A more cynical person might say they’ve injected a red herring into the thread, wasting others’ time.
>The framework recommends eight times that teachers use a troubling document, “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.” This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,” including a focus on “getting the right answer,” teaching math in a “linear fashion,” requiring students to “show their work” and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” the manual explains. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates ‘objectivity.’ ” Apparently, that’s also racist.
It's funny how every single conversation about this stuff spends most of its time debating whether its really happening and almost no time on the actual content of the ideology being pushed.
It's just a (somewhat stereotypical - "bland is best," really?) list of the aspects of Western culture which the author believes derive from "white culture." It doesn't even present these points as negative.
If one were to criticize it, one could point out the degree to which many so-called "white cultural" ideals were founded on a religion not created by white people (Christianity) and non-Judeo-Christian (Greek and Hindu) philosophy and ideals. The European cultural complex didn't arise in a vaccuum.
Also that many of those bullet points seem to be so vague as to be universal. For instance, I doubt white people alone recognize the existence of cause and effect, respect for authority or patriarchy.
But the general premise - that the constructs of white culture (to the degree that it exists, which itself is debated) are considered default in American society, as a function of white supremacy reinforcing that default on all races and suppressing cultural variance in the name of conformity to a white-derived normativity - is correct.
Which makes it all the more incredible, that the "host" operating system culture of the melting pot is attacked and a attempt is made to "regulate" cultural blending. Its a majority vote system, without a need for regulation. The good thing goes in ("Yoga" as a sport, meditation system), the bad stays out (insane cults, backwards religous practices that are abanduned in all religions). Nobody needed to facilitate or control that, but a sparse, neutral stove and a pot.
The people vote, with there feet, there wallets and there actions. Unemployed commisars, race-warriors and revolutionarys are free to form a line for unemployment checks.
Yes, a lot of progress has been made in regards to cultural integration in the US, but that progress has been due to attempts to "regulate" cultural blending, rather than in spite of it. The US has had to be forced time and again - often with persistent struggle and at times violence - to live up to its stated ideals. Even today, the most prominent political movement across the US and Europe is explicitly Eurocentric and xenophobic, seeing immigration as a threat to cultural integrity and civil society and multicultural and multiracial integration is at best harmful, at worst impossible.
If you believe the anglo-saxon majority no longer holds the majority of the political power in the US, ouf.
This is simply not true. The natives embraced a lot of aspects of European culture. Nearly all developed métis cultures and deep commercial trade. Most of the initial treaties were ones of friendship and alliances.
Go visit a native museum, they want to preserve their culture, not expunge it from European influence. They hate wokeness and mass immigration too, by the way.
If mathematics and the recognition of cause-and-effect are white supremacy, then maybe they're right. /s
Seriously, this new "dei" or "crt" rhetoric needs to get shut down hard or it will undo all the progress that has been achieved.
Therefore the idea of the existence of objective truth (2+2=4) must destroyed and subverted in order for the "goodfact" to be swallowed.
I just finished The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek, and he lays this out fairly well as a strategy of totalitarian regimes, or groups with totalitarian impulses. (Chapter 11, I believe)
Even beyond the natural sciences, this seems to have been somewhat the case. I remember my uncle, who is as unabashedly anti-communist as it gets, once showing me a grammar of some minority language written in the GDR and commenting, almost with admiration, that "back then, they invested a lot of resources on things like that".
That can't be, unless one subscribes to a highly racist view of the world. Concepts like "objective, rational linear thinking" are not anything to do with "whiteness" and to even suggest it is, is really quite profoundly insulting to everyone who isn't white.
Yes. As I spent several short paragraphs saying exactly just that, and in agreement with that premise. "The constructs of white culture" to which I referred do not refer to the specific items of that list, which I explicitly disclaimed and criticized in my comment.
I probably should have been more specific, precise and exact in my wording and not assumed that people would have put forth more than the minimum effort for a comment that goes against the HN zeitgeist, but I suspect I could have posted an entire essay and no one here would have bothered to actually read all the words. Mea culpa.
Like im white and canadian, which is basically the same culture as america, but like a quarter of these seem specificly american to me.
And a bunch seem rediculous to apply as "white culture". Like that your intent matters when it comes to morality. I can appreciate that different cultures fall differently on the spectrum between outcome vs intention, but i highly highly doubt that white people are the only ones who give primacy to intention.
The white people value rationality part seems straight up racist.
Similar for communists. Don’t bother asking them for a historical track record of that idea.
see, e.g., "Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture" docs around 50-60 pages into the document dump at https://www.scribd.com/document/501975490/Government-of-Cana...
American doc: logical thinking is a part of white culture (with the implication it is not a part of other cultures)
Canadian doc: white supremists are often defensive and hoard power.
>The framework recommends eight times that teachers use a troubling document, “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.” This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,” including a focus on “getting the right answer,” teaching math in a “linear fashion,” requiring students to “show their work” and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” the manual explains. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates ‘objectivity.’ ” Apparently, that’s also racist.
Ultimately, if we’re gonna ask what norms are good we should have some cost function we are trying to optimize and ask for norms that encourage it to go up. Totally reasonable for different people to have different ideas of the good life and get different norms following that.
For example, when and if you refer to people by their first name or more formally with full titles for example. Whether working long into the night means you're dedicated or inefficient.
These are not right or wrong as such, they're just culture, but if you blunder into the situation assuming that everyone has the same culture, then someone bluntly telling you what's wrong with an idea can seem intentionally aggressive and rude, or someone trying to politely say no might seem vague, or worse, be taken as tacit agreement.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/15/smithsonian-pushes-raci...