> Then why call them white at all? Is his a cultural, or a racial definition? Do you believe the two can be separated?
White is a cultural definition in the US which used to be legally defined and still carries cultural implications. It is intrinsically tied to race because race is also culturally defined. The US's "one drop" rule defined people's race as Black even if the vast majority of their ancestry was "White European".
As an analogy, consider the names we give various colors. We can tell that light blue and dark blue are different colors, but in English we will default to calling them both 'Blue'. In Russian, you cannot call those two the same color. There is a continuous gradient of colors, and we divide those colors into different named categories due to culture.
Culture determines racial boundaries as well, since there are no clear genetic/cultural dividing lines between the "races". Slavs used to be excluded from Whiteness in the US because they were considered "Asiatic", but now we consider Slavs "White".
So to answer your questions, "White" is a cultural concept which is used to define racial boundaries in the US.
> it's not clear that this has anything to do with the scientific method itself being a "white value."
The scientific method is not a "white value", but whiteness values scientific data over interpersonal opinions. One example would be: "IQ tests show that Black people are dumber than White people, and that explains why there is an income gap". You would be elevating scientific data over personal narratives of schooling and job discrimination.
I'm not saying that science is bad, what I'm saying is that science is a combination of technical and cultural aspects. The bullet point is referencing the cultural motivations and impacts of science more than the technical aspects.
>White is a cultural definition in the US which used to be legally defined and still carries cultural implications.
Right, but this was a bad time. We should be moving on from this. The infographic apparently does the opposite: reinvigorates, and then accidentally claims that white traits are mostly superior. I know you're going to claim that there are not value judgements in the info graphic, but the opposite of hard work, individualism, and the scientific method are in fact bad things. (And, even if you're non-white, the Greco-Roman heritage is in fact a large part of how the American system of government came to be.
I'm trying to be constructive because we're on hn, but I have to say I'm absolutely disgusted by the modern tendency to reduce everything to race. The color of someone's skin is not important, and people of the same skin color don't all share the same values. More importantly, racial groups cannot "own" values such as hard work, and formal logic.
"White" is not a cultural concept. People on the new left are trying to make it a cultural concept, and it's backwards and racist.
> We should be moving on from this. … I'm absolutely disgusted by the modern tendency to reduce everything to race. The color of someone's skin is not important … "White" is not a cultural concept.
You can't discuss racism without discussing race and skin color. I'm trying to think of why you wouldn't think talking about race would be helpful, and this is what I came up with: race isn't a problem in modern America; discussing race causes racism; or examining race & racism creates racial differences.
> but the opposite of hard work, individualism, and the scientific method are in fact bad things.
These are good traits, but their "opposites" aren't inherently bad.
- Hard work is the key to success; "work smarter not harder"
- The individual is the primary unit; cooperation and mutual assistance.
- Scientific Method: "Quantitative Emphasis"; qualitative readings of personal narratives such as interviews.
> accidentally claims that white traits are mostly superior
This is addressed in the webpage, and is the entire point of the graphic. "Racism is perpetuated by deeming whiteness as superior and other racial and ethnic groups as inferior. … [The superior traits] describes the experience and attitudes of those who are members of the dominant, privileged, or powerful identity groups."
The infographic is asking you to examine why you think these traits are superior. That doesn't mean they're inferior, but they aren't the best in every situation either.
It tells us that the distinctive characteristics of “whiteness” and “white culture” include:
Hard work
“Delayed gratification”
Planning for the future
The “nuclear family”
Rational thinking
Promptness
Politeness
“Decision-making”
Personal responsibility
Speaking standard English
It's a racist document, and its supporters, no matter how well intending, are racist.
> White is a cultural definition in the US which used to be legally defined and still carries cultural implications.
I guess where some non-Americans feel concerned about this, is the tendency to export US discourses about race to the rest of the English-speaking world (and even the world more broadly), despite the fact that other countries have different histories and cultures and understanding of what the words mean.
The Australian Human Rights Commission recommends analysing racial and cultural diversity in Australia in terms of four broad categories [1] – Indigenous, Anglo-Celtic, European, and non-European. ("European" is defined to exclude Anglo-Celtic people.) Slightly reminiscent of the American "one drop rule", people of mixed backgrounds are assigned to the more diverse background. By contrast, the US has an official classification of people into five different races [2].
Australia does have a rather horrible history of racial discrimination – for example, the "White Australia Policy" which for decades banned non-European immigration. However, I think the way Australian officialdom (governments, academics, etc) have tried to deal with that, is to avoid using racial categories like "white", and focus primarily on culture and multiculturalism. They are happy to talk about different ancestries/nationalities/cultures (Italian, Chinese, Indian, Lebanese, etc), but grouping them into racial categories is avoided in official contexts, although it still sometimes happens in less formal contexts. (Journalists sometimes talk about "Asian Australians" or "African Australians", but the government prefers to talk about Chinese and Filipinos and Sudanese and Eritreans.) When it is necessary, they'll split them into not explicitly racial groupings like Indigenous/Anglo-Celtic/European/non-European. That splits two groups of people both considered "white" in the US (Anglo-Celtic and European), while lumping together as non-European both some people officially considered "white" in the US (e.g. Lebanese people), and also multiple non-"white" races (Asian, African, Pacific Islander).
I think Australia's ways of dealing with its history are at times quite different from those of Americans, precisely because their histories are in many ways quite different. But I think many Americans unconsciously assume that understandings of race and culture that make sense in a US context must make sense for the rest of the world as well.
White is a cultural definition in the US which used to be legally defined and still carries cultural implications. It is intrinsically tied to race because race is also culturally defined. The US's "one drop" rule defined people's race as Black even if the vast majority of their ancestry was "White European".
As an analogy, consider the names we give various colors. We can tell that light blue and dark blue are different colors, but in English we will default to calling them both 'Blue'. In Russian, you cannot call those two the same color. There is a continuous gradient of colors, and we divide those colors into different named categories due to culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term#Basic_color_terms
Culture determines racial boundaries as well, since there are no clear genetic/cultural dividing lines between the "races". Slavs used to be excluded from Whiteness in the US because they were considered "Asiatic", but now we consider Slavs "White".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_th...
So to answer your questions, "White" is a cultural concept which is used to define racial boundaries in the US.
> it's not clear that this has anything to do with the scientific method itself being a "white value."
The scientific method is not a "white value", but whiteness values scientific data over interpersonal opinions. One example would be: "IQ tests show that Black people are dumber than White people, and that explains why there is an income gap". You would be elevating scientific data over personal narratives of schooling and job discrimination.
I'm not saying that science is bad, what I'm saying is that science is a combination of technical and cultural aspects. The bullet point is referencing the cultural motivations and impacts of science more than the technical aspects.