• ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Nowhere in the document does it even come close to suggesting that hard work and being on time is a white people thing. You’re just being racist.

      • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        Just like OP’s article, this one is again missing the point trying to be made. I can see how the Smithsonian updated their page to try and clarify things.

        The graphic is saying the values of white anglo-saxon protestants have become the expected values everyone in the US should have.

        Valuing rational thought doesn’t mean white people are rational and black people aren’t. It means, in the US, an artistic person isn’t valued as much as an engineer. “Hard work is the key to success” doesn’t mean white people work hard and black people are lazy. It means, in the US, it’s thought that poor people are only poor because they didn’t work hard enough.

        The Smithsonian wasn’t saying these values are good or bad. It was saying these values dominate US culture and they come from the values of white anglo-saxon protestants.

        There’s nothing wrong with valuing art and work-life balance. In a place like France, that would be the norm. Again, history can be used to explain some of that. Around 1685, huge numbers of French protestants left the country, and took their values of “everyone should work hard all the time” with them.