White Culture
July 19, 2016 7:32 PM Subscribe
White Culture Worksheet (pdf)
Citations
Judith Katz – Some Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States, 1985 (pdf)
Tema Okun - White Supremacy Culture, 2001 (pdf)
Barbara Major – Chapter 7 - How does White Privilege Show Up in Foundation and Community Initiatives?, from Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building (pdf)
Joseph Barndt – Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century Challenge to White America, 2007. p. 234 (Amazon)
Robette Ann Dias - Transforming Institutional Values: Revisited, 2008 (pdf)
Citations
Judith Katz – Some Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States, 1985 (pdf)
Tema Okun - White Supremacy Culture, 2001 (pdf)
Barbara Major – Chapter 7 - How does White Privilege Show Up in Foundation and Community Initiatives?, from Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building (pdf)
Joseph Barndt – Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century Challenge to White America, 2007. p. 234 (Amazon)
Robette Ann Dias - Transforming Institutional Values: Revisited, 2008 (pdf)
This post was deleted for the following reason: Heya, it seems like there's some pretty interesting stuff behind this but I feel like with the really stripped-down pamphlet lead-in and not much context in the post this is gonna make for at best a kind of a rocky, disjointed thread on a somewhat challenging set of topics. Maybe reframe it around a more substantial above-the-fold look at the subject and give it another go? -- cortex
sorry the strokes are too broad.
the tema okun piece. there is so much that can be attributed to white supremacy culture. It's almost as if every institutional evil springs from it! quantification, reliance on the written word, external deadlines!
power hoarding! paternalism! progress is bigger, more! nope, that is not unique to white supremacy (see: countless organizations & cultures across the globe that have this problem that predate white colonialism for hundreds, if not thousands of years - egypt, the roman empire, feudal japan, the kahnates ). jeez!
I mean!
a lot of this stuff is clearly derived from experience malfunctioning organizations - and I'm sure white supremacy permeates them in the west and post colonial societies to their detriment!... - but these problems are not limited to people in white supremacy cultures, and I'm sure that not all of the problems derive from it!!
If all you have is a white supremacy hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I'm fully aware of the caveat that tema okun makes " Because we all live in a white supremacy culture, these characteristics show up in the attitudes and behaviors of all of us – people of color and white people. Therefore, these attitudes and behaviors can show up in any group or organization, whether it is white-led or predominantly white or people of color-led or predominantly people of color. "
posted by lalochezia at 8:04 PM on July 19, 2016 [6 favorites]
the tema okun piece. there is so much that can be attributed to white supremacy culture. It's almost as if every institutional evil springs from it! quantification, reliance on the written word, external deadlines!
power hoarding! paternalism! progress is bigger, more! nope, that is not unique to white supremacy (see: countless organizations & cultures across the globe that have this problem that predate white colonialism for hundreds, if not thousands of years - egypt, the roman empire, feudal japan, the kahnates ). jeez!
I mean!
a lot of this stuff is clearly derived from experience malfunctioning organizations - and I'm sure white supremacy permeates them in the west and post colonial societies to their detriment!... - but these problems are not limited to people in white supremacy cultures, and I'm sure that not all of the problems derive from it!!
If all you have is a white supremacy hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I'm fully aware of the caveat that tema okun makes " Because we all live in a white supremacy culture, these characteristics show up in the attitudes and behaviors of all of us – people of color and white people. Therefore, these attitudes and behaviors can show up in any group or organization, whether it is white-led or predominantly white or people of color-led or predominantly people of color. "
posted by lalochezia at 8:04 PM on July 19, 2016 [6 favorites]
I used to have to drum this in to Indigenous organisations in Australia who'd received federal government funding.
No, it doesn't matter that your elders agree another approach is better. No, it doesn't matter that this aligns with your culture and the protection of your country. No, we don't care that you make collective decisions that reflect complex inter-clan relationships. No, we don't care that you have complex reasons for wanting to adjust your funding priorities on the fly to reflect emerging local circumstances.
Make one person accountable. That one person fills in the KPI reports and accounts for every last cent. Do not deviate from the funded objective determined for you by government to align with national program objectives. We will decide who gets consulted, about what, when, in what terms, and how often. Everything must be done by 30 June. This is what is important to white bureaucrats and politicians, and if you want more money next year, then by white Jeebus you will do it this way and no other way.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:08 PM on July 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
No, it doesn't matter that your elders agree another approach is better. No, it doesn't matter that this aligns with your culture and the protection of your country. No, we don't care that you make collective decisions that reflect complex inter-clan relationships. No, we don't care that you have complex reasons for wanting to adjust your funding priorities on the fly to reflect emerging local circumstances.
Make one person accountable. That one person fills in the KPI reports and accounts for every last cent. Do not deviate from the funded objective determined for you by government to align with national program objectives. We will decide who gets consulted, about what, when, in what terms, and how often. Everything must be done by 30 June. This is what is important to white bureaucrats and politicians, and if you want more money next year, then by white Jeebus you will do it this way and no other way.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:08 PM on July 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
I feel like Rep. Steve King would agree with a lot of this.
posted by grobstein at 8:21 PM on July 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by grobstein at 8:21 PM on July 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Assigns a higher value to some ways of behaving than others" feels way too vague. Putting in my anthropologist hat for a moment, I could say that about pretty much any culture. The specifics below that make more sense. Still, this seems useful as a way of getting fish to describe the water they swim in, as we sometimes say.
posted by gusandrews at 8:27 PM on July 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by gusandrews at 8:27 PM on July 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
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