This ?anti-racism education? sure looks awfully ... racist

We often hear that what this country needs is an honest 
conversation about race. Here’s a whole lot of “honesty” for 
you, from an unexpected place:

Black people are less likely than white people to be self-
reliant. Black people are less likely to emphasize “rational 
linear” and “quantitative” thinking. They are less likely to 
think that “hard work is the key to success.” They believe in 
punctuality less, and instant gratification more, than whites 
do. Black people aren’t as likely to believe in a Christian God 
and more inclined to be tolerant of pagan or polytheistic 
religions.

Given that we are living in the age of cancel culture, I’d 
better explain what I’m doing lest anyone think I believe this 
nonsense.

All of this stuff — the bigotry, the stereotypes and the 
outright falsehoods — isn’t my view. Nor did I get it from some 
white supremacist Web site. Nope, it comes from a graphic 
sourced and linked to by the ­National Museum of African-
American History and Culture.

The museum’s site has a whole “Talking About Race” section. An 
article on “whiteness” cites a graphic titled “Aspects and 
Assumptions of Whiteness and White Culture in the United 
States.” Much of the stuff from the graphic can be read as an 
insult to black people if one simply assumes that black people 
believe in these things less than white people.

For instance, with the graphic indicating that whiteness and 
white culture are defined by “respect for authority,” an 
appreciation for “delayed gratification,” the tendency to 
“follow rigid time schedules” and the belief that “hard work is 
the key to success,” the implication is that black people are 
less defined by these values.

I’m pretty sure I’d be called a racist if I were to take my cues 
from this list and say, “Unlike white people, black people don’t 
believe that hard work is key to success.”

Some of the other race-based ­assertions from 30-year-old 
research by Judith Katz, a white diversity consultant, aren’t 
merely bigoted by implication, they’re just wrong. Sure, 
“Christianity is the norm” for white Americans, though less so 
every year. But do you know for whom the faith is even more of a 
norm? Black Americans. And Hispanics.

According to the Pew Research Center, blacks and Hispanics are 
more likely than whites to attend church — Christian church — 
regularly. As for the notion that whites are disproportionately 
biased against multi-god faiths, I can’t find any evidence for 
it. Indeed, from what I can tell, most forms of ­paganism and 
polytheism in America tend to be almost exclusively white 
phenomena, though data here is pretty hard to come by.

There is a lot in this that makes me angry, but the worst thing 
is that this garbage is almost designed to make race relations 
worse. For instance, Katz’s cheat sheet informs us that a 
defining norm of white communication is the notion that one 
should “be polite.”

First, I only wish that were more true of white culture. But 
more ­important, what in the world is this woman talking about?

Are good manners not a valuable norm for everybody? After all, 
manners are simply modes of conduct to show others respect. Good 
manners and mutual respect reduce the chances for conflict, 
including violent conflict, in every society — which is why 
every society has norms of politeness. Is that really just a 
white norm that we need less of today? Should white people, in 
order to shed their privilege, be less polite to anyone? To 
black people? To immigrants?

If I were to say to a black friend, never mind a black stranger 
or co-worker, “Look, I understand your culture doesn’t value 
punctuality or hard work the way mine does,” would that be 
better? It would be impolite, to say the least.

This nonsense works on the assumption that mainstream, bourgeois 
norms — hard work, delayed gratification, punctuality, etc. — 
have no intrinsic or extrinsic value separate and apart from 
white culture and white privilege. That’s not only insane, it’s 
harmful, because it gives people permission to reject these 
norms as “structures of oppression” or some similar balderdash.

Why on earth would you want to tell black people such a thing? 
Why would you want to tell anybody this stuff, even if it were 
true?

I’m all for changing any norms of politeness that make black 
Americans (or Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, etc.) feel 
­oppressed or excluded. But I can’t fathom how putting these 
ideas into action helps do anything of the sort.

https://nypost.com/2020/07/19/this-anti-racism-education-sure-
looks-awfully-racist/