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There is a lot — a LOT — to criticize about the infographic tweeted by Byron York here (based on a table produced by Judith Katz in 1990) and frankly this entir

There is a lot — a LOT — to criticize about the infographic tweeted by Byron York here (based on a table produced by Judith Katz in 1990) and frankly this entire page [1] of relentlessly abstracted and ahistorical discussion of 'Whiteness' and cultural identity is a dumpster fire even from the perspective it is attempting to communicate, and I am shocked to see scholarship of this quality featured at the Smithsonian. However, absolutely nothing about it suggests that "internalizing aspects of white culture" makes you a racist. It's fine if you don't respect or understand the idea that the web page is trying to communicate here because frankly they did a shamefully bad job. They are preaching to the choir. But absolutely nothing about it suggests the thing that angers you. You are bringing that idea to the infographic with you. [1] https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/whiteness https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/whiten...

hintymad 6y ago
Actually, you may well be right. The infographics didn’t explicitly judge “whiteness”. I may indeed have brought the idea with me given how whiteness is used and connotated nowadays. I hope I’m totally wrong about my interpretation about the infographics and I hope my frustration is unsubstantiated.
- escape_goat 6y ago
  It's frustrating because the style of the entire page is completely consonant with the thing that it is trying to describe.
- x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
  By calling it whiteness, it implicitly discourages "brown" people from adopting the enumerated values.
  - scruple 6y ago
    I am unsure how else to parse it, too. Is this infographic telling black children that "doing science" is "acting white?" This entire infographic reads like white supremacist rhetoric. What the hell...
    - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
      White nationalist Jared Taylor has repeatedly stressed that the woke left is doing his work for him.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - zuminator 6y ago
    Why? I don't think that it's really even speaking to the individual values. My interpretation is that it's making the (unsupported) assertion that the entirety of those values represent the pinnacle of what appears to be normal or culturally appropriate, from the perspective of typical white Americans. So for example, if you say to a white American, "tomorrow will be better," that's an uncontroversial position to take. Or, "my kids each have their own bedroom," seems like a fairly normal and uncontroversial expectation. Whereas if your behavior goes broadly against these norms, say, "My kids all sleep in the bed with me," or "I just go with the flow, professional advancement doesn't interest me," then you will seem out of step with what (white) society deems as most appropriate. It's not saying that all of these values are exclusively the purview of white Americans, nor is it saying there's anything wrong with these values. To the extent that anything is implicitly discouraged, I would venture that it discourages taking for granted that cultures that diverge from this specific value set are inherently defective. Also, this comes from 1990. A lot has changed since then. Maybe it's not quite as controversial to be non-Judeo-Christian, for example.
- Digory 6y ago
  The logic of the page containing the graphic is this: 1. "Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard..." 2. "Whiteness (and its accepted normality)... communicate hostile, derogatory, or harmful messages." [ed. because whiteness causes microagressions.] 3. "Racism is perpetuated by deeming whiteness as superior and other racial and ethnic groups as inferior." 4. "White supremacy is an ideology where white people are believed to be superior to nonwhite people." 5. "[I]nternalized racism, [] happens when an oppressed group believes the racial views that society communicates are true, and they act as if they were true." So, if the graphic isn't clearly critical, the page is. If you hold the "white" ideas in the graphic as "superior," that is to hold "whiteness" superior. Holding whiteness superior is the definition of "white supremacy." If you hold these "whiteness" views as a minority, it is because you have internalized racism -- the "whiteness" has colonized your mind. Families. Science. Christianity. Hard Work. Democracy. If you think any of these are superior, it's "white supremacy." If it's not properly nuanced, this is how it's being churned out for the masses.
everdrive 6y ago
I think this is a big problem, though. If someone could really convince me that everything on the info-graphic was "Whiteness," I don't see how I could possibly draw a non-racist conclusion. Clearly this is false, and people who are not white can enjoy hard work and the scientific method. But once again, suppose I believed the info-graphic? This is just insanity.
- rovolo 6y ago
  I think you're assuming the infographic is saying "non-white people can't share these values". I see it as saying "non-white people are punished if they don't share these values" or "non-white people are punished by saying they don't share these values". The easiest bullet point to see this distinction for is "Christianity is the norm". It's not saying that being Christian makes you white, but that white people in the US made Christianity the norm. For example, people tried to cast Obama as un-American by claiming he was Muslim. A longer bullet point to explain is the Scientific Method, but I'll take a shot at that one too. Science is a way to seek truth and reduce bias. However, the people who practice science are not fully objective actors free from bias. For example, evolution is absolutely true, but social darwinism is how many people understood evolution. A scientific truth was used to support a political position. People who would complain about inequalities could be said to be anti-scientific because they were arguing against the natural social order. Science itself isn't the issue, it's people using science to reject individual stories or support their priors.
  - bad_user 6y ago
    The scientific method means coming up with hypotheses that get validated via experiments, whose conclusions are reported and undergo peer review. And we generally have a pretty good idea about how strong the evidence is, or about how well a theory predicts the universe. The "natural social order" for humans isn't scientific because there is none that we can identify, unlike in animals with much simpler social structures. Social Darwinism isn't based on evidence, being promoted by quacks that are anti-science. You're trying to draw a distinction where there is none. Science is the way to seek truth. And yes, we should use scientific evidence to reject anecdotes, if that evidence is strong enough. Not sure what you mean in your last sentence but it sounds wrong to me.
philwelch 6y ago
That’s only really meaningful if you can somehow separate that from all the rhetoric about “dismantling whiteness”. A lot of this rhetoric is fine in isolation but works a lot differently once you start assembling different pieces of it.
steve_g 6y ago
I don't agree with you on this. Let me ask you, are there connotations in the word choices that make you think of "whiteness" in a certain way? Do you think the infographic treats whiteness as: - something to celebrate? - a set of beliefs and attitudes with no associated value judgment? Neutral? - something to work on in yourself? Something to be a little ashamed about? I think the infographic connotes a negative view of whiteness, and that translates to racist, IMO. -

hintymad 6y ago

Actually, you may well be right. The infographics didn’t explicitly judge “whiteness”. I may indeed have brought the idea with me given how whiteness is used and connotated nowadays. I hope I’m totally wrong about my interpretation about the infographics and I hope my frustration is unsubstantiated.

