# 'Whiteness' Chart at the Smithsoniam Museum **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 18, 2020, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636 "2020-07-18T02:51:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/242 "2020-08-14T16:55:35Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Isn’t the most logical process that over time with tried and true methods (that had success) were utilized by the dominant culture so they have been adopted into society. No, that’s a profoundly illogical way of looking at the nature of human societies and how their differing cultural traits evolve. It’s not some kind of objectively assessable process of adaptive natural selection. Sometimes, in specific contexts, people do deliberately modify their cultural customs because they think the modified version will be more successful in the society they’re living in. But much of the time, especially in groups that are socially dominant, people just maintain arbitrarily chosen cultural customs because that’s what they’re used to. The social dominance of such groups does not stem from the fact that, e.g., they go to a place of worship on Sunday rather than on Saturday (or even that they repeat their worship ceremonies every seven days instead of, say, every five days or every eight days), or that they are more or less obsessive about to-the-minute punctuality, or that they consume alcohol or abstain from alcohol, or whatever. They may like to rationalize their advantageous position in society by making such claims about the objective superiority of their own customs, but that doesn’t make the claims true. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/243 "2020-08-14T16:57:53Z")
I just can’t see how my position is illogical. If someone does something and has success, it gets repeated. Not the other way around, I do something because I want to and I make it successful. Which one of those has the greater chance of success? If customs were so dominant, you wouldn’t see change, ever. But you do, all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/244 "2020-08-14T17:28:00Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > I just can’t see how my position is illogical. It’s illogical because you’re mistaking correlation for causation. > [@Kearsen1](#): > > If someone does something and has success, it gets repeated. Not the other way around, As I said, correlation is not causation. If someone does something and has success, their success was not necessarily caused by their doing that particular thing. Especially if they are a member of a socially dominant group that has a built-in higher likelihood of success in general, due to the advantages conferred by their dominance. > [@Kearsen1](#): > > If customs were so dominant, you wouldn’t see change, ever. People change their customs over time for all sorts of reasons. You’re just way off base when you assume that those reasons must be about some kind of objectively superior adaptive strategy. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/245 "2020-08-14T21:40:22Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > As I just read on facebook this morning, “I never used to care about race, until you started blaming my ‘race’ for your problems and demanding ‘justice’. Now I have to defend the white race.” “…said a racist.” That’s what whoever posted that is. “Now I **have to** defend the white race”? Please. At least it scanned better in 14 words. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/246 "2020-08-14T22:06:42Z")
I agree. The point is that identity politics are enabling such people. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/247 "2020-08-15T03:17:46Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The point is that identity politics are enabling such people. 🤨 That’s like saying that Holocaust studies “enabled” the rise of neo-Nazism. Nuh-uh. If honest discussions of bigotry and injustice are provoking some erstwhile crypto-bigots to express their bigotry more directly, the culpability for that behavior rests squarely on the bigots themselves, not on the people having the honest discussions. It seems kind of craven to say that we shouldn’t call out injustice and oppression because some bad actors could react to that by becoming more openly unjust and oppressive. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/248 "2020-08-15T08:21:18Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I agree. The point is that identity politics are enabling such people. So - anti-racists are … _asking for it_ … ? No, fuck that noise. The “lite” white supremacists are _entirely_ to blame for their own racism. None of this victim-blaming bullshit. And critical race theorists deserve _kudos_ for baiting the fuckers out into the sunlight, not blame. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/249 "2020-08-17T12:51:19Z")
Kimtsu, this would only be true if it didn’t happen for a large majority of the time. In this case, correlation might as well be causation when you can’t tell them apart. My entire point is as simple as , in our world, there are things that make you successful (or more successful than others who don’t do the things that have a place on this whiteness chart) Calling people back, being prompt to meetings etc This stuff might not be causation of the actual success, but there is no one single thing that is, these things just help. I don’t think that I am off base in why customs change. Customs adapt to the ever changing world, but for you to assume that people don’t change them in order to be successful is baffling to me. The human race’s evolutionary chain will tell you exactly that, they adapt to be successful (and that definition changes) As noted by others in this thread, success at WHAT? If you want to be successful in business, it requires certain traits. Successful at home might require slightly different ones. But for anyone to say that the things you do don’t affect anything because some dominant culture doesn’t let it is off in woo land. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/250 "2020-08-18T21:28:01Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > The poster straight up says that if non-white Americans believe in things like “Hard work is the key to success” or “Plan for future…Delayed gratification” or “Objective, rational linear thinking…Cause and effect relationships” then that just means that those non-white Americans have “internalized some aspects of white culture”. No. It says that everyone in America has internalized some, but not all, aspects of the dominant (and white) American culture. It does not say that the only way an individual might come by the things on this list is via white culture. I don’t believe everything on this poster is 100% precise (at least not in the digestible bullet points in which they’re presented), and I also think that viewing everything through the focused filter of “white/non-white” leaves a lot of people with major blind spots in their ability or willingness to understand and talk through issues. However, those blind spots pale (pun intended) in comparison to the inability of otherwise seemingly reasonable people to critically understand words and arguments presented to them the minute those arguments ask people to take a systems-level view of race/racial constructs and society. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/251 "2020-08-18T22:12:55Z")
