Friends,
This was originally published by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. It seems like what began as a good idea but was taken too far. It has since been deleted from their website. Some comments follow:
Why is this problematic?
• Characterizing many values we all would wish for our children and our society as “White” suggests that Black people don’t hold these values
• Suggesting that if a Black person holds these values, that they are somehow complicit in perpetuating “White-ness”
• Suggesting to White people that these are values possessed by them, and not by Black people, fuels racist beliefs that Black people don’t share these values
• Some of these values sound pretty good to me; others are stated in a way that makes them more objectionable than I think they are.
None of this is helpful.
To be clear, the African American Museum of History and Culture is arguably one of the most important museums in Washington, D.C.—if not the most important. It is well worth at least several hours of a visit to the nation’s capital. It is brilliantly conceived and executed, hard hitting and profound.
I, for one, continue to urge people to keep practicing rational linear thinking, applying scientific method, respecting authority, planning for the future, delaying gratification, and being polite to each other.
CONSPIRACIES
This from a friend…
I nearly lost a dear friendship over a conspiracy theory. The friend’s wife thought that jet airplane contrails weren’t ice crystals but were really the government. spraying either drugs to pacify us OR pesticides so that GMO food can grow. I put her in touch with a brilliant professor at a noted university, running their environmental science program. I referred her to another friend, who flies jets for Delta. She never reached out to either of them and I haven’t seen her since. The low-IQ nutjobs who rely on primal instinct and emotion instead of fact-based science always have an explanation as to why they are right.
Now about that fake moon landing…
TURNABOUT IS FAIR PLAY
A friend pointed out that I was wrong to single out the President last Sunday for his referring to Black people as “the Blacks” without also noting Mr. Biden’s comment that “if you’re not for me, you ain’t Black.” Fair enough and so noted. Both comments were wrong.
Have a great day,
Glenn
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