escape_goat 6y ago
It's frustrating because the style of the entire page is completely consonant with the thing that it is trying to describe.
x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
By calling it whiteness, it implicitly discourages "brown" people from adopting the enumerated values.
- scruple 6y ago
  I am unsure how else to parse it, too. Is this infographic telling black children that "doing science" is "acting white?" This entire infographic reads like white supremacist rhetoric. What the hell...
  - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
    White nationalist Jared Taylor has repeatedly stressed that the woke left is doing his work for him.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- zuminator 6y ago
  Why? I don't think that it's really even speaking to the individual values. My interpretation is that it's making the (unsupported) assertion that the entirety of those values represent the pinnacle of what appears to be normal or culturally appropriate, from the perspective of typical white Americans. So for example, if you say to a white American, "tomorrow will be better," that's an uncontroversial position to take. Or, "my kids each have their own bedroom," seems like a fairly normal and uncontroversial expectation. Whereas if your behavior goes broadly against these norms, say, "My kids all sleep in the bed with me," or "I just go with the flow, professional advancement doesn't interest me," then you will seem out of step with what (white) society deems as most appropriate. It's not saying that all of these values are exclusively the purview of white Americans, nor is it saying there's anything wrong with these values. To the extent that anything is implicitly discouraged, I would venture that it discourages taking for granted that cultures that diverge from this specific value set are inherently defective. Also, this comes from 1990. A lot has changed since then. Maybe it's not quite as controversial to be non-Judeo-Christian, for example.
Digory 6y ago
The logic of the page containing the graphic is this: 1. "Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard..." 2. "Whiteness (and its accepted normality)... communicate hostile, derogatory, or harmful messages." [ed. because whiteness causes microagressions.] 3. "Racism is perpetuated by deeming whiteness as superior and other racial and ethnic groups as inferior." 4. "White supremacy is an ideology where white people are believed to be superior to nonwhite people." 5. "[I]nternalized racism, [] happens when an oppressed group believes the racial views that society communicates are true, and they act as if they were true." So, if the graphic isn't clearly critical, the page is. If you hold the "white" ideas in the graphic as "superior," that is to hold "whiteness" superior. Holding whiteness superior is the definition of "white supremacy." If you hold these "whiteness" views as a minority, it is because you have internalized racism -- the "whiteness" has colonized your mind. Families. Science. Christianity. Hard Work. Democracy. If you think any of these are superior, it's "white supremacy." If it's not properly nuanced, this is how it's being churned out for the masses.

everdrive 6y ago

I think this is a big problem, though. If someone could really convince me that everything on the info-graphic was "Whiteness," I don't see how I could possibly draw a non-racist conclusion. Clearly this is false, and people who are not white can enjoy hard work and the scientific method. But once again, suppose I believed the info-graphic? This is just insanity.

rovolo 6y ago
I think you're assuming the infographic is saying "non-white people can't share these values". I see it as saying "non-white people are punished if they don't share these values" or "non-white people are punished by saying they don't share these values". The easiest bullet point to see this distinction for is "Christianity is the norm". It's not saying that being Christian makes you white, but that white people in the US made Christianity the norm. For example, people tried to cast Obama as un-American by claiming he was Muslim. A longer bullet point to explain is the Scientific Method, but I'll take a shot at that one too. Science is a way to seek truth and reduce bias. However, the people who practice science are not fully objective actors free from bias. For example, evolution is absolutely true, but social darwinism is how many people understood evolution. A scientific truth was used to support a political position. People who would complain about inequalities could be said to be anti-scientific because they were arguing against the natural social order. Science itself isn't the issue, it's people using science to reject individual stories or support their priors.
- bad_user 6y ago
  The scientific method means coming up with hypotheses that get validated via experiments, whose conclusions are reported and undergo peer review. And we generally have a pretty good idea about how strong the evidence is, or about how well a theory predicts the universe. The "natural social order" for humans isn't scientific because there is none that we can identify, unlike in animals with much simpler social structures. Social Darwinism isn't based on evidence, being promoted by quacks that are anti-science. You're trying to draw a distinction where there is none. Science is the way to seek truth. And yes, we should use scientific evidence to reject anecdotes, if that evidence is strong enough. Not sure what you mean in your last sentence but it sounds wrong to me.

philwelch 6y ago

That’s only really meaningful if you can somehow separate that from all the rhetoric about “dismantling whiteness”. A lot of this rhetoric is fine in isolation but works a lot differently once you start assembling different pieces of it.

steve_g 6y ago

I don't agree with you on this. Let me ask you, are there connotations in the word choices that make you think of "whiteness" in a certain way? Do you think the infographic treats whiteness as: - something to celebrate? - a set of beliefs and attitudes with no associated value judgment? Neutral? - something to work on in yourself? Something to be a little ashamed about? I think the infographic connotes a negative view of whiteness, and that translates to racist, IMO. -