From Vincent Carroll, the Rocky Mountain News:
‘Most white people most of the time” share the belief that “bland is best” when it comes to aesthetics.
They believe that “wealth equals worth” and that a wife is “subordinate to (her) husband.”
In communicating, white people “don’t show emotion” and “avoid conflict, intimacy.”
They share an ethic of “win at all costs” and possess a “master and control nature.”
Had enough of this bigoted, juvenile, trashy analysis? Unfortunately, I’m merely quoting from a sheet distributed recently to some teachers at Cimarron Elementary School in Aurora as part of the diversity training set in motion last year by the Cherry Creek School District.
The teacher who showed me the paper was deeply offended by it, as of course she should be. It is replete not only with simple-minded generalizations, but also with subtle digs at social norms such as the nuclear family and attitudes that enable people to succeed in a society such as ours.
If planning for the future, delaying gratification and self-reliance are “aspects and assumptions of white culture,” as the paper insists, instead of good habits that assist all of us in achieving our goals, then people who harp on such traits may unconsciously be putting minorities down. Thus the perverse logic of such exercises.
The idea behind such training […] is that the achievement gap between some ethnic groups is mainly a product of institutional racism and the culture of “Whiteness.” Teachers with the suspect pigmentation are expected to feel guilt and shame.
For the moment let’s forget that this radical ideology insults the vast majority of well-meaning, nonracist teachers. And let’s ignore the fact that its thesis fails to account for the astonishing academic success of Asian-Americans. The most surprising feature of this brand of diversity propaganda is, as you can see, its sheer crudeness—as well as the fact that it is inflicted upon one of the better educated professions in the land.
[all emphases mine]
Carroll, though quite pointed (and largely correct) in his critique, misses the elephant donkey in the room—namely, that there is yet a further conflation at play here, one I’ve discussed before, specifically, tethering the identity politics of race to the political ethics of, well, let’s just say non-progressives.
Which doesn’t mean, naturally, that whites can’t be progressive. In fact, the push here is to make them so by playing to their guilt. But the subtext of these lessons is that those whites who remain locked into their “whiteness” (as defined by the diversity warriors, conveniently enough) tend to align themselves politically in a specific way: to any candidate or party that stresses self-reliance, capitalism, traditional family values (however much such is cartooned in the handout), competition, and cultural self-confidence (as opposed to the kind of relativism that purports to splinter the master/control paradigm by pointing up its inherent “intolerance.” And it is the job of the diversity warriors—who have managed not only to insinuate themselves through the PC trapdoor into the room where curricula is drawn up, they’ve presumed to bring a huge whiteboard and lots of colored markers with them—to start molding future voters at an early age.
Now. What political ethic would you say the “diversity” movement is aiming to undermine with such a narrative? And where, on the political spectrum, would those who fit the description tend to fall?
Because me, I’m simply stumped!
The questions I have are: who put together this nonsensical list of “white” attributes, and who approved its redistribution to the teachers? This is not made clear in the article, and I believe the parents of children in that school system should have these questions answered accordingly.
I’m guessing they’re going after the Whigs, but I doubt Tyler will run in ‘08.
I remember when Reggie White got pilloried for making comments about Whites, Blacks and Asians, each emphasizing their positive, to his way of thinking attributes.
I’ve seen these generalizations applied to the “middle class” in discussions as to why schools fail to effectively relate to students who come from poverty, but this is the first time I’ve seen these assumptions applied to a group of people based on their pigmentation. That’s quite a stretch.
My experience is that people with similar educational and economic levels will clique regardless of skin color faster than people of a particular skin color will clique with their pigmented bretheren without regard to their educational and economic status. But that may be because my hometown has somehow gotten the fucked up idea that it is 2007 rather than 1957.
Did they mention that whitey can’t dance, either?
Because that’s been the word from stand-up comics on BET for years, and don’t go telling me BET has been lying to me, you white devil.
I’m not stumped, but I’m also not saying, because to do so would certainly get my ass busted about making generalizations about academics.
Besides, Cherry Creek can afford it, and in postmodernism, that’s all that counts. What Constitution?
