Smithsonian Group Museum Engages in... White... Supremacy?

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

A lot of what's mentioned in the images is presented as something that just 'came in' while in fact it is foundational to the formation of the US as the country it is, which has over time opened first to alternative European origins and then much further. One might say it is more 'liberal' in that sense than it ever was or ever was founded to be, because a country is after all based on and evolves from the culture of its dominant civilization. Everyone else is coming in and bringing change short of prior natives that were pushed out as one might say 'whiteness' is being pushed out here and there, obviously in far less bloody terms. This is not to speak of the 'rightness' of change and outside influence, rather that on a very superficial level, societies are built by the people that founded them and the foundation of the US was not built on the wants of minorities that take increasing shares today.

A lot of what the thread's challenge presents is a strawman. I say so because people who hold positions generally prefer to speak for themselves, given that they are not homogenous entities. A more level expression of the ideas here could help improve the productivity of the discussion before it begins.

[conon394]

Well first listed more simply the source is here:

http://www.cascadia.edu/discover/abo...d%20States.pdf

And you I see not references for the assertions.... which leads me to be profoundly skeptical. Also side note you do realize 1990 is 30 years ago the USA tends to often very different in 3 decades. But in any case I will say this is a laundry list that you might very well find some significant areas of agreement with to some extent (although only tiny fraction for all) in say recent republican voters and only on the cultural side really. But I suspect you will not find too many white democratic voters who would come close to agreeing with even half at best.

Also somethings in the list are nonsensical written tradition???? Best blame the Sumerians, Egyptian sand Chinese for that.

"Be Polite" what does that even mean? Every society has norms you are supposed to follow. Properly I think what is meant to be stated is adhere to traditional US norms driven by the dominate white culture. But as stated that is lazy and unclear.

"Bland is best" for food based on what? I what a survey on that. Same for the beauty really blonds based on what?

I think what you have found a is a polemical list that is poorly constructed and seems to have no particular data sources for its assertions and should not really worry you to much.

[Cope]

"I found this random infographic I don't like.

I'm going to use it to evidence why I disagree with an entire political perspective without even bothering to show whether it is overly representative of that perspective or not. "

Give us some context to this, otherwise you're just whinging about some random thing you found stuck to your shoe.

(edited)

This is not a "random infographic". It rose to prominence after it was was used by the Smithsonian National Museum as part of their controversial "Talking about Race" portal. Following a backlash, the Smithsonian retracted the chart and issued a "sorry not sorry" statement while continuing to peddle critical race theory conspiracies about "whiteness" and "white privilege". Predictably, the museum refers to the anti-intellectual ramblings of Peggy McIntosh (the identity activist accredited with coining the term "white privilege") who mistook her personal affluence with the "unearned advantages" allegedly possessed by all white Americans.

[antaeus]

This is not a "random infographic". It rose to prominence after it was was used by the Smithsonian National Museum as part of their controversial "Talking about Race" portal. Following a backlash, the Smithsonian retracted the chart and issued a "sorry not sorry" statement while continuing to peddle critical race theory conspiracies about "whiteness" and "white privilege". Predictably, the museum refers to the anti-intellectual ramblings of Peggy McIntosh (the identity activist accredited with coining the term "white privilege") who mistook her personal affluence with the "unearned advantages" allegedly possessed by all white Americans.

So it's a non-representative and discredited document being used as a straw man?

[Cope]

So it's a non-representative and discredited document being used as a straw man?

This incident did not occur in isolation. The chart's foundational ideology is popular within elite liberal circles and among the leftist intelligentsia. The idea of "whiteness" as a dominant and corrupting force is openly supported by a wide variety of institutions and organizations, ranging from universities to Black Lives Matter, to the Democratic Party and national papers like The Guardian and the New York Times. Just this week, Coca Cola is alleged to have compelled employees to undertake training urging them to "be less white", with one of slides equating "whiteness" with oppressiveness, arrogance and ignorance.

[antaeus]

This incident did not occur in isolation. The chart's foundational ideology is popular within elite liberal circles and among the leftist intelligentsia. The idea of "whiteness" as a dominant and corrupting force is openly supported by a wide variety of institutions and organizations, ranging from universities to Black Lives Matter, to the Democratic Party and national papers like The Guardian and the New York Times. Just this week, Coca Cola is alleged to have compelled employees to undertake training urging them to "be less white", with one of slides equating "whiteness" with oppressiveness, arrogance and ignorance.

