Now this is res ipsa loquitur.
My head exploded when I saw what you will see below, so you are warned. The racist chart is from the anti-white section of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture’s web page.
The page and its agitprop are also anti-black: hard work, punctuality, believing in cause and effect, “rational thinking,” respect for authority, and civility are all manifestations of “whiteness”, according to the museum. Writes Rod Dreher, obviously post head-explosion…
Did David Duke write this stuff? It’s crazy! If a white man said that black people are lazy, can’t keep to a schedule, have no respect for authority, can’t think straight, are rude, etc. — he would be rightly criticized as racist. But there it is, at the taxpayer-funded National Museum of African American History and Culture. Why? Why do we pay for this racist propaganda? …
The museum teaches black people that being on time for work is racist oppression. Don’t believe me? Look. … I can’t get over this. If you assume that everything these curators say below is true, then you can explain a great deal of the chronic problems within black America. What kind of neighborhood would you expect to have if most of the people in it devalued hard work, rejected the idea that they needed to be on time, refused to defer gratification, did not respect authority, sought out conflict, laughed at politeness, rejected the traditional family model, and so forth? You’d have communities that were beset by crime and generational poverty, without the cultural tools to overcome the chaos. There are plenty of white people in this country who live by similar rules — and they’re chronically poor too.
Hold on to your skull! Here is the chart:
Ethics Alarms 
Heh…the King’s English Rules.
Oh, that’s just too much.
Did David Duke write this stuff? It’s crazy! If a white man said that black people are lazy, can’t keep to a schedule, have no respect for authority, can’t think straight, are rude, etc. — he would be rightly criticized as racist. But there it is, at the taxpayer-funded National Museum of African American History and Culture. Why? Why do we pay for this racist propaganda? …
The museum teaches black people that being on time for work is racist oppression. Don’t believe me? Look. … I can’t get over this. If you assume that everything these curators say below is true, then you can explain a great deal of the chronic problems within black America. What kind of neighborhood would you expect to have if most of the people in it devalued hard work, rejected the idea that they needed to be on time, refused to defer gratification, did not respect authority, sought out conflict, laughed at politeness, rejected the traditional family model, and so forth? You’d have communities that were beset by crime and generational poverty, without the cultural tools to overcome the chaos. There are plenty of white people in this country who live by similar rules — and they’re chronically poor too.
I’ve been light-footed and light-hearted all day. This has really been a delicious day! First, Ms Weiss’s letter and now this. (Seeing the mental derangement of Darrow also helped).
It is finally getting through to people what is going on. Day by glorious day one more link in the chain is attached. Soon the entire picture will be clear.
It wasn’t written by David Duke, it tells the truths that David Duke and millions of others are aware of. White European culture has its own values and ideals. They are not (necessarily) shared. Nor do they have to be. They are being attacked and destroyed. You must not let it happen. When enough see what is going on, they will put their foot down.
Blacks by their own definition operate on ‘Black time’. They are not ‘lazy’ — that is only if they are held in comparison to average whites. They have a different sense of values. It is part of their culture and their being. In a sense it is your erroneous imposition on them that they must, in your minds, be exactly like whites. And I suppose all other people must have all the character traits you have and if one says they don’t they are *racist*? Absurd. You have absolute absurd predicates!
You pay for anti-White propaganda, son. You pay for cultural engineering processes. You pay for the remaking of your demographic and your social body. You pay for censorship (which is only just beginning and which will soon grow acute — far more acute than what you now see). (Google “Secure Tolerance Occicdental Observer).
You are blinded people who have been scr*^%ed out of seeing clearly much less understanding vaguely what has been done to you.
I both pity you . . . and am really very proud to watch you grow and take your first steps! I am here to help. Don’t feel bad reaching out for help & advice. I am praying for you.
“Blacks by their own definition operate on ‘Black time’. ”
I was just thinking about this. In context of the racial slur which we dare not speak aloud, it would appear that ‘black time” is another concept that the community is permitted to use within itself, but that Others may not. Just as there is a code book of dog-whistle words and phrases which can be tossed at Others arbitrarily without respect of context or motivation, there’s a book of words and phrases which only those Within can use.
