Many white males seek out math as a refuge from the complexities of society. So when I bring up the role of race in math culture, they see me as destroying their safe space. As a black man, I too wish for math to be a safe space from race. Sadly, for many black folks, it is not.

"Who do they make eye contact with? Not you."

This is a good article on what it can be like to be black in mathematics and reflects a lot of my own experiences: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/edray-goins-black-mathematicians.html )

Who am I to say this? I have a MSc in Math. I once gave a report to the president of the American Mathematical Society. I worked directly with the vice-president. I've been on committees within the AMS. I'm not some rando that has no clue what US mathematics culture is like.

I'm not saying I'm some brilliant mathematician. All I'm saying is I'm very familiar with the culture. I'm much less of an outsider than the vast majority of the people who criticize me for speaking about math culture.

American mathematics culture is very socially conservative even more so than other academic fields. You can trace a lot of the cultural norms of mathematics back to various European cultural quirks for instance the British gentleman's love of frivolous pursuits.

The mathematician Hardy was famous for boasting how useless his work was. It's a boast because it implies you don't have to work for a living and therefore have the luxury of working on useless things. This was a way to signal status.

I'm not denouncing Hardy by the way. I'm merely pointing out that these norms and values are rooted in a time and place. They aren't handed down to us by the Gods of mathematics.