African American Museum site removes
‘whiteness’ chart after criticism from Trump Jr. and conservative media
By
July 17, 2020 at 2:30 p.m. CDT
The National Museum of African American
History and Culture removed a graphic that attempted to
describe “aspects and assumptions about white culture” from its website
Thursday after criticism from conservatives that it was
racist.
The
graphic, found in the “Whiteness” section of the Smithsonian museum’s “Talking About
Race” portal, described 14 categories of “white dominant
culture, or whiteness,” including history, religion, family structure and
justice. Hard work, self-reliance, respect of authority and “the nuclear family
— father, mother, 2.3 children is the ideal social unit” were listed as
attributes of white culture. The chart also included the phrases “win at all
costs,” “woman’s beauty based on blonde, thin — ‘Barbie’ ” and “heavy value on
ownership of goods, space and property.”
Criticism
of the graphic took off this week. On social media, conservative author Ben
Shapiro described the chart as crazy and evil and said it “suggests all
pathways to success — hard work, stable family structure, individual
decision-making — represent complicity in white supremacy.” President Trump’s
son Donald Trump Jr. tweeted the graphic on Wednesday and tied to it the
presidential campaign, writing, “These aren’t ‘white’ values. They’re American
values that built the world’s greatest civilization. They help you succeed
here, no matter your color. So make no mistake, Biden’s radicals aren’t coming
for ‘whites,’ they’re coming for the entire American way of life.”
Donald Trump Jr., at a Michigan
rally in 2019, was one of the conservatives who criticized the graphic on
social media this week. (Paul Sancya/AP)
Museum officials
apologized and removed the material, which had been online since May 31, saying
it did not contribute to the discussion as planned, interim director Spencer
Crew said Friday.
“The
whole idea behind the portal is how do we give tools to people to have these
conversations that are vital to moving forward. This was one of those tools,”
Crew said. “We have found it’s not working in the way we intended. We erred in
including it.”
But
Crew said the chart is not racist. “We’re trying to talk about ideology, not
about people,” he said. “We are encouraging people to think about the world
they live in and how they navigate it. It’s important to talk about it to grow
and get better.”
The
website will continue to evolve, Crew said. “This comes out of almost a decade
of work,” he said. “We will make additions, and we will do things to make it
better. We listen to a variety of comments and take them into account.”
The
“Talking About Race” portal was created as the killing of George Floyd in
Minneapolis sparked protests and marches for racial justice across the nation.
It features exercises, role-playing activities, videos and links to scholarly
writing that explore eight areas: bias; race and racial identity; the
historical foundations of race; whiteness; being anti-racist; community
building; social identities and systems of oppression; and self-care.
The
chart came from a 1978 book, “White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-Racism Training”
by Judy H. Katz, according to the museum. It lists about 50 attributes white
people used to describe their culture. These attributes, it said, “have been
normalized over time and are now considered standard practices in the United
States. And since white people still hold most of the institutional power in
America, we all have internalized some aspects of white culture, including
people of color.”