Having lived in South Florida for 18 years, I can tell you that Cuban time is absolutely a thing. The phrase is used by Cubans and non-Cubans alike. It’s almost a point of pride.
There is about an hour difference in a New York minute and a Mexican minute. The first lasts about 5 seconds and the latter up to 3600 or more seconds later.
Supposed to appear thus:
Did David Duke write this stuff? It’s crazy! If a white man said that black people are lazy, can’t keep to a schedule, have no respect for authority, can’t think straight, are rude, etc. — he would be rightly criticized as racist. But there it is, at the taxpayer-funded National Museum of African American History and Culture. Why? Why do we pay for this racist propaganda? …
The museum teaches black people that being on time for work is racist oppression. Don’t believe me? Look. … I can’t get over this. If you assume that everything these curators say below is true, then you can explain a great deal of the chronic problems within black America. What kind of neighborhood would you expect to have if most of the people in it devalued hard work, rejected the idea that they needed to be on time, refused to defer gratification, did not respect authority, sought out conflict, laughed at politeness, rejected the traditional family model, and so forth? You’d have communities that were beset by crime and generational poverty, without the cultural tools to overcome the chaos. There are plenty of white people in this country who live by similar rules — and they’re chronically poor too.
What this chart implies if not outright states is that assimilation is bad. Cultural adherence to one’s original tribe should take precedence.
Imagine if Danish Americans adopted their original tribal customs.
That’s why it doesn’t matter what English you send out into the world, religious nuts, fortune seekers, even conmen, debtors and prostitutes, they will build America, Canada South Africa, Australia and everybody else will want to move there.
Looking at the chart, I’m just curious as to which of these things black people don’t accept as their own as well as whites?
Let’s look at a few candidates:
1. Self-reliance: The alternative is some kind of tribal arrangement where the leaders are responsible for everyone’s well-being. This may be the way of African tribes (I really don’t know), but our founding documents have self-reliance as a major tenet. Remember who founded this country. And not all white people have this system. See Europe.
2. Nuclear family: Is this bad? Is it somehow not applicable to black people? Would they argue that black men fathering tens of children out of wedlock and requiring women to raise and support them a better/preferable system?
3. Wife subordinate to husband: This hasn’t been the norm for decades, especially in other “white” countries. Was this written for pre-1970’s America? In what way are black relationships better if men are not required to accept any responsibility for whatever passes as a black “nuclear family?”
4. Objective, rational, linear thinking: Again, in what way is a black person different? Do they think emotional, irrational, unreason is preferable? Can somebody show me anyplace in history, whatever the race, where this kind of non-rational thinking was effective?
5. Heavy focus on the British Empire: Does my history book deceive me, or did our founders not commit treason and rebellion against the British Empire, i.e., they were former British citizens? The first Americans adopted the language because it was then, and is now, the language of business. That said, is there some reason we should now change to Swahili or another African language? Or Arabic? French, maybe?
6. Hard work: Is there some other key to success that black people know about that I don’t? I’m willing to listen.
7. No tolerance for deviation from monotheism: Well, a century ago, maybe, or 75 years. I pass a Hindu temple on the way to work that for some reason still operates unencumbered, and isn’t it interesting that Muslims think Christians are polytheist because of the Holy Trinity?
8. Wealth = Worth: They must be talking about wealthy liberals. God knows most Americans haven’t subscribed to this idea for decades.
9. Plan for the future: Is there some other way to plan? I mean, the very word “plan” requires an un-attained objective, some future goal, by definition. Is just letting the future happen and hoping for the best somehow preferable, or even desirable?
10. Time: I guess we could all go on “Aloha time,” but I suspect if we want to be competitive against other countries and cultures, “whenever I get around to it” might impede that objective.
11. Steak and potatoes: Okay, you’ve crossed the line here. Stay off my damn food, and eat what you please. Hemlock, if you prefer, I don’t care.
12. English common law: Our founders implemented what they knew, and as far as I know, nobody has made a convincing a case that some other system, say, Sharia law, is better.