But then we argue that centuries of oppression of minorities literally because they weren't as white, has led to the requirement for a greater understanding of what 'whiteness' is relative to the experiences whose who have 'non-whiteness'. Then we debate about systemic racism.

For that matter, hasn't someone already posted this infographic before?

I'm too cynical for this thread. So cynical yeah it hurts.

[Cope]

But then we argue that centuries of oppression of minorities literally because they weren't as white, has led to the requirement for a greater understanding of what 'whiteness' is relative to the experiences whose who have 'non-whiteness'. Then we debate about systemic racism.

This is an acknowledgement that the chart is in fact representative of the views held by many within elite liberal circles and the leftist intelligentsia.

For that matter, hasn't someone already posted this infographic before?

Yes.

I'm too cynical for this thread. So cynical yeah it hurts.

Race hustling is just about the most cynical political topic there is.

[Muizer]

I know one argument why racism is so hard to root out is that white people are unaware they too have an ethnic culture. That they assume that their norms are universal. That by implication only other ethnic cultures need to be identified as such and qualified in terms of how they measure up to the 'universal' norm. I suspect this is what is behind the infographic. Whether you feel offended by it, feel the need to ridicule it, or the need to defend it, you're thinking about 'white culture'. And because of this alone, it has served its intended purpose.

[Cope]

I know one argument why racism is so hard to root out is that white people are unaware they too have an ethnic culture. That they assume that their norms are universal. That by implication only other ethnic cultures need to be identified as such and qualified in terms of how they measure up to the 'universal' norm. I suspect this is what is behind the infographic. Whether you feel offended by it, feel the need to ridicule it, or the need to defend it, you're thinking about 'white culture'. And because of this alone, it has served its intended purpose.

The Smithsonian openly stated that the chart was not serving its intended purpose:

Since yesterday, certain content in the “Talking About Race” portal has been the subject of questions that we have taken seriously. We have listened to public sentiment and have removed a chart that does not contribute to the productive discussion we had intended.

The site's intent and purpose are to foster and cultivate conversations that are respectful and constructive and provide increased understanding. As an educational institution, we value meaningful dialogue and believe that we are stronger when we can pause, listen, and reflect—even when it challenges us to reconsider our approach. We hope that this portal will be an ever-evolving place that will continue to grow, develop, and ensure that we listen to one another in a spirit of civility and common cause.

NMAAHC

[Muizer]

The Smithsonian openly stated that the chart was not serving its intended purpose:

Good of you to confirm I was right about the intent.

[Cope]

Good of you to confirm I was right about the intent.

You were wrong, move on.

[Lord Thesaurian]

There are any number of problems with the graphic, independent of implicit value judgments associated with the blatant racism underpinning its assumptions. By racism I mean that there is no such thing as whiteness or white culture, any more than commonalities among East Asian cultures constitute yellowness or yellow culture, etc. The graphic is essentially a brochure for the new orthodoxy, which has resurrected and repurposed old white supremacist ideas about alleged racial virtues.

Now, the same mythology is flipped on its head, and old racism is the new anti racism. Instead of attaching arbitrary characteristics to a perceived superior racial identity, the associations are considered oppressive socioethnic structures that should be eliminated. As we see each time the issue is raised in the public discourse, the contradictions inherent to employing racism in the service of so-called anti racism are held together by a tautology: it triggers people because it’s working because it triggers people. It’s the sort of nonsense one might normally associate with internet trolls spamming veiled racism in defense of “free speech,” only when academics and media personalities use the same tactics, it’s considered scholarship.

Ridiculous as they are, the themes of critical race theory in action are promoted with the unironic urgency of social justice:

Critics often say that abolitionism is unrealistic. How, they ask, can we hope to enlist white people in a movement against something so deeply embedded in every aspect of their lives and on which so many of their survival strategies depend? To that criticism we answer: precisely. What critics regard as a weakness is the virtue of abolition* ism, that in calling people's whiteness into question it forces them to reexamine every aspect of their lives. That quality is what makes abolitionism revolutionary.

