Kendi writes of our underlying and shared humanity beneath the construct of race. Yes and amen. Where do we find this common humanity? What is it? I invite Kendi to turn back to the church from which he has turned away. Instead of the construct of race, I hope Kendi discovers that he is stamped with the glorious, indestructible image of God, shared by us all. Whether we’re black, white, or any shade, we reflect God’s diverse and creative goodness and beauty.

In August 2020, GQ published “Preacher of the New Antiracist Gospel,” a lengthy, laudatory feature on Ibram X. Kendi. During that same month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey donated $10 million to Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, which Kendi founded only six weeks earlier.

At the same time, my local school district, to further its diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, selected Kendi as the author for our community to read. Ours was one of many such school districts and communities across the nation. Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia paid Kendi $20,000 for a one-hour virtual presentation in August.

Stunned by the appalling death of George Floyd, the nation has looked to Kendi—author, professor, and activist—to lead us and help us, maybe even to free us from our awful racial burden. In particular, many have turned to Kendi’s bestseller How to Be an Antiracist for guidance.

Right from the start of the book, Kendi is clear: at all times we’re being either “racist” or “antiracist.” There is no neutral or in-between terrain of “not racist” we can occupy. To not be actively antiracist is to be racist. For Kendi, being antiracist is akin to a religious quest: “I cannot disconnect my parents’ religious strivings to be Christian from my secular strivings to be an antiracist.”

Kendi deals with racism through addressing policy: “By policy, I mean written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines that govern people.” He aspires to eliminate what he describes as racist policies, replacing them with antiracist policies. As he explains: “A racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. An antiracist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups.”

The despicable, false, dehumanizing statements that have been said and written about black people have understandably left a mark on Kendi’s soul. From Kendi’s perspective, the acceptance of any reason for group disparities other than racism is due to a latent belief in these terrible lies. Sure, people may not say them aloud, but, even unconsciously, the belief lurks that “something is wrong with black people.”

But is it really true that racism is the only explanation for group disparities? Are group dynamics and social dynamics and cultural dynamics so simple? And do we really want to make the inherent dignity and equality of all humans inseparable from something as contingent and variable as group statistical outcomes? It’s bewildering that Kendi has written such a significant book devoted to an idea that can’t withstand scrutiny.

For example, Indian Americans have the highest median income among ethnic and racial groups. It’s not plausibly due to racism to their benefit. With respect to differences in educational attainment, research demonstrates that “if an African American or Latino student was a person of faith and came from a two-biological-parent family, the achievement gap totally disappeared, even when adjusting for socioeconomic status.”

My point in citing these examples, which could be multiplied many times over, isn’t to deny the existence of racism, but to point out the overt truth that group disparities aren’t only due to racism.

Sadly, even though he is the beneficiary of growing up in a loving two-parent home, Kendi characterizes concerns about the high percentage of single-parent homes and the absence of fathers as somehow demonizing black single mothers. Such characterization is exemplary of Kendi’s attribution of racially charged motivation without warrant. The cause of justice is damaged when accusations of racism are unjust.

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