Are Hard Work and Persistence Really “White Things?”
6th September 2017
A few days ago, NRO reported that law professors Amy Wax and Larry Alexander started a firestorm by writing an opinion piece that extolled bourgeois values such as education, employment, hard work, marriage, and charity. Worse, the co-authors pointed out the fact that all cultures are not equally beneficial and constructive. Worst of all, they criticized “the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants.”
Inevitably, the two professors were accused of racism by some on the left. Apparently, things like valuing hard work, grit, and persistence is something only white folks do. Well. I wonder what minority football, basketball, and baseball players think of that. Would they agree that they got where they are by avoiding hard work? Would they agree that grit and persistence are “white” traits?
Two of the world’s greatest living economists, Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, happen to be black. Did they succeed by avoiding hard work and education? American physician and surgeon, Charles Richard Drew (also black), developed improved techniques for storing blood. Did he do that after dropping out of school?
Isn’t claiming that only white people care about things like learning, honesty, jobs, and kindness sort of, well, racist?