If it is true, as we insist, that a commitment to the abolition of whiteness, when constructed to the end, leads to a total critique of society, the process works in the opposite direction as well. The Surrealist Movement, starting with a determination to challenge present notions of reality, is led to adopt the abolition of whiteness as a goal.

https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-conte...ummer-2001.pdf

Ignatiev’s politics and the worldview alluded to should look quite familiar to a consumer of modern media, but also to anyone familiar with left wing revolutionary movements of the 50s and 60s, and the modern day orthodoxy of ethno-political liberation espoused by successor organizations. When academics and media personalities talk about “whiteness” and the abolition thereof, it is not a coincidental terminology, but one with a specific context stemming from the belief in a titanic struggle between “white imperialists” and “non-white revolutionaries.”

It’s easier to undermine and dismantle institutions associated with an oppressive and omnipresent regime of “white culture” than it is to justify how or why a set of arbitrary and innocuous characteristics applicable to virtually any group or individual are inherently problematic in the first place, so concepts like the one in this infographic are conjured to lend a veneer of academic objectivity to run of the mill political radicalism. Once canonized, repackaged worldviews can be unceremoniously applied in any context under the auspices of social justice to bring every single conceivable aspect of society in line with the politically correct view, including education and re-education:

The Seattle school district is planning to infuse all K-12 math classes with ethnic-studies questions that encourage students to explore how math has been “appropriated” by Western culture and used in systems of power and oppression, a controversial move that puts the district at the forefront of a movement to “rehumanize” math.

The district’s proposed framework outlines strands of discussion that teachers should incorporate into their classes. One leads students into exploring math’s roots “in the ancient histories of people and empires of color.” Another asks how math and science have been used to oppress and marginalize people of color, and who holds power in a math classroom.

Another theme focuses on resistance and liberation, encouraging students to recognize the mathematical practices and contributions of their own communities, and looking at how math has been used to free people from oppression.

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-lear...e-math/2019/10

City Department of Education brass are targeting a “white-supremacy culture” among school administrators — by disparaging ideas like “individualism,” “objectivity” and “worship of the written word,” The Post has learned.
A presentation slide obtained by The Post offers a bullet-point description of the systemic, supposedly pro-white favoritism that Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza claims must be eradicated from the DOE, and provides just one insight into his anti-bias training efforts.

The list — derived from “Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups” by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun — names more than a dozen hallmarks of “white-supremacy culture” that school administrators are expected to steer clear of.

“They include such dynamics as “paternalism,” a “sense of urgency” and “power hoarding,” according to the slide, which an insider said was part of mandatory training sponsored and funded by the department’s Office of Equity and Access and recently administered to principals, central office supervisors and superintendent teams.

White employees who object when accused of harboring deep-seated bias are branded “fragile” and “defensive,” one insider who received the training has said.

https://nypost.com/2019/05/20/richar...ture-training/

Students will no longer be graded based on a yearly average, or on how late they turn in assignments. Those are just some of the major grading changes approved this week by California's second-largest school district.
The San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) is overhauling the way it grades students. Board members say the changes are part of a larger effort to combat racism.

“This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district,” says SDUSD Vice President Richard Barrera. “If we’re actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years.”

“I know students all across the school district are really happy with the idea that these other accountability measures are no longer going to be defining their understanding of knowledge,” says Patterson.

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/loc...acism/2425346/

A New York City high school principal is facing scrutiny after asking students’ parents to reflect on their “whiteness.”

The New York Post reports East Side Community High School Principal Mark Federman sent a survey to white parents at the Manhattan public school that included a list of “The 8 White Identities.”

The document, written by African-American studies professor Barnor Hesse of Northwestern University, describes eight different types of “whiteness,” including “White Supremacist,” “White Abolitionist” and “White Traitor.”

https://www.syracuse.com/state/2021/...whiteness.html

The trend and its implications are as clear as they are deliberate, reframing disparate or undesirable societal outcomes to do away with the associated metrics, rather than address the causes. Under the auspices of “abolishing whiteness,” the campaign to undermine and destroy institutions attains an almost religious level of sagacity. The result is an ideology of hatred and destruction for its own sake, with nothing of any coherence to replace it, facilitating the societal paralysis, violence, divisions and chaos to which the public must now become accustomed as a pseudo-spiritual exercise in purification. Buckle up. It only gets worse from here.

