WebIn How to Be an Antiracist, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi presents a theory of antiracism, a system of ideas and policies that fight racial inequity.
And Kendi himself has become a symbol of the antiracist movement with a dizzying array of projects, from his new podcast, which I recommend, Be Antiracist, to his Center for Antiracist Research to picture books and childrens books, a newspaper that hes working on. EZRA KLEIN: So I think of revolutions as an answer for when politics has failed, has truly failed. And what was happening was that people were producing racist ideas to defend or justify racist policies that oftentimes benefited them. And were in the midst of this big anti-critical race theory backlash, which of all the things I thought might become the name for the backlash, I did not expect critical race theory to make the cut. So as somebody whos, in a weird way, become at the center of this, Im curious how you read it.
But if they figured out a way to appeal to Philadelphians or people who live in Detroit, all of a sudden that idea would dissolve and Detroit and Philadelphia would no longer be corrupt. Ibram X. Kendi, in full Ibram Xolani Kendi, original name Ibram Henry Rogers, (born August 13, 1982, Queens, New York, U.S.), American author, historian,
You have more police, more funding for police, theres less crime. But the DEI trainings or the trainings that even now identify as antiracism trainings, from my understanding, I suspect the vast majority of them are person-centered. And I wanted to really study the producers to understand, OK, are these ideas being produced and mass circulated or popularized out of ignorance and hate? On this one, he actually turns his critique inward to himself. And so what do you think of the big training investment, if its not really matched by other things, particularly if you dont really do the work on whether or not these trainings work?
Going back to an argument you made earlier, I think everything in our history should lead you to believe that we created what the sociologists call or the criminologists call criminogenic conditions in Black communities. But for whatever reason, it doesnt make as much sense for us to have an assessment, an analytical assessment, of that same tax bill to understand, is this going to grow or reduce the racial wealth gap, as an example, or is it going to create more income inequality, whether thats income inequality across racial groups or even between racial groups or even between genders. Its pretty obvious that the Affordable Care Act was going to reduce the gap in uninsurance rates between Black, brown, and white Americans.
And on the other hand, you actually do need an answer both for police violence and for the conditions that underlie it. But then the world changed. So its not as if the police arent extremely well funded. And so if that then raises racial inequality in crime victims, where does that end up under your framework?
But then theres the issue of politics, which I think theres actually more tension around in your book. online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. I mean, Im looking at a study here that found every incremental addition of 10 police officers abates about one homicide. And on the other hand, you cant ignore the bad effects of having heavily overpoliced communities. In all seriousness, I think, in that case, we really would have to think very deeply about, how do we convey and promote this policy in a way that is not going to then lead to this reactionary sort of response. And then I think what is also being recognized and I think this is what I argued and showed in How To Be An Antiracist, this is what Jonathan Metzl argued in his book called Dying of Whiteness, this is what Heather McGhee recently demonstrated in her new book, The Sum of Us, that structural racism has not just harmed people of color, its also harmed white people. Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Ibram X. Kendi, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-ibram-x-kendi.html. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. We dont have evidence that supports the rising levels of homicides over the last year has been because the police have been defunded.
Cultural racism is the idea that certain racial groups have inferior cultures. Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy.
eNotes.com, Inc. And I think the more white people learn about white American history and the ways in which certainly white people have benefited and been privileged as a result of the effects of racism, but also the ways in which they have not been, I think would allow people to really complicate themselves and their history in this country. EZRA KLEIN: So I want to, from here, map out some of the conversation I want us to have today, which is, I want to talk about the ways antiracism has been understood and misunderstood, used and misused as its gone out into the world, both by liberals and conservatives. And this was really the subject of our last conversation. by Ibram X. Kendi ; illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020 This book may be nominally for babies, but its audience is an adult one. Right.
At a political level, its one thing to pick your battles. And what I make of this whole fiasco I was surprised when I learned that I was the father of critical race theory, when critical race theory was born before I was born.
The first character in the book is Puritan minister Cotton Mather. }); TLFS: Its not your job to help white parents raise their kids, but are there questions that you can help people answer for themselves?
Scientific debates abounded during this period as to whether Blackness was caused by a curse or by climate; could Black people ever truly become white? And what happened is the Congressional Budget Office came out and they took their best guess, and they said they didnt think that would.
So Ive been using defunding the police as an example of at least a controversy over what the effects of a policy that looks like it is in service of racial equality but theres controversy over what its outcomes will be. Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more.
But typically, those policies were able to be instituted in the context of a crisis. They had to appeal to voters that in many cases they have written off right now, that you would see a change in the ideas they argued for.
Garrisons changing views about anti-racism are used to indicate the many difficulties the United States was experiencing at this time, not only in terms of how to deal with the Black Americans recently released from slavery, but also in terms of how to relate to poor whites in the south who felt they had been disenfranchised.
Its just become an industry.
And then we talk, of course, about the right-wing backlash to his ideas and the way the anti-critical race theory movement has used him as their central villain. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better.
How do you think about that?
IBRAM X. KENDI: Well, Ezra, Im happy you ask about that because there are policies that are pretty straightforward. S tamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi is a 2016 nonfiction book about the history of American racism, from the When it comes to race, Kendi argues that most Americans face what he calls dueling consciousness: Black Americans get stuck between assimilationism and antiracism, while white Americans often struggle to choose between segregationism and assimilationism. And then the other side of this question becomes, what is the cause of crime? He divides the book into five sections, each of which revolves around the life of a person who contributed significantly to the discourse around racespecifically regarding the dynamics between Black and White Americans.
Thank you very much.
But if its a policy that is, lets say, primarily making it harder for Black, brown, and indigenous people to vote, and its not as hard for white Americans, then we would know that thats a policy that the court should be striking down. In other words, they come into the company and train the individual so the individual can be better or be more aware or recognize even potentially their racist ideas.
