(This op-ed was first published in CNN on August 18, 2020.)

Richard Thompson Ford

History & Culture in Washington, DC, in a surprising misstep, posted a document entitled “Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness and White Culture…” which purported to educate the viewer about how “White people and their traditions, and attitudes and ways of life have been normalized… and are now considered standard practice in the United States.”

According to the chart, which The Washington Post reported came from a 1978 book, the elements of White culture include, “rugged individualism,” the nuclear family, the scientific method, “rationalism,” the Protestant work ethic, conflict avoidance and the “written tradition.”

(Continue reading the op-ed on CNN’s page here.)

Richard Thompson Ford is the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. His books include “The Race Card: How bluffing about bias makes race relations worse” and the forthcoming “Dress Codes: How the laws of fashion made history.”