# '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:** 8
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/142 "2020-07-24T14:51:36Z")
Flex Scheduling doesn’t really have anything to do with punctuality. It’s just a “non-standard” shift. If you accept a meeting invite in the US and either don’t show up or show up significantly late, enough times, not only will you not be successful, your ass will be fired. ---
**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:** [July 24, 2020, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/143 "2020-07-24T15:01:53Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > I believe it’s just human nature, but why do people have to be categorized, labeled, and put into perceived like boxes? > > It is one of the biggest flaws as human beings we have. > > Race, gender, sexual orientation, income, age, religion, political beliefs, residence, ethnicity, sports team fan affiliation, on and on. > > We have trouble accepting the uniqueness of individuals and have overwhelming need to classify and sort people into predefined boxes that fit our perception of the world we live in. Everyone does it to all of those around us. You’re right, it’s just human nature. Studies have shown that we as humans have an instinct to categorize and stereotype. In past millennia, it served as an evolutionary advantage to generalize and react as a means of self-preservation. Like a lot of things about human nature, however, it no longer serves us in a cosmopolitan, global, inter-dependent, technological society. Our survival now depends upon our ability to co-operate. So we have to spend every minute of our lives fighting our instincts and questioning our motives. That’s why I don’t trust anyone who says “I’m not a racist.” Bullshit. The fact that you can say that means you are not doing the self-examination required to counter your base instincts. That’s why nobody gets the benefit of the doubt when it comes to racism, prejudice, and bias. That’s why “black people can be racist too” is a tautology that makes no significant point. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/144 "2020-07-24T15:37:59Z")
“Somebody is missing something here, but I don’t think it’s me.” Half right is better than not right at all I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/145 "2020-07-24T17:28:42Z")
Even without meetings, flextime and punctuality are not mutually exclusive. I’ve had jobs with a flextime schedule where I could arrive anywhere between 7am and 9am and leave 8 hours later ( between 3pm and 5pm ) but if I arrived at 9:10, I would have been late. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/146 "2020-07-24T17:51:33Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > That’s why I don’t trust anyone who says “I’m not a racist.” Bullshit. The fact that you can say that means you are not doing the self-examination required to counter your base instincts. > > That’s why nobody gets the benefit of the doubt when it comes to racism, prejudice, and bias. That’s another reason why labels are fairly meaningless. While claiming to not be a racist is indeed often an indication of a lack of introspection, it sometimes instead means that the claimant has a very high bar for “racism”. (Some of course like to have it both ways and say their casually prejudiced attitudes aren’t racist but that pointing out that a lot of people are racist is itself racist.) I don’t think a very high or very low bar is useful, because words ought to have meanings. So it shouldn’t be so rare that it only applies to literal robe-wearing white supremacists, nor should the label of being a racist be so low that nearly everyone passes. I do think that I ought to be given the benefit of doubt that I have engaged in sufficient introspection that I ought not to have a meaningful label slapped on me without a good reason. No matter what category other people want to pigeonhole me in, and then ironically say I am just like those other people. It works the other way around as well: if someone were to point out a supposed prejudiced attitude I had, I wouldn’t say “but I’m not a racist!” I’d discuss the actual attitude. Even if I “clear the bar” for whatever definition people are using, it doesn’t free me from ever having to think about my possible prejudices. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2020, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/147 "2020-07-26T02:58:01Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Flex Scheduling doesn’t really have anything to do with punctuality. It’s just a “non-standard” shift. If you accept a meeting invite in the US and either don’t show up or show up significantly late, enough times, not only will you not be successful, your ass will be fired. Depends. I’ve seen “flex scheduling” that means you work eight hours a day and 40 hours over 7 days, with no set times and no requirement that you keep to the same schedule from one day to the next. You do have to show up for meetings when scheduled, but otherwise the boss figures that if you’re getting your job done, exactly when you do it doesn’t matter. For some kinds of jobs, that kind of “schedule” can work. (For other jobs, of course, it’s a nonstarter.) It’s also a nonstarter if the boss is deeply wedded to the idea that each employee must adhere to a pre-set schedule. If punctuality is a value highly prized, then of course there must be a schedule to be on time for, even if there is not a meeting or interaction or a particular reason you’re needed at that time. For example, a friend once had a job doing in-house graphic design at a largish company. The way they were set up, she had basically no real-time interaction with the end user; each task came in on a ticketing system, any clarifying questions had to be done through email, and the product was uploaded to a server. She could go weeks at a time without having a work-related meeting or discussion. However, the department head insisted she needed to be at her desk from 8 to noon and 1 to 5, period. Coming in late was a serious screw-up; you needed to be punctual to log into your computer and work in seclusion. That boss valued punctuality. To keep her job, yes, she needed to be punctual. To do her job well, punctuality mattered not at all; it didn’t help productivity or morale in any way, it didn’t help her make better designs or improve throughput. It was merely conformity to a cultural expectation. A lot of the values and norms people associate with success (@Kearsen1 is a good example) are like this: they are important because they’ve always been important, not because we’ve actually thought about whether they still make sense in the actual situation at hand. ---