How does this make the transition not into a bill that were just looking at but into the harsh trade-offs that we all face in everyday politics?
IBRAM X. KENDI: Well, what it means to be antiracist is to first recognize that we live in a society of racial inequities, from wealth to health to criminal justice to education, and to recognize that weve been taught that, lets say, Black people are disproportionately impoverished or incarcerated because theres something wrong with Black people behaviorally or culturally. So people believe that to change racist policies, you first have to change peoples racist ideas, that the policy is emergent out of individual belief systems. If there are two dates, the date of publication and appearance The second is the date of I think is such an important point. WebFind many great new & used options and get the best deals for How to Be an Antiracist Hardcover Ibram X. Kendi at the best online prices at eBay! So let me just say one at a principle level and one at a policy level. tn_ptype: 'article', Through the lens of Cotton Mathers life, Kendi describes how racist ideas that had been developed some centuries earlier in the Arabic world and in Europe were subsequently brought to America, where they proliferated, in large part through the colonial colleges. And so Id like to hear you talk a bit about what that might look like applied to questions of racial inequality. Jeffrey C. Stewart, in his review of How to Be an Antiracist for The New York Times, stated: Kendi is on a mission to push those of us who believe we are not racists to become something else: antiracists, who support ideas and policies affirming that the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences that there is nothing right Its pretty obvious that the Affordable Care Act was going to reduce the gap in uninsurance rates between Black, brown, and white Americans. But the DEI trainings or the trainings that even now identify as antiracism trainings, from my understanding, I suspect the vast majority of them are person-centered. And I think thats one of the challenges of creating a different type of world, because its certainly not going to be easy. Kendi defines racism as a system comprised of three main components: racial inequities; the racist policies that create these inequities; and the racist ideas that justify these policies. We dont have evidence that supports the rising levels of homicides over the last year has been because the police have been defunded.
We redlined them and we kept people out of education and out of good jobs and subjected them also to a lot of police violence, among other things. So to be able to have a really data-informed guess that this will cut child poverty in the white community by a third Im just throwing out a number this number of white children, and Black children, and Native children, and Latinx children, this is the potential impact could help to shape that larger discussion. Listen to the full, unedited conversation by subscribing to the Laura Flanders Show podcast at Lauraflanders.org.
Is theirs a successful marriage? Instant PDF downloads. So I take your point that there are spaces where if you dont fight, its never going to happen.
But still, some people decided that they were going to do the unthinkable. And people have responded really well. Fair enough.
Although the audience loved it, Kendi now understands how misguided he was: he blamed people for racial inequities that were really caused by policy. But then there are other bills in which, like you said, its mixed.
Kendi goes on to explain how people of color can be racist. And that part of how we rectify some of the societys imbalances is to ease those underlying conditions. It makes sense for so many people to have that in place. But it is the case, when we debate federal legislation, that there is this organization, and they make their best guess on what the fiscal impacts of bills are going to be.
And on the other hand, you actually do need an answer both for police violence and for the conditions that underlie it. And Ill give the example here of open borders, which is a policy that undoubtedly, like, you look at the economics, almost nothing we could possibly do would be better for reducing global inequality. In this vital conversation, he defines the transformative concept of antiracism to help us more clearly recognize, take responsibility for and reject prejudices in our public policies, workplaces and personal beliefs. So let me then ask always a final question here.
Racists dont make racist policies. tn_author: ['laura-f'], And Im just going to drive right to the heart of controversy here.
If we understand racism as a structure and if we understand racism at an individual level, you have a single racist policy, even idea, even an individual who is being racist, theyre reinforcing this larger structurejust as the anti-racist as an individual challenges that larger structure. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class., Requesting a new guide requires a free LitCharts account. By taking an antiracist approach, by creating more equity and justice for all, its actually going to help white people. Rather, it is a system of categorization that powerful people developed throughout history in order to divide and conquer other groups. And there are studies suggesting that when they do that, on the one hand, its good for Black incomes, good for Black employment because it gets the economy moving faster. Does she regret her decision? freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ Give this article. By signing up to receive emails, you agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation's journalism.
And he ends this passage and it was really interesting, and I asked him about it in our interview. What came as a surprise was the sudden focus on a picture book, Anti-Racist Baby, written by Ibram X. Kendi. 
I loved his previous book, Stamped From The Beginning, which I still think everyone should read, even if youve read, by the way, How To Be An Antiracist. But what struck me about How To Be An Antiracist was how intensely consequentialist Kendis views on racism had become. If theyre losing it now, well, the children are our future, and were going to try to win it there again. But to the extent it has traction, I think its because of what youre saying, that theyre making the argument, and I think plenty of white parents are open to this argument that you dont want your child told that theyre one of the bad guys and theyre growing up in a country that is fundamentally evil and rotten. EZRA KLEIN: The Ezra Klein Show is a production of New York Times Opinion. IBRAM X. KENDI: I think whats being described as critical race theory is any analysis, critical analysis, of race or racism in this country that does not position this country as post-racial, any attempt to hold people who are being racist accountable, any attempt to have a clear and complex multivariate approach to American history, whereby we actually document and talk about and teach about the history of racism in this country, and certainly attempts to create outcomes that are more equitable and just. Every Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation about something that matters, like todays episode with Ibram X. Kendi. IBRAM X. KENDI: I think first and foremost, when we think of the funding that U.S. police receive, I dont think many Americans know that, I think a recent study found, that the combined funding of the U.S. police forces is more than every other military in the world except the Chinese and the American military.
The Nothing Man Ending Explained,
South Dakota Outstanding Warrants,
Brennan High School Football Tickets,
Wonderland Place Iii By Drewlo Holdings London, On N6h 4y9,
Articles I
