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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29296 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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Back in the 2020's polarizing summer of rage, there was a moment of outrage that was uncharacteristically unifying: The Smithsonian's "White Culture" infographic.

As I wrote at the time, the lessons imparted by this purportedly "anti-racist" infographic are virtually indistinguishable from what real life white supremacists would argue. The List immediately offended everyone and the Smithsonian quickly walked back, claiming it was misunderstood.

Fast forward to a few days ago when Ryan Grim published an exclusive interview with Tema Okun, the original creator of The List, claiming that everyone got it "all wrong." If the goal was to get me to click well it fucking worked because I listened to the entire podcast episode and...I have no idea in what way Okun's work was at all misinterpreted or otherwise gotten "wrong".

Let's start at the beginning. I previously tried to track down The List's origin but gave up after I only found xeroxed pamphlets. Turns out that Okun wrote The List in a fit of frustration, without any research whatsoever:

I went to a meeting and it was a very frustrating and horrible meeting. And I came home and I sat in front of the computer. And the article literally came through me onto the computer. It was not researched. I didn't sit down and deliberate. It just came through me. And I've never had that experience with my writing, before or since.

So she just pulled this out of thin air, but notice what she considers as validation that she was onto something (emphasis mine):

The tragic relevance of the list was reinforced a few years later when I was co-facilitating a workshop at a national conference of progressive attorneys and law students. We asked participants to work in small groups, looking for ways in which these characteristics show up in their personal and organizational lives. Asked to report, one young student spoke for her group, sharing that the list represents all the characteristics taught by law schools as essential to success in the profession. And that's exactly the point -- our institutions not only value these characteristics, they to some extent require them and constantly reproduce them in order to benefit from them, which is why they are so prevalent in our culture and institutions.

The burning question on my mind throughout, a curiosity Grim apparently does not share, is what makes any of this part of "white" culture? They finally try to address a concrete example, sort of, when they discuss how "urgency" as a value of "white culture" is lampooned. Grim sets the stage by citing examples of how The List is weaponized by bad actors seeking an excuse to shirk at work (e.g. "deadlines are white culture"). But as proof that urgency is a value of white culture, Okun cites a non-sequitur story about how some lawyers at a legal nonprofit got distracted from a anti-racist workshop to address an activist's arrest. The conceit on display here is jaw dropping, Okun is literally complaining about an emergency interrupting* her own anti-racist workshop*:

And when we as facilitators tried to say: Can we take a pause, and just sit down together and figure out what we're going to do in a way that meets this dynamic that we've just been talking about? The answer was: No, we don't have time, we can't possibly do that, we don't have time, no, no, no.

So in the middle of a workshop meant to help and support them to deal with the ways in which their culture was perpetuating racism, they were unable to stop. And that's what I mean by There's just the sense that things are so urgent, we can't possibly pause for anything. So we lose the ability to pause for anything. And people get run over in that situation. And it just keeps things in place.

I don't know if I'm stating the obvious here, but nothing about this tells us that "urgency" is bad per se, let alone how any of it is a value of "white culture" specifically. It seems at least possible that the activist's arrest was more important than her training, even from the narrow perspective of "perpetuating racism", but Okun appears incapable of entertaining that idea.

Ryan Grim is not someone I would have recognized as wary of critiquing leftist shibboleths, but I have no explanation for the uncharacteristic lack of pushback he displayed throughout the interview with Tema Okun. If anyone was looking for evidence that the DEI industry is and has been a sham with self-perpetuation as its primary measure of success, Okun's own words are the rotary excavator digging its hole.

Let's start at the beginning. I previously tried to track down The List's origin but gave up after I only found xeroxed pamphlets. Turns out that Okun wrote The List in a fit of frustration, without any research whatsoever

Wait, I'm not going to listen to the damn podcast episode but isn't this part pretty straightforward? The Smithsonian's infographic helpfully reports its origins:

Image: © NMAAHC, All Rights Reserved. Download PDF. Data Source: "Some Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States", by Judith H. Katz, ©1990. The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

They co-occur in other contexts, like this memo on White Culture on seattle.gov website:

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, 2007. p. 234. Barbara Major – Chapter 7 - How does White Privilege Show Up in Foundation and Community Initiatives?, from Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building.

Here's Katz's original, and as one can easily see it is essentially cited verbatim in the infographic. I don't know what Okun's contribution even is.

Katz is, in my opinion, making very fair and logical arguments for the case that white culture provides advantages to her fellow writes:

When the participants finally were able to move through the layers of denial, avoidance, shame, and confusion, they began to generate in their groups a fairly consistent listing of dimensions that characterize White Culture in the United States. While it was clearly understood that not all whites believe in the same set of assumptions and values, it was also clear that White Culture forms the underpinnings of what many whites believe is “appropriate” behavior in many organizations. White Culture I the lens through which many white people view, evaluate and judge themselves and others regarding what is “professional” and “normal” behavior in many contexts.

These assumptions, as stated above, get baked into the policies, practices, and norms or our organizations. When that occurs it puts whites at advantage – cultural advantage – and all other groups at a disadvantage. It creates “Affirmative Action for Whites,” i.e., a playing field that is slanted to our advantage.

If our organizations are going to be fair for all so we can leverage the diversity of the workforce, we as whites must expose the positive cultural bias that organizations have for us to the light of day. We must make it visible and acknowledged and known. We must ensure that white cultural aspects are utilized when they are appropriate and add value for the benefit of all. And we also must ensure that they are not utilized when they prevent some groups from making their full added-value contribution.

Indeed! In a culture where adherence to rigid time schedules, hard work, protecting property, self-reliance, objective rational linear thinking etc. are not only less valorized but held to be cringe and fascist, would whites have any advantage? I suspect that they'd still have some. But elevate a few equally important dimensions for which White culture couldn't even develop nuanced enough concepts – e.g. sassiness, swag, chutzpah, assabiyah, ghayrah, cha bu duo, jugaad, shikata ga nai, ponyatiya – and you'll see them first fall behind, then run away in shame to their ancestral homelands.

Whites have to make an explicit argument as to why rules prioritizing their culture are better for everyone.

Please explain how the remnant culture left over at that point avoids being outcompeted, crushed, and enslaved by one that still values objective thinking and hard work. What, you just put the sassiest guys you can find in charge of military R&D and hope you maintain a technological edge based on chutzpah? Fill your logistical chain with guys who don't adhere to schedules but have a lot of swag?

My impression is that woke activitists assume that there is functionally infinite seedcorn and that they can complete the worldwide revolution before people begin (literally and metaphorically) starving and they themselves get eaten. That things like a healthy social fabric and functioning economy and strong military just spring out of the ground, or at least America's versions of those things are resilient enough to never fail.

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