13. Be #1 in competition: This is so pre-1980’s — unfortunately.
14. The “King’s English”: See #5. Also, please propose a better alternative that enables everyone to communicate. Common language is what binds a country together, and inability to communicate leads to conflict and war.
re 12: CIVIL LAW IS BETTER!
If not, why is it commonly used in many more countries, starting with almost all of Europe?
Honestly, I agree – having grown up in a place where bad laws can’t be fixed by the courts – that Common Law is better, but couldn’t resist raising the bait.
Okay, well, at lest that’s one argument that could be worth having. Still waiting on the rest. 🙂
It wasn’t meant to make sense. These are not unique European or White values. Europeans didn’t invent nuclear families or hard work. These values are not absent in Africa or any other continent. They are just found in varying proportions.
Most of them are just plain “good” values. That they are more uniquely tied to Europe is solely because Europe happened to fully embrace Christianity (specifically Protestantism and the written Bible) before the rest of the world.
What we’re seeing is just the devil’s mask slipping. It’s a thinly veiled attempt by Marxists to hollow out the African American subculture and wear it like a skin. And Marxism is itself a thinly veiled attempt to erase Christianity and kill its adherents.
I guess. But what is it meant for, then?
Great comment, Isaac. Thank you.
I’m actually shocked at this.
But how’s your head????
You know, after I wrote the plaint above, I forgot once again to consider the ethics of this matter. As this is an ethics blog and not a political site or repository for polemics against … whatever insult heaped upon our collective sensibilities today (and cranial detonations are certainly polemic-worthy), I guess I need to offer whatever my meager brain can conjure regarding the subject matter of Jack’s home on the Internet.
I wonder what ethical principle allows non-whites to hold the descendants of this country’s founders in contempt for the practices, language, and culture they adopted and adapted for their own? I know the New York Times wants to argue that black people founded and built this country under the whips of white masters, but the objective, historical truth is far different from their bizarre, revisionist perspective.
When did it become the ethical duty of white people to learn other languages, change their culture to fit the sensibilities of minority immigrants and former slaves, reject the founding principles of the country founded by majority white Anglo-Saxon descendants? Is this true of just the USA, or are all former slave-holding countries bound to do this? Or does this apply only to majority white countries. What guiding ethical principle provides for this self-immolation?
Perhaps it is our “whiteness,”” and the ethical system whites have created over 250+ years that blind us. It seems like we are being asked to abandon our “white ethics” in favor of something else, although I have yet to see anyone propose a system that we should adopt in it’s stead, or the ethical imperative that commands us to do so. Rather, what I see is condemnation and demands that we submit to guilt and reparation.
Is it all about the fact that our many-times-removed relatives may have owned slaves? Is the fact that we fought a bloody war against our own race and even relatives to abolish that great evil from our country 150+ years ago irrelevant to the now — something no other slave-holding culture of any race has ever done? Is it the fact that, like all things, our id does not always listen when our intellect demands the banishment of the concept of “other” based on skin color, and it takes many decades to purge it from our society? Does it matter that other races, the very ones who are demanding white change, face this problem in equal measure? Are our imperfections the ethical imperative to banish 250+ years of culture and adopt something completely different that has a universal track record of failure?
And what perfection of ethical purpose do proponents of this change possess? Are they somehow more pure, more ethically profound, than than those who founded this country and its ideals and culture? Is African, Latino, Asian, or other ethnicity and the ethical systems they may have developed so objectively superior that we should abandon our own culture and adopt them? If so, which ones?
The disdain for “whiteness,” obviously, is profoundly unethical using any system of which I am aware. Except, apparently, in this perhaps 10-year old system of “woke,” in which ethical superiority in all things is granted to minorities not because their systems are more pure, more just, more profound, more moral or more honest — but rather, because they are offended by whites, white history, and what whites have created.
Color me unconvinced.
Both of your comments are Comments of the Day. Well done.
jvb
I agree. Show-off….
Wow, thanks. Upon reread, I’m aghast at my grammar and proofreading.