[Muizer]

You were wrong, move on.

Lol I pointed out the intent to provoke a conversation. You just pointed out that is exactly what they intended and what happened. They just didn't like the tone of that conversation. Next time, before you pedantically dismiss someone's posts, do them the courtesy of actually reading them.

[Cope]

There are any number of problems with the graphic, independent of implicit value judgments associated with the blatant racism underpinning its assumptions. By racism I mean that there is no such thing as whiteness or white culture, any more than commonalities among East Asian cultures constitute yellowness or yellow culture, etc. The graphic is essentially a brochure for the new orthodoxy, which has resurrected and repurposed old white supremacist ideas about alleged racial virtues.

The chart (which was borrowed from a forty-year-old "anti-racist" handbook) refutes itself by listing commonalities (industriousness, forward planning, rational thinking, written traditions etc) which are not even remotely unique to white majority societies. It used to be that only white supremacists believed that the values and practices listed in the graphic were an extension of "whiteness".

Now, the same mythology is flipped on its head, and old racism is the new anti racism. Instead of attaching arbitrary characteristics to a perceived superior racial identity, the associations are considered oppressive socioethnic structures that should be eliminated. As we see each time the issue is raised in the public discourse, the contradictions inherent to employing racism in the service of so-called anti racism are held together by a tautology: it triggers people because it’s working because it triggers people. It’s the sort of nonsense one might normally associate with internet trolls spamming veiled racism in defense of “free speech,” only when academics and media personalities use the same tactics, it’s considered scholarship.

Considering an act of provocation to be an achievement in and of itself is the logic of a toddler. Never mind that the chart is underpinned by anti-intellectual, racist nonsense. Never mind that it defeats its own claims. What matters is that it succeeded in stirring up another on controversial debate on its publisher's favourite topic - "whiteness".

[Cope]

Lol I pointed out the intent to provoke a conversation. You just pointed out that is exactly what they intended and what happened. They just didn't like the tone of that conversation. Next time, before you pedantically dismiss someone's posts, do them the courtesy of actually reading them.

The Smithsonian's intention was to encourage a conversation on the terms set out by the chart. Since the chart was both self-refuting and insulting, it served only to damage the cause the museum was trying to promote. This is why the chart was pulled (the museum specifically stated that the chart was not contributing to the "productive discussion" they intended). As mentioned above, viewing any act of provocation, however self-defeating, as an achievement in and of itself, is juvenile.

You were wrong, move on.

[numerosdecimus]

A small aside from my part. Thanks for merging my thread with this one. If the information I showed was already being shown here, then my thread was somewhat redundant. Thanks.

Concerning the topic at hand. What scares me a bit is that they are focusing on an inherent aspect of many western peoples, that of "whiteness", it's not something those people being criticized have any control over. Fundamentally its a macro social expression of their way of living, their customs, traditions and social principles, or in other words, their society, and everyone has a right to live in a society they feel welcomed and can live peaceful lives. If this narrative from the woke crowd is not text book racism then I don't know what else can be.

And it’s in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN, this narrative is promoting a violation of the right for societies to have autonomy and exist under their own terms. Because the term "whiteness" is vague on purpose, a purposeful strategy, like with many other terms used by the left, they can change their accusations to fit their needs.

Worse, this is dammed if you do dammed if you don't situation. A person can simply say that he/she doesn't care about race or culture, and simply want to live their lives in peace, but the woke crowd will say that the problem lies in something "passive" that they do, or in other words, the problem lies in their existence and functioning as a society. The woke crowd will claim that "their day to day lives alone promotes whiteness". But if this is true, then it's criticizing or demonizing someone or a group for existing at all.

No matter how much someone will try to appease the woke crowd, it's as if they wish to deny some people the right to be left alone and to live in peace.

I genuinely fear where this line of thought can lead us to in the near future, especially if the hold on the institutions from the woke crowd get tighter and the narrative becomes more aggressive and hostile. Historically, we have seen where this leads, and the last Twitter post from Gina Carano before she was fired from Lucasfilm accurately represents the historical precedent.

