Is There A White Culture, And Is It Racist?
Most people assume that a person’s supposed race makes them biologically different from one another, including having great mental, psychological, and character differences.
Many of us take our own supposed race as superior in all these traits compared to persons of any other race.
Without going into details about how the idea of race has nothing to do with biological reality and was made up in the late 1600s, let us look at the difference in skin color between blacks and whites.
This examination of skin color will serve as an example of how little biological difference there is between whites and blacks.
(This video is on the next slide.)
If the genetic difference is not meaningful in distinguishing blacks from whites, then does the origin of white racism lie in white culture? Yes, but not as some critics of white culture suggest, nor is so-called white culture unitary on the issue of race.
Blacks and whites pushed the cultural change of abolition until slavery was eliminated in England and the United States, respectively.
The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s changed the racist attitudes of many white people. Subsequently, principally black civil rights advocates made large gains through the first two decades of the 21st century.
Then came the backlash in full force.
Tema Okun’s White Supremacy Culture
The far left also has widely promoted the idea that white culture is inherently racist.
There is variation among such activists as to the dimensions of so-called white culture. See a copy of the document used by the government of Seattle Oregon on the next two slides.
White Culture defines what is considered normal―it creates the standard for judging values.
For example, think about by whom and how these terms are defined: good parenting, stable family, well-raised child, individual self-sufficiency and effective leadership.
In your organization, what are the characteristics of a good employee? How were you informed? If unwritten rules, how did you learn about them?
White culture privileges a focus on individuals (not groups).
Independence and autonomy are valued and rewarded. An individual is in control of their environment: “You get what you deserve.”
In your organization, what is rewarded? Examples: Is there encouragement to compete? Collaborative decision-making? Decisions based on common good?
White culture assigns a higher value to some ways of behaving than others. It often defines the
“other” behaviors as dangerous and/or deviant.
For example: Right to comfort. Avoid conflict and emotion. Be polite. Comfort level is defined by whites, and those that cause discomfort or are involved in conflict can be marginalized. Individual acts of unfairness become equal to the pain and discomfort of systemic racism thats daily targets people of color (based on Tema Okun’s White Supremacy Culture).
In your organization, what behaviors are considered uncomfortable? E.g. conflict, loud voice, crying? How does the organization’s culture respond when these behaviors happen?
Decision-making often reflects white cultural assumptions about the primacy of
individuals, standards of behavior and the use of power “over” others.
For example: Deciding and enforcing, either/or thinking, those less affected define the problem and solution.
Reflect on the different groups you belong to. Who is included in the decision-making process? What is the rationale? Is the process different on paper vs. in reality?
_____________________________________________
White culture values certain ways of knowing and not others.
For example: If you can’t measure it, it is not of value. Focus on cause and effect relationships and rational linear thinking.
_______________________________________
In your organization, who or what informs you that a program/service is working? How is success defined? Who decides what is sufficient time?
________________________________________________________________________
4 White Culture description comes from many sources, including: Tema Okun, White Supremacy Culture, 2001; Judith Katz, Some Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States, 1985; Robette Ann Dias, Transforming Institutional Values: Revisited, 2008; Joseph Barndt, Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century Challenge to White America, p. 234, 2007; Barbara Major, Chapter 7–“How does White Privilege Show Up in Foundation and Community Initiatives?”, Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building, 2005.
__________________________________________________________
TWP: A 21st Century Leadership Capacity. © CAPD, MP Associates, World Trust Educational Services
standard for judging values.
This cultural standard is more likely middle class values rather than a supposed white culture.
This is true of most European and North American cultures and likely grew out of industrialized life. The United States is likely the most individualistic society in the world. This view favors the wealthy and is a problem for the rest of the society white or not.
Japan is still a good example of an industrialized society that does not emphazise individualism. Perhaps this has much to do with industrializing much later than the Western societies.
Native Americans who have not had it pounded out of them still place a very strong emphasis on conmunty and therefore sharing. This cultural idea is very difficult to practice when the larger society is strongly pushing individualism and consumption.
White culture assigns a higher value to some ways of behaving than others. It often defines the
“other” behaviors as dangerous and/or deviant.
Again these distinctions and labeling are more likely a clash with middle values with lower class values. Because so many minority persons cannot make their way into the middle class, they may see these value differences in racial terms and thus blame white culture.
For example: If you can’t measure it, it is not of value. Focus on cause-and-effect relationships and rational linear thinking.
It is true that American culture does emphasize science more than some technologically less advanced cultures. This can lead to communication problems but should not negate either rational thought or more holistic thinking. Much of the apparent difference here is with the argument by some of those who reject rationality. They are, in fact, rejecting logical positivism. They equate this view of science with science, whereas, in the study of the history and philosophy of science, logical positivism was rejected by most scientists in the 1960s.
Native Americans, for example, understand a great deal more about specific aspects of their traditional environments than scientists today. However, they did not achieve this by not using rationality but rather by practicing a rational form of pragmatic investigation over hundreds of years, the knowledge of which was passed down from one generation to another. These investigations did not tell them “why” something worked, only that it did. Science, on the other hand, investigates the “why” of things but would be well served by closely working with the bearers of traditional knowledge.
IN CONCLUSION: Trying to reform the non-existent white culture is a foolish waste of time. Cultures change as technology changes and as new ideas are introduced within a society. Cultures are always in flux and reflect the dominant powers within society. In America, we have a corporate-dominated culture that needs to be modified by all the rich cultural variations in this most diverse large society on the planet. Since the 1970s, corporations have consolidated their power, thereby increasing inequality. People end up blaming each other with irrational solutions to their problems. Blaming everything on white culture will not solve any problems. That will just cause more problems and keep us from addressing our actual problems.
Individualism. This favors the wealthy and is unhealthy for the rest of us. Connecting this idea of individualism to racism may make its promoters feel good about themselves while not addressing the more important sources of racism.
You are what you earn. This also favors the wealthy.
Is the dominant American culture equal to the actual white supremacy culture?
No, but the battle continues over how much of the white supremacy culture will remain within the dominant American culture.
Critics of white supremacy culture falsely beieve that eliminating that culture would bring down white supremacy social structures.
For example the theory that fighting or even ending racism being promoted by the Unitarian Universalist Association is that removing racist attitudes is the way to end racism. That would be helpful but far from sufficient.
There would remain social structures (patterned actions) that would continue promoting racism.---
What the extreme left claims to be white culture and what they see as needed changes in that culture is wrong and an impediment to decreasing racism.
Contrasting science with nonlinear thinking, storytelling, and holistic thinking is based upon a view of science as logical positivism. This is a view of how science should be practiced that was no longer in vogue by the end of the 1960s.
Other supposed dimensions of supposed white culture are drawn from poorly managed organizations and are not part of the larger American culture.
There are real parts of American culture that are racist and others that are anti-racist such as statues of Confederate generals and books like To Kill A Mocking Bird. The Backlash supports the former and attacks the latter. In this fight, the extreme left, while feigning to fight racism, tends overall to generate more racism.
Another result of the useless antics of the Extreme Left is its diversion of energy away from countering the power of the billionaires who not only sometimes contribute to racism and continually exert control over the economic conditions of most whites and most nonwhites.