I really should let these cool for a while before editing, I guess.
Wonderfully stated Glenn
Glenn’s trying to take over the blog!!!!!!
Heh. No danger of that! But thank you.
As always, Glenn, nice work.
I’ve analogized the extortionate pressure being placed upon my college mater by the four percent of black students attending it to change its ways to walking into a soul food restaurant and demanding to be served sushi. If you want sushi instead of collard greens and black-eyed peas, got to a sushi restaurant! Don’t go to a soul food restaurant! And don’t be rude! Don’t insult the owner of the soul food restaurant for not being Japanese! It’s not that complicated. It’s basic golden rule stuff. How about I go to a historically black college and demand it instantly become sixty or seventy percent white?
Hey, a good visual aid for “It’s Okay to be White!”
That’s exactly what it is! How could I have missed that?
I guess I’m confused. The chart implies that the correlations between the behaviors outlined (whiteness) and the results(general success in life) are a subjective thing. If Black People have their own methods and their own results, WTF are they complaining about? The “Blackness” chart would certainly look different and have its own correlations between behaviors and results that they should be happy with. No? “I don’t want to show up on time, but want to complain about being late.” I could go on and on but my head exploded…
I see three different categories here:
1. cultural styles which are approximately equivalent
2. values we can choose to adopt for the country, which have differing consequences
3. signs of a healthier or more capable culture (one which deals with problems more effectively)
The King’s English is a cultural style. As long as a language has the nuance and flexibility to describe any idea a person needs to communicate, and as long as the people they need to communicate with share that language, it doesn’t really matter what the language is.
Rigid time schedules are values with consequences that we can choose to adopt for the country. We can decide whether we consider it more important to get things done on time or to be relaxed while doing them, but everyone in a particular system (be it a government or a supply chain) needs to agree which paradigm they’re using in order to effectively participate in that system. A country with rigid time schedules may accomplish more industrially, but may also be more stressed and with less stable families and communities. It’s a legitimate tradeoff with no objectively right answer.
A sign of a healthier or more capable culture would be things like “planning for the future” and “cause and effect relationships”. A culture may or may not choose to invest in the present to achieve a goal in the future, but they should be capable of making that choice deliberately. Calling such things “white” is like calling mathematics and physics “white”. Sure, white people may have put each other in position to do the most work in those fields over the centuries, but for another culture to turn away from useful knowledge on that basis is to commit a great injustice against itself. At the very least they should ask a few of their own bright minds to figure out how to repackage the concepts and present them for use in a different cultural context.
I have noticed the “win at all costs” and “wealth = worth” paradigms in many types of white culture or culture based on values originating from white ethnic groups. Those are quite harmful and are signs of an unhealthy culture. Granted, I think most cultures are unhealthy in some form or other, which is the basis for my political compass theory, but my point stands.
When people say cultures can learn from each other, they’re right, but they usually have no idea how to describe what they’re supposed to learn. That’s why I developed a vocabulary of concepts for people to talk about culture in terms of what people want, what problems stand in their way, and the skills and approaches they use to deal with those problems.
Nobody’s going to learn anything, though, if we’re not allowed to thoughtfully critique every culture in good faith (and have our critiques critiqued in turn).
Extradimensional Cephalopod said:
The King’s English is a cultural style.
Heh. Americans haven’t spoken what any self-respecting Brit would consider “The King’s English” in 200 years. But your point is still valid, it’s just a cultural style. It has been Americanized into it’s own style over the years, much like many of the other things in the chart, and is now so different from its original form as to be unique.
I have noticed the “win at all costs” and “wealth = worth” paradigms in many types of white culture or culture based on values originating from white ethnic groups. Those are quite harmful and are signs of an unhealthy culture.
I can’t really agree with all this. “Win at all cost” is an extreme of the ethically valid idea that “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” “Wealth=worth” is definitely destructive and is a holdover perversion from the English feudal system where only the wealthy and powerful were allowed to have power, and “lower” castes could not legitimately attain it. It’s a favorite of those with low self-esteem who must constantly engage in proving their own self-worth not to others, but to themselves, and “old money” or the power-hungry who’s wealth or greed has disabled their ethics alarms. It is an unfortunate feature of far too many of our ruling elite, as well as the Leftist intelligentsia and “country club” Republicans.