(edited)

[Ludicus]

Glad to see you back, numerusdecimus

-------

It’s not a coincidence that one of the landmarks of American cinema- Griffits’s Birth of a Nation- is virulently racist. Initially entitled The Clansman, it is the film adaptation of Thomas Dixon, Jr.’s The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan. It’s also not a coincidence that for decades African American characters in mainstream movies were relegated to comic relief and servant roles. Is it actually seen?




More, 12 Best Movies About Race - Essential Films About Systemic Racism
------

Nikole Hannah-Jones' essay from 'The 1619 Project' wins commentary Pulitzer

...In the end, the 1619 Project — and Hannah-Jones’ essay, in particular — will be remembered for one of the most impactful and thought-provoking pieces on race, slavery and its impact on America that we’ve ever seen.
And maybe there was another reason for the pushback besides those questioning its historical accuracy As The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer wrote in December...

The Fight Over the 1619 Project Is Not About the Facts

(...)some historians who declined to sign the letter wondered whether the letter was intended less to resolve factual disputes than to discredit laymen who had challenged an interpretation of American national identity that is cherished by liberals and conservatives alike... The clash between the Times authors and their historian critics represents a fundamental disagreement over the trajectory of American society. The letter is rooted in a vision of American history as a slow, uncertain march toward a more perfect union. The 1619 Project, and Hannah-Jones’s introductory essay in particular, offer a darker vision of the nation, in which Americans have made less progress than they think, and in which black people continue to struggle indefinitely for rights they may never fully realize. Inherent in that vision is a kind of pessimism, not about black struggle but about the sincerity and viability of white anti-racism. It is a harsh verdict, and one of the reasons the 1619 Project has provoked pointed criticism alongside praise.

In conjunction with the Pulitzer Center, the Times has produced educational materials based on the 1619 Project for students—one of the reasons Wilentz told me he and his colleagues wrote the letter. But the materials are intended to enhance traditional curricula, not replace them. “I think that there is a misunderstanding that this curriculum is meant to replace all of U.S. history,” Silverstein told me. “It's being used as supplementary material for teaching American history." Given the state of American education on slavery, some kind of adjustment is sorely needed.

The letter’s signatories recognize the problem the Times aimed to remedy, Wilentz told me. “Each of us, all of us, think that the idea of the 1619 Project is fantastic. I mean, it's just urgently needed. The idea of bringing to light not only scholarship but all sorts of things that have to do with the centrality of slavery and of racism to American history is a wonderful idea,” he said. In a subsequent interview, he said, “Far from an attempt to discredit the 1619 Project, our letter is intended to help it.”

The letter disputes a passage in Hannah-Jones’s introductory essay, which lauds the contributions of black people to making America a full democracy and says that “one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery” as abolitionist sentiment began rising in Britain.
This argument is explosive.

Historians who are in neither Wilentz’s camp nor the 1619 Project’s say both have a point. “I do not agree that the American Revolution was just a slaveholders' rebellion,” Manisha Sinha, a history professor at the University of Connecticut and the author of The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition, told me.* “But also understand that the original Constitution did give some ironclad protections to slavery without mentioning it.”

The problem, as Du Bois argued, is that much of American history has been written by scholars offering ideological claims in place of rigorous historical analysis. But which claims are ideological, and which ones are objective, is not always easy to discern.

--------

It goes without a saying that ignoring the history of colonial violence is to accept the continuing violence of racism in our contemporary societies, but I would like to add that just as nationalism is a fratricidal virus, so is the myopic radical historicism of some anti-racist movements,

British anti-racism protestors call for destruction of Giza ...

Some then called for the destruction of the Egyptian pyramids in Giza, claiming that they were also built by slaves.

PS Deputy Defends Demolition Of The Monument To the Discoveries...

In a respectable country, it should have been destroyed

[Lord Thesaurian]

The chart (which was borrowed from a forty-year-old "anti-racist" handbook) refutes itself by listing commonalities (industriousness, forward planning, rational thinking, written traditions etc) which are not even remotely unique to white majority societies. It used to be that only white supremacists believed that the values and practices listed in the graphic were an extension of "whiteness".