**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:** [July 26, 2020, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/148 "2020-07-26T09:53:43Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Oh good grief! If you move into a different society, the onus is on you to conform, or get run out. No one is wielding the conformance standards as a baton to beat you down if you don’t conform, here at least, but you will be disadvantaged in some form or fashion if you cannot or will not conform. Can we just acknowledge the very, very wide gap between “be disadvantaged” and “get run out”? ---
**Author:** ![urbanredneck2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/5f8ce5/32.png) [@urbanredneck2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urbanredneck2)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/149 "2020-07-27T01:00:03Z")
Oh good grief. Yes, at some high level jobs they can be flexible but where I work we need the machines to start running at a certain time and people need to be at their stations right at those times. NOT staggering back from breaks or lunch whenever they feel like it. And schools, people say respect schools and teachers but then kids are constantly tardy do class. Yes, most times you DO have to be on time. Now why is that “racist” or 'white privilege"? ---
**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:** [July 27, 2020, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/150 "2020-07-27T18:07:32Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Because some of those things are so very much NOT the culture me or any of my white friends adhere to (man is the head of the house, majority Christian (let me count my Christian friends - no, haven’t run out of fingers yet), no tolerance for multiple gods (let me count my Pagan friends, I’ll need a minute to remove my shoes), your job is who you are, women’s beauty standards, win/loser dichotomy…all those values are not held by anyone I spend time with regularly. You are either truly ensconced in an insular sub-culture, or you are only seeing what you choose to see. Not every person within a culture reflects all general aspects of that culture, but even in 2020, American culture is still massively and predominantly Christian, job/career-centered, focused on patriarchs and male heads-of-household, and still holds onto many (though not all) of the beauty standards that were true mid-century. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/151 "2020-07-27T19:24:08Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > A lot of the values and norms people associate with success (@Kearsen1 is a good example) are like this: they are important because they’ve always been important, not because we’ve actually thought about whether they still make sense in the actual situation at hand. There are an enormous number of variables with respect to all of this stuff that can be mixed and matched differently to achieve a reasonably “successful” result (where “success” has some specific definition). The definition for “success” can be different depending on how we value/weight various aspects of our lives. But, given that we are naturally in competition for survival (even if we choose to organize into groups in which we cooperate), there can be some minimal position that starts with ability to put food on the table, from which we can analyze the value of some of these attributes. For example, cause and effect: To the extent we recognize cause and effect as it relates to food growing or gathering strategies, I think we can reasonably say it increases an individuals or groups survival chances. This is an example that has significant impact on “success” as defined as “survival”, and there are other things that are far less important for acquiring food but might be considered very important in the next layer of human needs (e.g. relationships etc.) I think this is what Kearsen1 is getting at, that there are some things that are objectively better at achieving a goal then the alternative. ---
**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:** [July 27, 2020, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/152 "2020-07-27T19:26:04Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > given that we are naturally in competition for survival I don’t think that’s a given. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/153 "2020-07-27T19:36:23Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > I don’t think that’s a given. Can you expand on why you think that? My statement isn’t a value judgement, merely a statement about nature. And I guess it is possible to not be in competition if the resources in the area exceeds the demand, but the cause and effect still applies with respect to acquisition of food. Do you agree with the cause and effect point? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/154 "2020-07-27T20:27:49Z")
> [@urbanredneck2](#): > > Yes, at some high level jobs they can be flexible but where I work we need the machines to start running at a certain time and people need to be at their stations right at those times. NOT staggering back from breaks or lunch whenever they feel like it. > > And schools, people say respect schools and teachers but then kids are constantly tardy do class. For things that _need_ to be done on time, punctuality is important. But that’s a contingent, circumstantial requirement. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/155 "2020-07-27T20:45:51Z")
Really? > **[Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-leaving-religion-and-not-coming-back/?ex_cid=story-facebook&fbclid=IwAR0Hn28NzXxqEKvrHSSIi9doYMSGDfJh8_04JWRyaajKlVSbyaWqGqofdXU)** > > Millennials have earned a reputation for reshaping industries and institutions — shaking up the workplace, transforming dating culture, and rethinking parentho… > **[Women Call the Shots at Home; Public Mixed on Gender Roles in Jobs](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2008/09/25/women-call-the-shots-at-home-public-mixed-on-gender-roles-in-jobs/)** > > A new survey finds that in 43% of all couples it’s the woman who makes decisions in more areas than the man. By contrast, men make more of the decisions in only about a quarter of all couples. > **[Millennials: The Job-Hopping Generation](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231587/millennials-job-hopping-generation.aspx)** > > Millennials are the most likely generation to switch jobs. One possible reason: They're the least engaged employees in the U.S. ---