Generally, extremes are undesirable, and measurement of worth by achievements or bank balance the sign of a diseased, indoctrinated, or incomplete intellect. Both are generally rejected by the majority of Americans as anything but desirable. Occasionally, “Win at all cost” flares up in passions of the moment (sports teams, military conflicts), but has mostly been relegated to the scrap heap.
But overall, I loved this comment. Very insightful.
Glen,
I agree. “Win at all cost” and “wealth=worth” have, at most, been guiding values for only a sliver or small subset of overall “white culture” in America. As a matter of fact, being true to my Southern roots, I would have to say that these are values consistently rejected by the Southern agrarian tradition by which many of us try to live..
In my youth, I naively believed that traditional Western-style liberalism was destined to spread the world over and that good will and common ground would overcome division. Now it seems we are witnessing the reestablishment of tribalism and a concurrent violent backlash against Western civilization and it’s values as enumerated in this chart. If we don’t stop this destruction of our history, heritage and institutions soon, I fear we will pass a tipping point beyond which violence will reign.
“Why in America they haven’t used it for years!”
I think we interpreted “win at all costs” differently. I read it as “destroy all rivals,” but it sounds like you might be reading it as “persevere towards success,” which seems like a healthy idea to me. Does that sound right? I definitely agree that anything worth doing is worth doing well, but I think the current economy (not just the economic system, but consumer culture and regulation as well) incentivizes cutting corners.
Well, I do get your definition and I absolutely know people who subscribe to that. I agree with you that is unhealthy, unethical and an undesirable philosophy for a free society.
Like most things, there is a lot of grey area to cover in “Win at all costs,” and we have all seen varying degrees of this philosophy, from philosophical disciples of Atilla the Hun, to Bernie Madoff, to Donald Trump, to Michael Jordan. Obviously, the further one gets from compassion, the closer one gets to unethical, narcissistic and amoral.
I suppose I see it as a continuum rather than a simple category.
This is a super minor nitpick, but how did folk working for the Smithsonian ever get the idea that anybody in this country spoke “the King’s English”? If anything, one of the most defining features of this country since the beginning has been its refusal to bow to grammarians; while many dialects may have been stigmatized, even those marginalized ways of speaking have inevitably snuck in many of their features into mainstream American English.
More seriously, it looks like the chart was just mindlessly reproduced from some document produced by a consulting group in 1990; it’s not even well integrated into the rest of the article.
The article is just a copy-paste of various laughably bad far-left chain emails. It was thrown together in very lazy fashion, which by its own logic was a very Afrocentric thing to do. Whoever wrote it is not guilty of the internalized Whiteness of competence.
What follows is my best effort to honestly determine what the author of that chart considers to be the opposite of “internalized White culture.” If you find the following offensive, it is NOT MY FAULT because this is exactly what the Smithsonian believes to be “Black culture,” given the museum’s name and stated purpose. And so, recreating the chart with exact opposite values (including fairly and honestly reversing the charts subtle digs) this is what the Smithsonian considers the essence of being a true Black American:
BLACK CULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES
Herd Mentality
-The collective is the primary unit
-Helplessness
-Independence and autonomy are not valued or rewarded
-Individuals have no control over their lives; “You are a victim of society.”
Family Structure
-No ideals or aspirations in regards to family or children
-Men not required or wanted either as husbands or fathers
-Moms work full time; kids raised collectively by schools, in daycare, and in after-school programs
-Children should not have their own rooms, and should not be independent
Emphasis on Emotionalism and Unscientific Thinking
-Subjective, irrational, chaotic thinking
-Lack of logic, unrelated ideas strung together
-Unstructured, qualitative emphasis
History
-Focused on non-Europeans’ perspectives and experiences in the United States
-Alternate/Counter-historical view (Roman Empire not historically important)
-Downplay or diminish the historical impact of Western and/or Judeo-Christian traditions
Ambivalence Towards Work Ethic
-Hard work is only marginally related to success
-Play before work
-“If you don’t meet your goals, hard work won’t make a difference.”
