Racist policies have become so nonexistent in America today, antiracists like Ibram X. Kendi are forced to present disparities as the most damning evidence of discrimination today. But that isn’t damning evidence against racism, it’s damning evidence against antiracism. The abolitionists and civil rights leaders didn’t need calculators to present evidence of racial discrimination.
The most socially acceptable form of racism today isn’t white supremacy, it’s critical race theory. White supremacist books are not bestsellers, critical race theory books are.
Richard Spencer’s racist ideology did not shape widespread protests and riots this year, and it’s not influencing academia, businesses, churches, and culture—unlike Ibram X. Kendi’s racist ideology.
Only one of these racists has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, and it’s not Richard Spencer.
Ibram X. Kendi is a history professor and the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. But most notably, he’s the author of How to Be an Antiracist. Next to Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, How to Be an Antiracist is the bestselling critical race theory book over the last year.
The book is part-memoir, part-manifesto. The storytelling aspect of the book of is an intentional and crucial approach for Kendi. Critical race theorists use storytelling to demonstrate their standpoint epistemology, a theory meaning an oppressed person’s experiences give them expertise or special insight into ending injustice.
That is why throughout the book, Kendi defines varying forms of supposed racism and antiracism only after describing his experiences. By describing “his truth”, that gives him authority to define truth. Therefore chapter by chapter, Kendi describes and defines biological, ethnic, bodily, cultural, behavioural, class, gender, queer, and space racism.
If you’re wondering—no, space racism isn’t about racism against aliens. Though considering the absurd nature of critical race theory and antiracism, I can’t fault you for wondering about that.
Nevertheless, Kendi defines a racist as: “One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea.”
And he defines an antiracist as: “One who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea.”
So how do we know if we’re racists or antiracists under those definitions? How do we know if we’re supporting racism or antiracism? According to Kendi:
“racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities…racial inequities is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing…[and] a racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups.”
Therefore, Kendi says, “an antiracism policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups.”
In other words, racial disparities are always evidence of racism. Meaning, if you’re not actively advocating for policies that supposedly produce racial parity at your home, school, work, or church: you’re a racist. According to Kendi, if you’re not attempting to end racial disparities in every setting, you’re a racist.
Isn’t that interesting? Racist policies have become so nonexistent in America today, antiracists like Ibram X. Kendi are forced to present disparities as the most damning evidence of discrimination today. But that isn’t damning evidence against racism, it’s damning evidence against antiracism. The abolitionists and civil rights leaders didn’t need calculators to present evidence of racial discrimination.
Racist policies against black Americans are dead. Today, they’re just ghosts summoned by antiracists to scare black people—ghosts summoned to shame white people into submitting to their agenda.
And that agenda is unmistakably Marxist. In fact, according to How to Be an Antiracist, if you’re not a Marxist, you’re a racist.
Many people remain unaware or in-denial about the Marxist nature of critical race theory and social justice activism. But Kendi is explicitly clear antiracism is just a branch of a Marxist tree. He says:
“it is impossible to know racism without understanding its intersection with capitalism…capitalism and racism are conjoined twins…antiracist policies cannot eliminate class racism without anticapitalist policies…I keep using the term ‘anticapitalist’ as opposed to socialist or communist to include people who publicly or privately question or loathe capitalism but do not identify as socialist or communist.”