I _ **understand** _ the words and arguments that are being presented. I just don’t _ **agree** _ with them. I am also unwilling to simply accept the claims of some people that _ **of course** _ that poster can’t possibly mean what it says; it must mean something else that’s not so radically and fundamentally wrong-headed. (It reminds me a bit of debating religious believers about Holy Scripture–“Oh, those two verses _can’t_ be contradictory, because then the Word of God would be in error! Verse #2 must mean something other than what it plainly says!”) “Cause and effect relationships” and “objective, rational thinking” are not just “cultural constructs” of “whiteness”, or Europeans, or Christians, or whatever. Neither are “delayed gratification” or “planning for the future”. I will confess, trying to truly understand Postmodernism is a damned tough row to hoe, but I’m convinced that I understand it well enough to reject it (the same as I reject Salafism, Stalinism, or Scientology, even though I haven’t spent my whole life carefully studying those ideologies). Of course there are systemic and structural issues of racism in the United States that need to be addressed. But this ham-handed nonsense from the Smithsonian–which, I am convinced, is in the service to a Postmodernist ideology which I reject as dangerously irrational and illiberal–is not the way to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/252 "2020-08-18T23:36:32Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > I _ **understand** _ the words and arguments that are being presented. I just don’t _ **agree** _ with them. > > I am also unwilling to simply accept the claims of some people that _ **of course** _ that poster can’t possibly mean what it says I don’t think you do understand. The introductory paragraph does not say that if non-white Americans exhibit a trait listed on that poster that they necessarily received it from white culture. You are the one who is claiming the poster says something that it does not. The poster lists things that it claims are part of (but does not claim they are exclusive to) white culture. And it states that some aspects of white culture are internalized by those of us who live in America, even those who are not white. You’ve made up out of whole cloth a “radical and fundamentally wrong-headed” meaning that is not reflected in the words on the page. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/253 "2020-08-19T13:05:32Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > The poster lists things that it claims are part of (but does not claim they are exclusive to) white culture. So you claim that the chart says that, say, rationalism is part of White culture and also part of other cultures. Is it part of _all_ cultures? If not, which cultures believe in rationalism, and which cultures don’t? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/254 "2020-08-19T13:09:39Z")
Why don’t you do that research for yourself? That question isn’t necessary for understanding the concepts behind the chart. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/255 "2020-08-19T13:14:56Z")
These are some of the things that the chart is asking us to consider: 1. These are some values that the white majority culture of the United States (implicitly) believes it upholds. 2. Members of the white majority culture usually implicitly assume that all these things are unquestionably good. 3. Members of the white majority culture often view other cultures through the lens of these values. 4. Members of the white majority culture often give themselves and fellow white people credit for holding these values and upholding these values, without regard to evidence of either group or individual behavior. 5. Members of the white majority culture often implictly assume that people who aren’t members of the culture either don’t value these things or cannot be relied upon to live up to them in the same way that white people are. 6. Minorities who grew up under the influence of white American culture often harbor the same implicit assumptions. None of that requires us to answer the question you ask. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/256 "2020-08-19T13:24:27Z")
If I say “roundness is a quality of oranges” it doesn’t mean that I think other things cannot also be round. Why do you think otherwise? Again, my argument is not that I agree 100% with everything on this list. It’s simply that in no way does this poster say or imply that white culture (or ‘Dominant American culture’ if that makes one more comfortable) is the only culture that manifests these traits. And that those who claim that it does are failing language comprehension 101. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/257 "2020-08-19T13:40:24Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > If I say “roundness is a quality of oranges” it doesn’t mean that I think other things cannot also be round. Why do you think otherwise? No, but you _are_ saying that bananas aren’t round. So if White culture is apples, which culture is bananas? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/258 "2020-08-19T13:47:32Z")
Again, a question that chart doesn’t require answering. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/259 "2020-08-19T13:48:47Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > > [@Eonwe](#): > > > > If I say “roundness is a quality of oranges” it doesn’t mean that I think other things cannot also be round. Why do you think otherwise? > > No, but you _are_ saying that bananas aren’t round. So if White culture is apples, which culture is bananas? Nope. Saying “roundness is a quality of oranges” (or, to more precisely quote the poster, roundness is an “aspect of” oranges), does not mean that bananas aren’t round. I don’t even understand how you can disagree with the statement that it means “other things cannot also be round” and then counter with the statement that it does mean that “bananas aren’t round”. Roundness is an aspect of oranges means that bananas are not round? Greenness is an aspect of grass means that limes are not green? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/260 "2020-08-19T13:50:07Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > > [@Eonwe](#): > > > > If I say “roundness is a quality of oranges” it doesn’t mean that I think other things cannot also be round. Why do you think otherwise? > > No, but you _are_ saying that bananas aren’t round. So if White culture is apples, which culture is bananas? The relevance is this: a member of the white majority culture will often look at a white banana and implicitly assume it’s round, because whites are round oranges. And will look at a black orange and assume it’s banana-shaped because blacks aren’t round oranges like whites are. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/261 "2020-08-19T13:51:47Z")
In your opinion, what was the purpose of the chart? In some of the arguments I see here, I am hearing that because some folks don’t follow the typical white (dominant culture) ideals on this list, they aren’t successful AND If it wasn’t for that dominant culture deciding what makes things successful, then those other people would be more successful. Am I wrong in my interpretation? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636.md?page=14)