Smithsonian Debuts Utterly Absurd Whiteness Poster, But It Has Major Problems
Recently, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture debuted a stunningly racist poster that lists supposed signs of “whiteness” or “white dominant culture.”
The values deemed signs of whiteness, taken from “Some Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States,” by Judith H. Katz, include: rugged individualism, politeness, the nuclear family structure, emphasis on scientific method, Christianity, hard work, self-reliance, delayed gratification, and justice that is based on English common law.
The National Museum of African American History & Culture wants to make you aware of certain signs of whiteness: Individualism, hard work, objectivity, the nuclear family, progress, respect for authority, delayed gratification, more. (via @RpwWilliams)https://t.co/k9X3u4Suas pic.twitter.com/gWYOeEh4vu
— Byron York (@ByronYork) July 15, 2020
Where to begin with the madness of promoting Katz’s “data”?
The idea that Christianity would be a sign of whiteness would be news to the majority of black Americans, 79 percent of whom identified as Christian in a 2014 Pew Research Center study on religious landscape.
According to that same study of over 35,000 Americans, 77 percent of Latinos and 34 percent of Asian Americans also identified as Christian. Seventy percent of white Americans identified as Christian, less than both Latinos and black Americans.
The idea that hard work, self-reliance, and delayed gratification are “signs of whiteness” would shock the countless black Americans and non-white immigrants who have contributed to this nation’s economic growth over the course of centuries.
In fact, in a recent interview with Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle,” Robert Unanue, owner of Goya, the largest Latino food company in the U.S., cited many of these same values when describing who buys his company’s products.
The idea that the “scientific method” is a “sign of whiteness” would be news to scientists throughout history such as George Washington Carver, a former American slave who remains one of American history’s most renowned scientists. His discoveries using just such a method led to major agricultural advancements used the world over.
Before using Katz’s data, the creator of the poster probably should have looked up ancient India’s (among many other non-European cultures) contributions to science and technology, including the decimal system and Fibonacci numbers.
One of the more amusing signs of whiteness includes “time as a commodity.” As one commenter on Twitter asked, “Fellas, is time racist? Discuss.”
Does the Smithsonian believe all people should not work hard or practice self-reliance? That seems entirely un-American, yet promoting such data seems to indicate that belief.
Perhaps they really just believe that only white people are capable of such hard work and self-reliance, in which case, they would fit in fine at a KKK meeting. As a Washington Examiner headline stated, “The National Museum of African American History and Culture goes full white supremacist.”
The Washington Examiner also noted that the government-run webpage displaying the poster includes a video by “pseudo-scientific Hitlerian racialist Robin DiAngelo,” the author of the book “White Fragility.”
“White Fragility” inadvertently reveals how left-wing whites believe themselves to be superior to other races and how they rarely interact with anyone outside their own bizarre bubble.
Most of the things listed on this poster are fundamentally Biblical values and also fundamentally American values. So, according to these “aspects and assumptions of whiteness,” we can gather that to be non-white you must speak a language other than English, be rude, be emotional, create conflict and refuse to work hard, among other things.
Decisions that lie in personal responsibility know no race. Everyone in America has the possibility and the responsibility to adhere to American values — values the Smithsonian seems to be considering “white.”
Considering such values to be inherently “white” sows greater racial division in the United States. That, more than anything, is truly un-American and a sign of hatred for this nation and the values that built it.
In reality, the poster should say “signs of non-Marxists,” because that is what this whole charade is really about.
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