Exactly.
All such, let them eat burning fish!
Despite all the steaming ad campaigns that promote “diversity as our strength” I still feel that emphasizing our diversity is exactly the wrong thing to do.
It is because we can overlook our diversity that America has any strength at all.
Hey, leave me out of this. I don’t know about the rest of you white boys, but us Scots-Irish Southern Rednecks are lazy, shiftless, fly off the handle in any conversation, and figure the best way to wealth is by faithfully playing Mega Millions twice a week with our minimum wage pay checks. Of course, we do like our womenfolk pregnant and barefoot, so I guess the wife thing is accurate.
Pardon me, but I’ve got to go make sure the Camaro didn’t fall off the blocks in the front yard. Ya’ll want to talk unbland aesthetics? That sucker is canary yellow!
Yellow is the new white. Asian-Americans earn more money than us white boys, do better in school, and can’t dance either.
So why does my pigmentation get picked on?
I have an “Asian women are submissive” myth for sale. Hardly been used.
I’m starting to come to the conclusion that there’s no intent on the part of ‘minorities’ to come to any sort of peace or harmony across the board. You may think there’s no such thing as race, Jeff, but there is definitely a movement on the part of some ‘minority’ players to create a separatist movement – which is something that’s viewed as racist when The Man tries to do it. (not that I’m advocating separatism – it just seems that it’s OK to have clubs or groups that have a racial qualification, as long as it’s not Caucasian or men only)
I’d really like to know what they consider ‘white people’ in this case – is it based upon appearance or genetics? Is the Giant White Monolith a culture that embodies all of us with pale skin? Do some of us somehow get to be exceptions because master was playing in the slave quarters a few generations back so now we can ‘pass’ as white?
I’m not old enough to remember, so maybe some of the really old fogies who have been through several presidential administrations can shed some light – is this something that seems to get more pronounced when we have a Republican president and/or Congress, so maybe the ‘minorities’ feel more downtrodden? I don’t remember hearing so much about this when Clinton was in office, but maybe the ‘minorities’ figured the Democrats were watching out for them so they didn’t feel the need to put out such idiotic crap. And it seems the Reagan era (which is as far back as my political memory goes) was another period of upheaval.
Well goooolllllleeeee, ya’ll can just color me pasty.
tw: group85. CUT THAT OUT, JEFF!
you’ve never seen ‘em play DDR, have you?
My wife is Asian, and far from subservient. Yet we have had many friends over the years who have spoken up with that particular stereotype (even with my wife in the room), and believed it to be truth. The ironic thing is that women more frequently than men spouted off with this myth.
What about secular hollywood jews? what are they? the other white meat?
Which, I believe, is exactly why the progressive Left emphasizes diversity. They certainly do not do so for diversity’s own sake.
Can’t jump, either. Can’t fight, too. Oh, and we have small dicks. I’d like to see that in a diversity training sheet. Did someone say sheet?
you laugh, nobody important, but the curricula notes came in a folder shaped like Robert Byrds “special” wardrobe bag.
Or so I hear.
I think that’s one of those “comforting myths” things.
Our esteemed host wrote:
Me, I just wish that our liberal friends would employ truth in advertising, and drop the term “progressive.”
One would think (at least, if he knew English), that a progressive was someone who wanted to see progress. But our self-styled “progressive” friends, in their continual politics-of-identity, are attempting (whether they realize it or not) to stifle progress for the very minorities they purport to want to help.
We had the big hoop-de-do over the First Black Head Coaches in the Super Bowl. Well, the NFL has had several black head coaches, and one of them was bound to take a team to the Super Bowl eventually; two out of every 32 NFL head coaches make it to the big game, every year!
So what if Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith are black. the important thing is that they can do their jobs well. They didn’t make the Super Bowl because America somehow relented on racism, nor were there no previous black coaches to make it because America was racist; there was no black head coach in the Super Bowl prior to the last one because Tony Dungy’s team got beat in the playoffs.
Professional sports are the ultimate meritocracy: you either perform or you don’t, and the better you perform, the better you are rewarded, period.
