take a moment to grieve for Trayvon Martin, whose life was so brutally taken. Then let us move from moment to movement, and revive the struggle for a more perfect union. That would be a fitting legacy for Trayvon. Read Jesse Jackson’s powerful words on why we must do more and seek answers in the aftermath of Trayvon’s death to make sure his death was not in vain.

• Tags:
• Trayvon Martin
• Jesse Jackson
• Rosa Parks
• racism

What’s more, definitions of diversity tend to be skin-deep, about differences you can see – and stick on the cover of your corporate brochure (“black man to the left please, and we’ll have the hijabi in the middle”). Further, because diversity credentials are something companies like to show off, it tends to help to focus on the more marketable minorities.

There is a wealth of evidence, for example, that “ugly” people are frequently underpaid and might benefit from legal protection. But, really, who wants to put a minger front and centre of the company website? And, God/Allah, don’t even get me started on the fat. Women: when it comes to earning potential it seems you can never be too thin.

• Arwa Mahdawi writes about diversity - and how in her opinion the Harvard Business Review is right: diversity schemes can be dangerous if they ignore socioeconomic divisions

• Tags:
• Politics
• Racism
• Race
• Equality
• Diversity

• Tags:
• Sports
• Jeremy Lin
• racism
• NBA
• Knicks
• basketball

Growing up in the north of England in the 80s, I had few role models. Popular culture was dominated by white faces and occasionally black and south Asian, but never east Asian. I’m not sure that much has changed since.

Shouts of “Jackie Chan!” and kung-fu noises from random strangers continue to greet me in the street, perhaps followed by a “konichiwa!” Just a few days ago, a friend was having a post-hangover drink in a trendy east London pub, only to be accused by the manager of being a DVD peddler hassling his clients.

- Elizabeth Chan, on why Chinese Britons have put up with racism for too long

• Tags:
• racism
• china