Considering an act of provocation to be an achievement in and of itself is the logic of a toddler. Never mind that the chart is underpinned by anti-intellectual, racist nonsense. Never mind that it defeats its own claims. What matters is that it succeeded in stirring up another on controversial debate on its publisher's favourite topic - "whiteness".

The “toddler tactics” aren’t merely a fault of style either, but rather, are essential to buttress the narrative against criticism. Consider, for instance, another example raised in the thread. The debunked NYT propaganda stunt dubbed “the 1619 project” came under fire from all corners for basic factual errors underpinning the work. When confronted on the fallacious narratives she and her publishers are pumping into American schools, the virulently racist author dismissed concerns as irrelevant, saying truth and accuracy wasn’t necessarily the objective to begin with:

The New York Times, without announcement or explanation, has abandoned the central claim of the 1619 Project: that 1619, the year the first slaves were brought to Colonial Virginia—and not 1776—was the “true founding” of the United States.


Hannah-Jones: Of course, we know that 1776 was the founding of this country. The Project does not argue that 1776 was not the founding of the country.

This is, of course, an outright lie. Hannah-Jones has repeatedly made the “true founding” claim in innumerable Tweets, interviews and lectures. These are attested to in news articles and video clips readily available on the Internet. Her own Twitter account included her image against a backdrop consisting of the year 1619, with the year 1776 crossed out next to it.

Ms. Hannah-Jones, caught in one lie, doubles down with new and even bigger lies. The Times journalist-celebrity not only denies her project’s central argument. In self-contradictory fashion, she also says that the “true founding” claim was just a bit of a rhetorical flourish. She told CNN that the 1619 Project was merely an effort to move the study of slavery to the forefront of American history.

The Times is now obligated to issue a public statement acknowledging its distortion of history and the dishonest attempt to cover up its error. It should issue a public apology to Professors Gordon Woods, James McPherson, Sean Wilentz, Victoria Bynum, James Oakes and all other scholars it sought to discredit for having criticized the 1619 Project. To be perfectly blunt, Mr. Silverstein and his confederates in the editorial board of the Times should be dismissed from their posts.

Furthermore, the Pulitzer Prize given to Hannah-Jones this spring in the field of commentary for her lead essay, in which the false claims about the “true founding” and the American Revolution were made, should be rescinded.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/202.../1619-s22.html

Sparking controversy in service to the narrative is an end in itself.

[Muizer]

A small aside from my part. Thanks for merging my thread with this one. If the information I showed was already being shown here, then my thread was somewhat redundant. Thanks.

Concerning the topic at hand. What scares me a bit is that they are focusing on an inherent aspect of many western peoples, that of "whiteness", it's not something those people being criticized have any control over. Fundamentally its a macro social expression of their way of living, their customs, traditions and social principles, or in other words, their society, and everyone has a right to live in a society they feel welcomed and can live peaceful lives. If this narrative from the woke crowd is not text book racism then I don't know what else can be.

And it’s in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN, this narrative is promoting a violation of the right for societies to have autonomy and exist under their own terms. Because the term "whiteness" is vague on purpose, a purposeful strategy, like with many other terms used by the left, they can change their accusations to fit their needs.

Worse, this is dammed if you do dammed if you don't situation. A person can simply say that he/she doesn't care about race or culture, and simply want to live their lives in peace, but the woke crowd will say that the problem lies in something "passive" that they do, or in other words, the problem lies in their existence and functioning as a society. The woke crowd will claim that "their day to day lives alone promotes whiteness". But if this is true, then it's criticizing or demonizing someone or a group for existing at all.

No matter how much someone will try to appease the woke crowd, it's as if they wish to deny some people the right to be left alone and to live in peace.

I genuinely fear where this line of thought can lead us to in the near future, especially if the hold on the institutions from the woke crowd get tighter and the narrative becomes more aggressive and hostile. Historically, we have seen where this leads, and the last Twitter post from Gina Carano before she was fired from Lucasfilm accurately represents the historical precedent.