That’s the kind of progress conservatives like to see: Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy succeeding because they worked hard and did the best jobs, and, oh by the way, who cares what color they happen to be?
Our “progressive” friends are too busy looking at color to bother with seeing success.
Posted by Dana | permalink
on 02/07 at 01:43 PM
They couldn’t see the football for the melanin.
I thought that teachers couldnt get poor inner city kids to do better at school because when you asked them what they wanted they’d just say an Ipod or a x-box 360. Or at least that’s what Oprah led us to believe when she built her school in Africa not here.
I made the mistake of taking a “preparing future faculty” course while in grad school. It was taught by a pair of progressives. One day they handed out a sheet full of crap like this, and each of us in turn had to read two of the lines (I forget if it was only the white students who had to do so, but more likely the others had different lines to read).
I was livid, as this was not the first time this kind of thing had happened. The only reason I read mine is that I could live with what they said, because they weren’t loaded like the rest of them.
To give you an idea of what one of the instructors was like, she said once that since she was a white woman she would never experience racism. I thought of my sister (a white woman in her 50s), who is a substitute teacher, and the racism she has experienced not only from other teachers but from even the youngest of students.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t let that one go. I probably said something like, “You’ve got to be kidding.” They truly had their heads up their asses.
As you might imagine, I was of a minority opinion in that class, or perhaps the only one who wasn’t afraid to speak up.
Mrs D is likewise Asian – to be more precise, Japanese. Hence the subservient myth for sale.
It’s only been used once. When we got back from our honeymoon, she offered to get up early and make my breakfast. I said that wasn’t necessary. The offer has never been repeated…
Anybody who would fight their entire family to marry me and move a third of the way around the world to live in a strange country is not subservient.
I’m still a lucky guy.
Dayam! I guess I’m not white after all. Now. Where them white wimmen at?
Dr. Chlamydia Shabazz X, Ph.D (Pacific Western U, Next Day Air), Professorn of Comparative Studies at the Institute for Studied Comparisons, UC Berkeley.
Professional sports are the ultimate meritocracy: you either perform or you don’t, and the better you perform, the better you are rewarded, period.
Evaluating how good a quarterback is is largely subjective. Some things, like the ability to throw the ball, can be gauged on fairly objective factors. But other things, like having “a good head for the game” (picking good plays, choosing what to do during the middle of a play) cannot be measured objectively.
If you let a QB play long enough, you can collect lots of data that you can try to filter through to see how well the QB performs, but that’s only possible if you’ve given the QB a chance in the first place.
If the people making the decision as to who gets to be the QB subconsciously misjudge the abilities of black QB candidates, they might not pick the best QB. That this could happen is really not a radical idea.
I thought that teachers couldnt get poor inner city kids to do better at school because when you asked them what they wanted they’d just say an Ipod or a x-box 360.
$500 per year, for each student in bribes would go a lot further in raising test scores than $1000 per year, per student in increased funding for school supplies and teacher pay.
I’m all in favor of paying off every inner-city kid who works hard in school and stays out of trouble. Of course some would spend this money on drugs (just like white kids in suburbia! don’t kid yourselves about what they do with disposable income!) and then the program would be smeared as a drugs-for-grades racket designed to hook inner city youths on crack, etc. etc. so the program could never take off.
The best option would be to pay them off with marijuana. Not only is it something they would want (an incentive they would appreciate), pot is relatively harmless compared to the other drugs they could be getting into, and potheads don’t usually get into crimes of violence.
There should be mandatory drug testing for all students, such that use of heroin/cocaine/meth/etc. is strictly punishable, and use of marijuana is punishable if the student is not in academic good graces. The threat of losing access to pot if they try one of the evil drugs would hopefully keep them on the straight and narrow.
This is America. We’re supposed to have a federalist system with power shared by states and the federal government. The states are supposed to be “laboratories of democracy” where ideas can be tested–how else can we ever know if an idea will work? It’s a shame no one will give this idea a chance, because I’m sure it would work.
Fixing our inner city schools–more accurately, saving the next generation of low-income minorities–is a serious issue. I take it completely seriously.