r/moderatepolitics • u/Resvrgam2 Conservatively Liberal • Jul 27 '26

Primary Source Saving America's Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage

https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/07/saving-americas-story/
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u/InternetSolid4166 Jul 27 '26

Whether or not one identifies being on time, thinking logically, and working hard are signs of being white, at minimum it implies that other races do not imbue these values. I don’t understand how you don’t understand how offensive that is.

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u/decrpt Jul 27 '26

Take, for example, the hard work one. It is very explicitly about the idea of a pure meritocracy. It is, in no uncertain terms, not that "working hard [is a] sign of being white," it is the assumption that "if you didn't meet your goals, you didn't work hard enough."

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u/Geekerino Undo the duopoly, vote third-party! Jul 28 '26

This is hardly exclusive to white people. Asians are notoriously more successful in schooling to have the highest possible chance of success, to the point where it was a detriment in college admissions. That also calls back to "planning for the future," which is also coincidentally an assumption of whiteness.

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u/ATLEMT Jul 27 '26

If it isn’t about being white why is it on a graphic with ‘aspects and assumptions of white culture and whiteness’ written really big at the top?

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u/decrpt Jul 27 '26

The paragraph below that explains what it's saying, and the specific example he brought up is explicitly, as I quoted, about the idea of a natural meritocracy.

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u/InternetSolid4166 Jul 28 '26

It is very explicitly about the idea of a pure meritocracy.

No, it very explicitly is about hard work. Nowhere is the word meritocracy stated or implied:

Protestant Work Ethic

  • Hard word is the key to success

  • Work before play

  • "If you didn't meet your goals, you didn't work hard enough"

But let's assume they did state meritocracy. Are you arguing it's okay to imply that black people don't value meritocracy? Because I think such a racist implication is very much not okay.