**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:** [July 27, 2020, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/156 "2020-07-27T21:22:31Z")
Yes, really. I don’t argue that things aren’t shifting. But: [65% of Americans currently self-identify as Christian](https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/), and Christianity as a touchstone for cultural unity is still the undeniable elephant in the room (Christmas being the most visible but hardly the only example). [Roughly seven-in-ten adults (71%) say it is very important for a man to be able to support a family financially to be a good husband or partner. By comparison, 32% say it’s very important for a woman to do the same to be a good wife or partner](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/20/americans-see-men-as-the-financial-providers-even-as-womens-contributions-grow/). Different surveys and different questions and different sample population will get you different self-reported perceptions on different corners of this loosy-goosey idea of “head of household”. But as the [wage gap between men and women persists](https://iwpr.org/issue/employment-education-economic-change/pay-equity-discrimination), and as victims of domestic violence [financial dependence on partners is often a primary reason they remain in unhappy relationships](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/money-stress-traps-many-women-into-staying-in-unhappy-marriages.html), I think it’s fair to say that men, in general, hold power in the household and relationships in many meaningful ways. And it’s baked into our culture. And while millennials may job-hop, I don’t know that is an argument against career as being a central value of our culture. People’s jobs are often the first thing we want to know about them; “what we do [for money]” is at the core of American identity. Even if we move from employer to employer. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/157 "2020-07-27T21:40:08Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > People’s jobs are often the first thing we want to know about them; “what we do [for money]” is at the core of American identity. Even if we move from employer to employer. You know I wonder if this is how people start conversations in other countries. I’m used to being introduced and then being asked “So, what do you do” (meaning what’s your job). I do agree with you that this country is still highly Christian and highly assumes male led nuclear families. Some of that is still changing, but you still see it quite frequently (recently having a kid, it’s interesting to see some of it come out among folks you consider it fairly progressive - in different views towards paternity leave vs. maternity leave) ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/158 "2020-07-27T22:14:59Z")
> [@urbanredneck2](#): > > Yes, at some high level jobs they can be flexible but where I work we need the machines to start running at a certain time and people need to be at their stations right at those times. NOT staggering back from breaks or lunch whenever they feel like it. > > And schools, people say respect schools and teachers but then kids are constantly tardy do class. > > Yes, most times you DO have to be on time. > > Now why is that “racist” or 'white privilege"? It’s “white privilege” to assume that because _your_ workplace has certain requirements, then everybody else’s workplace must have the same requirements and adhere to the same values, and that people whose jobs or societies don’t require being on time are somehow inferior and not doing what it takes to be successful. For the graphic designer above, is success more accurately measured by how many times she comes to work at 8 am, or by how good her design work is and how quickly she produces it? Punctuality, as a perceived virtue, mostly dates no further back than the late-17th or early-18th century, originally in the context of paying bills and debts on time, and then later expanded to all business matters, through factories and railroads with set schedules (combined with some Calvinist theology about duty and moral obligation). It’s a product of one particular era, not some universal truth, and the notion that 18th-century British ideas about the importance of punctuality are the only true and valid worldview is incredibly insular. We don’t all work in factories, so why should the factory mindset of “we need the machines to start running at a certain time” dominate all work schedules, even for kinds of work where there aren’t machines to worry about? ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/159 "2020-07-27T22:26:07Z")
Indeed, punctuality was nigh-impossible to achieve throughout most of human history. ---
**Author:** ![urbanredneck2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/5f8ce5/32.png) [@urbanredneck2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urbanredneck2)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2020, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/160 "2020-07-28T00:33:20Z")
Well actually clocks have been around for about 200 years. And I dont think punctuality is racist. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2020, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636/161 "2020-07-28T02:42:13Z")
Clocks have been around for rather longer than 200 years; there were water-clocks and sundials in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China, spring-driven clocks date to the 15th century, and pocket watches to the 17th. However, the notion that human life must be centered around the clock is mostly a product of the Industrial Revolution. Punctuality itself isn’t racist. However, the notion that everybody else’s society and worldview must view punctuality the same way it is viewed in your particular environment, or else all those other people are morally inferior to you, is where the racism starts coming in. A British parliamentary committee in the 1830s (_The Select Committee on Factory Children’s Labour_, which produced the so-called Sadler Report ) took evidence on the role of time-keeping in the British factory system. Witnesses reported that factory owners controlled time; at some mills, a worker daring to bring their own watch was beaten or had the watch seized and destroyed, because it was the prerogative of the factory owner or overseer to know and set the time, and if time happened to run a little faster during meals and breaks than during the working hours, well, that was just part of the system. The working man owed a duty of punctuality to his employer; it was a moral obligation. That worldview, internalized and extended far outside the factory system, is the origin of modern American beliefs about punctuality. However, the entire world didn’t and doesn’t subscribe to Georgian and Victorian notions of the workingman’s obligations to his betters, and we don’t all work in factories or in the sort of jobs where rigid adherence to the clock matters at all. Can we accept that there are different ways of looking at the world, and those different ways are not necessarily inferior to what the Victorians viewed as “proper”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiteness-chart-at-the-smithsoniam-museum/915636.md?page=9)