Kendi talks a lot about how there's nothing wrong with black people or black culture and, therefore, there must be another explanation (i.e. racism) for their unequal wealth, education, etc. I completely agree with that. But how does that square with the oft-repeated claim that cultural traits such as punctuality or perfectionism are white supremacist values rejected by many blacks. How can both things be true? I'm going to speculate that Kendi and DiAngelo might explain the contradiction as follows: Yes, those traits reflect white supremacist values but that doesn't mean they're desirable, nor does it mean that black culture is wrong to reject them. Those are traits that serve the capitalist work ethic (extracting as much value as possible out of workers by extoling the virtues of workaholism). Blacks, with the historica memory of slavery, can see who these values benefit and are making an ethical rational choice not to buy into it.
Kendi talks a lot about how there's nothing wrong with black people or black culture and, therefore, there must be another explanation (i.e. racism) for their unequal wealth, education, etc. I completely agree with that. But how does that square with the oft-repeated claim that cultural traits such as punctuality or perfectionism are white supremacist values rejected by many blacks. How can both things be true? I'm going to speculate that Kendi and DiAngelo might explain the contradiction as follows: Yes, those traits reflect white supremacist values but that doesn't mean they're desirable, nor does it mean that black culture is wrong to reject them. Those are traits that serve the capitalist work ethic (extracting as much value as possible out of workers by extoling the virtues of workaholism). Blacks, with the historica memory of slavery, can see who these values benefit and are making an ethical rational choice not to buy into it.