(edited)

Well, consider that amongst those ideologues the options for a white person are to be either a racist or an anti racist, and that if you choose to be an anti-racist, the only way to be one is by being an 'ally'. It is actually pretty clever way of manipulating white people into a position where the only way not to be racist is to have to have those ideologues do your thinking for you. Yeah, that is dangerous. If you play by their rules and let them dictate the conversation, then your only alternative to being their parrot is to argue alongside the actual racists and those who are actually too blinkered to recognize racism (e.g. those who say that if structural racism can't exit because it's not codified in the law. We have a couple on this forum!). I don't know about you, but I'm not going to go along with that. We need to do better. The way I see it the values written down in our constitutions, that all should be treated equally regardless of race, gender, religion etc. are unquestionably philosophically and morally superior. The problem is that for as long as they have existed, society has not delivered on them for all. They have been jealously guarded by law and custom to benefit some but not others. To pretend that this is not so, that there is no problem, that if you experience a different reality on a daily basis that is your own fault .... Well that is causing a lot of anger. And when people are angry, they will be attracted to angry ideologies. If we want to save the better principles, we do not do so by arguing their intellectual merits. We do so by making haste to ensure they deliver in practice.

[numerosdecimus]

Well, consider that amongst those ideologues the options for a white person are to be either a racist or an anti racist, and that if you choose to be an anti-racist, the only way to be one is by being an 'ally'. It is actually pretty clever way of manipulating white people into a position where the only way not to be racist is to have to have those ideologues do your thinking for you. Yeah, that is dangerous. If you play by their rules and let them dictate the conversation, then your only alternative to being their parrot is to argue alongside the actual racists and those who are actually too blinkered to recognize racism (e.g. those who say that if structural racism can't exit because it's not codified in the law. We have a couple on this forum!). I don't know about you, but I'm not going to go along with that. We need to do better. The way I see it the values written down in our constitutions, that all should be treated equally regardless of race, gender, religion etc. are unquestionably philosophically and morally superior. The problem is that for as long as they have existed, society has not delivered on them for all. They have been jealously guarded by law and custom to benefit some but not others. To pretend that this is not so, that there is no problem, that if you experience a different reality on a daily basis that is your own fault .... Well that is causing a lot of anger. And when people are angry, they will be attracted to angry ideologies. If we want to save the better principles, we do not do so by arguing their intellectual merits. We do so by making haste to ensure they deliver in practice.

(Hello again Ludicus! )

I understand what you are saying. And yes, historically, the principles enacted in constitutions were not always universally followed, in other words, it was a demonstration of inconsistency. The reason for it in my opinion is as follows:

With the creation of the modern state, came into being a regime defined and centered around two concepts, first no taxation without representation (presently ignored purposefully) and second universalism when applying the concepts that base our rule of law. Take the case of the first decades of the Republic of the USA. The moral foundations demonstrated in the constitution were indeed meant to be universal (safe for some minor inconsistencies). Already during its inception the ultimate and inevitable logical implications of the constitutions were among them that slavery was morally reprehensible, unforgivable and unacceptable. However, the institutions of slavery continued in a formal manner for several decades, while the legal branch of government closed their eyes, until this inconsistency was acknowledged in a formal manner to be incompatible with the law of the land.

One thing must be recognized, its that this push towards the abolition of slavery needed a philosophical and cultural beginning, those forces being its inception, first becoming recognized and increasingly popular in a theoretical realm and them taking the jump into the practical realm. Before the legal and formal abolition of slavery the cultural, religious, moral and philosophical precedent had already been established and was making great strides and had given the abolitionist movement the momentum it needed before being legally recognized. Without this cultural precedent, there would have never been an abolitionist movement, as we see with the moral frameworks of any non-western civilizations even to this day(namely the Mohammedan one). Thus, in my opinion, this is a demonstration of the inherent morals virtues that have for long defined western civilization.

The thing is that the moral principles which defined it, and had a good chunk of it originated and promoted by Christianity, where for centuries "maturing" or in a "chrysalis" of sorts before the leap could finally be made in a legal manner in order to be consistent with those moral principles. To my knowledge, only western societies were the ones who admitted to the moral fact that slavery is morally non-acceptable and have VOLUNTARELY abolished it. There was no generalized "slave rebellion", the abolitionist movement came from the society itself.

Without this proactive moral precedent, nothing would have happened in my opinion. You can look at the rest of the world and see their example.

(edited)