Religion
-Christianity is abnormal
-Anything other than Judea-Christianity is preferred
-Number of gods believed in should be flexible and nonspecific
Status, Power, and Authority
-Wealth not equal to work
-Your job is not who you are
-Don’t respect authority
-Stealing is tolerated because little value placed on ownership of property or space
Present Orientation
-Don’t plan for the future
-Instant gratification
-Progress not important
-“Tomorrow doesn’t matter.”
Time
-Does not keep appointments
-Does not value time
Aesthetics
-Based on African culture
-Chicken and rice; “spicy is best.”
-Woman’s beauty based on hourglass figure; “I like big butts and I cannot lie.”
-Men are most attractive if poor, non-influential, and unintelligent
Holidays
-Based on non-Christian religions
-Based on Black history and female leaders
Justice
-Strives for systems in which laws and their applications are not consistent, and can vary from case to case, based on such factors as the judge’s feelings or the opinions of the general public about the case
-No protections for property or contractual agreements
-Intent does not matter
Competition
-Don’t be #1
-Do not try too hard to win
-No winners or losers
-Complacency orientation
-Servile and permissive nature
-Not inclined to “do something” about a situation
-Passiveness and Introversion
-Indecisive
-Majority rules is bad unless Blacks have the majority
Communication
-Ebonics/jive talk
-Oral tradition/illiteracy
-Default to conflict/intimacy
-Displays of emotion
-Discuss personal life
-Rudeness
Yes, I felt dirty writing that, but all I did was LITERALLY just plug in the exact opposite of what the author describes as “cultural Whiteness” values which he/she/xe believes poor Blacks have “internalized” and must be purged of. What you see above is what they want for Black Americans.
As you can see, when you reverse the Whiteness to get “non-Whiteness” you only come away with a couple of admirable qualities (like “your job is not who you are.”) The rest is either objectively harmful (“does not value time”) or just nonsensical (apparently minority women prefer men who are poor and stupid? Kinda doubt that.)
You could be generous and say that “Black culture” is supposed to be more neutral and fair while it’s only White culture that is extremist. In which case, while White culture says, “Work before play,” Black culture would say, “Work and play are equally important.” and not “play before work.” But this would just mean that (gasp) the clown who wrote this was just being uncharitable, and you’d just have to throw the whole thing out. If the chart is doing what it purports to do (accurately state what White cultural values are,) then it can’t just boil down to, “White people are too extreme about their White values.” In that case, there would be no Black values, and Black people would just be White people with less intensity.
And now I have given about 200% more thought to this than whoever wrote it, and I feel dumber. What a bunch of trash.
Isaac said:
-The collective is the primary unit
Did anybody but me read this and think of the Borg from Star Trek after reading this?
The cube has arrived at Sector 001, and it has “Black Lives Matter” painted on all six sides.
1. The poster’s alternate title is How To Walk On The Moon By 1969.
2. History focused on the British Empire? You mean people who actually did some things and not about ones that invented nothing and went nowhere?
3. The “bland” food? When you understand refrigeration you don’t need to cover up spoiling meat with spices.
I will post an excerpt from the web site.
These are all trivialities!
On a related note…
http://legalinsurrection.com/2020/07/u-pittsburgh-black-senate-demands-segregated-space-solely-for-black-students-to-congregate/
I keep saying this: Why not go to a historically black college? Why not break away from Pitt and start a discreet campus somewhere where you’ll be happy? There comes a time in certain relationships where the only thing to do is end the relationship. “I love you. You’re perfect. Now change!” gets very tiresome.
Heh. Awesome,
Have you read the comments.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/african-american-museum-site-removes-whiteness-chart-after-criticism-from-trump-jr-and-conservative-media/2020/07/17/4ef6e6f2-c831-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html#comments-wrapper
One of the commenters merely claimed it was how whites described themnselves in 1978, which is belied by the chart itself.