MicroGiants
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Community
  • About
  • Resources
  • Application
  • Small Business Stats
  • MicroGiant Independent Business Chapters
  • Resources LInks

National African American Museum Brands Success Characteristics As “Whiteness.”

7/16/2020

0 Comments

 
​Being on time is now a trait of whiteness? The Washington Examiner reported that the National African American Museum thinks many success characteristics are “white” traits. They also claim that other values such as individualism, objectivity and hard work, family and delayed gratification are “signs of whiteness”.  This is denigrating to all races to assume that these known positive values are the culture of whiteness. Tell that to the Nigerian immigrants who make more than white incomes in America[1]. Tell that to the Asians and Jews in America. They and all who want freedom, and to succeed in free enterprise world that these noble traits are “white.” Ambition is for all who choose it. The traits assumed to be “white” are for everyone who wants success.

Washington Post Article Here: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/african-american-history-museums-website-says-being-on-time-is-a-marker-of-whiteness
At MicroGiants we mentor young, budding entrepreneurs, of every skin shade; those who want to be successful should follow those who have been successful already. These include blacks like Herman Kane[2], Dr. Thomas Sowell[3], and Dr. Ben Carson[4], and all shades of skin in between black and white. The characteristics that help success are the ones listed below. Ben Carson worked hard to become one of the best surgeons in America, he put current desires after long term, delayed gratification. As a scientist, and HUD Secretary, he is objective.
The list of whiteness includes, “emphasis on the scientific method.[5]"


  • Rugged Individualism and self-reliance
  • Individuals are in control of their environment (and self) so get what they work for
  • The nuclear family
  • Children can have their own rooms
  • Judeo-Christian tradition
  • Objective, rational
  • Scientific method thinking
  • Hard work, before play
  • Be on time, plan for the future
  • Action oriented
  • Property rights

Apparently, anyone who believes in these basic values must “accept their white racial identity and privilege.” However, adopting these values that lead to success in life, is open to all, and is clearly not the exclusive domain of whites. Of course, the article points out that “even some non-whites have internalized the ‘aspects of white culture,’” read this as Uncle Tom.
In my three decades of research and hands-on work with “individual” business owners, I see that the most successful (yes that means financially and always includes community work, giving and strong employee support), have all the characteristics listed on the Whiteness Chart above. Oh yes, the ones that are supposed to be “whiteness.”

The truth is that these are basic values that lead to the kind of success that lifts people from poverty, allows free thinking (including the National African American Museum thinking), reduces human toil, and provides a basis for well-being. When the author labels human values as “white” are they saying that what we need is the opposite of these values.
What does that look like? The opposite of the whiteness characteristics:
  • Communal dependence
  • Individuals must subordinate to the group
  • The family does not matter (we know that this is the single most effective way to avoid poverty)
  • Pack all your kids into one room
  • Religion other than Judeo-Christian, (wait, aren’t we the most liberal in the world on religion?)
  • Emotional, non rational, mythical
  • Play before work (remember the ant versus the grasshopper?)
  • Don’t be on time, disrespect others’ time
  • Sloth- don’t act on issues, just let them go
  • There are no property rights. Dr. Sowell, points out that property rights start with our own bodies, and if we don’t own them, slavery is legitimized.

To point out the opposite indicates that this thinking is clearly what you would expect, irrational. We know that using the opposite list above will produce failure in any culture even a communist one. The Communist Party is happy to have its subjects adhere to these characteristics, but only those who have the “white”  values get ahead in the Party. Because even they would not achieve dominance over their subjects with these the opposite attitudes.

To take the universal success values and turn them into a “whiteness” diatribe, is disingenuous on its face. But in today’s political environment, it is simply another way to separate us by our skin tone. It flies in the face of Dr. Martin Luther King who identified the highest ethic possible “don’t judge us by the color of our skin, but  the content of our character.”

Dr. King was talking about a character made up of all the values the National Museum of African Americans seems to be discrediting! I am sure that Dr. King saw these as available to all blacks in America and were NOT only available to whites. They were not white constructs, but God’s constructs. Oops, (lost my head), that is a Judeo-Christian idea, so is a white thing too. Funny thing is that it is the Christian philosophy that eventually freed all slaves.

To list international life success values as white, as if they were bad or to be made fun of, is a huge disservice to anyone who wants to live with proven values. It is a way to discredit those attributes in a person that are good, and support humanity. The second list will destroy anyone’s life, except perhaps unless the state will take care of all of us (in the manor of their choosing: yes you WILL like it; as they do in Hong Kong). This brings one to the rational suggestion that perhaps the end goal is something other than lifting the individual up. But of course, the individual does not matter, and rationality is forbidden.

Mahatma Gandhi, said “Our ability to reach unity in diversity will the beauty and test of our civilization.” Calling anything, especially good things, by a race, “whiteness” blackness, redness or yellowness is divisive and ugly. The National Museum of African Americans has violated a hope for unity by assuming that any human value belongs to a race. Let’s talk of humanity and what is good for all of us. Trust in the National Museum of African Americans has been violated as well as the half billion tax dollars spent on it.


[1] Why Nigerians Are The Most Successful Immigrant Group in the US, Face 2 Face Africa https://face2faceafrica.com/article/why-nigerians-are-the-most-successful-immigrant-group-in-the-us

[2] Herman Kane was a Vice President of Pillsbury, CEO of Godfather’s Pizza,  a Federal Reserve Chairman, and candidate for the US Presidency in 2012.

[3] Dr. Thomas Sowell, is a renowned economist, professor at Cornell and UCLA, and Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford College.

[4] Dr. Ben Carson is a world known surgeon, and U.S. Department of HUD Secretary

[5] National Museum of African American History and Culture, https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/whiteness, see chart Whiteness and White Culture in the United States
0 Comments

    Author

    Ron Burgess

    Archives

    January 2022
    April 2021
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    June 2019

    Categories

    All
    Business Opinion
    Covid And PPP
    Restaurants
    Strategy
    Tools

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Community
  • About
  • Resources
  • Application
  • Small Business Stats
  • MicroGiant Independent Business Chapters
  • Resources LInks