We now come to Part 7 of my look at Critical Race Theory, specifically my critique of the arguments in Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How to be an Antiracist. Although he is not technically a critical race theorist, it is safe to say that his book, indeed he entire outlook, is derived from the basic tenets of CRT. As I noted in my previous post, Kendi says that racism is a “marriage” of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequity. Simply put, Kendi says that any policy that results in inequity among racial groups is a racist policy. And any policy that results in equity among racial groups is an antiracist policy. To be clear, “equity” essentially means equal outcomes, not equal opportunity. Therefore, if you want to be an antiracist, you need to work for and support government policies that ensure racial equity, be it resources, wealth, hiring practices, everything.
What that tells me is that Kendi wants the government to establish policies and laws that redistribute wealth and resources evenly among racial groups, essentially create “race quotas” when it comes to everything in society, and discipline any policy makers who put forth racist polices or have racist ideas—“racist” being defined any anything that results in inequity. Basically, he wants racial group identity to be the determining factor in terms of hiring, pay, policing, everything. To be an antiracist, you must fight, not for equal opportunity, but for racial equity.
Now, if you think that kind of practice of determining outcomes based on race seems, well, rather discriminatory, Kendi actually agrees with you—it is! Nevertheless, he says it is necessary: “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination” (19). In fact, he says that the most threatening racist movement in America today is the drive for a “race-neutral” society. Again, if that logic seems confusing, dare I say Orwellian double-speak, welcome to my critique of Kendi’s book.
Since the issue of racism and CRT is so triggering and controversial these days, though, let me be very clear on two points: (1) I’m not denying there are still racial problems in America that need to be addressed—there clearly are. (2) I’m just saying that Kendi’s analysis of those problems is ultimately dishonest, or at the very least juvenile, and his proposed solution is simply Orwellian and totalitarian. There really is no two ways about it. With that, let’s look at the specifics of Kendi’s book.
History Lessons
If you want to learn about the clearly racist actions and attitudes of past slave traders, slave owners, and eugenicists, Kendi’s book will give you an education. I didn’t do the strict calculations, but I’d have to say that a good 85-90% of Kendi’s references, quotations, and stories about racism come from about 1450-1920. Turn to virtually any page and write down the dates you see, and you’ll get 1631, 1696, 1723, 1861, 1902 (that was on about two pages alone). Now, all of those quotes and stories are completely true and really troubling, but the fact is that we’re not living in the 18th-19th centuries anymore. Therefore, Kendi’s constant references to past attitudes and policies from centuries ago simply do not prove that the American government today has racist polices.
Capitalism BAD, and Communism Needs to Consider Race More
Now, the reason why Kendi gives that history lesson is actually pretty clear. He wants to argue that capitalism and racism are two sides of the same coin, or as he puts, “conjoined twins.” He basically argues that because slave traders made a profit selling slaves, that means capitalism itself, for all time, is racist. Capitalism, Kendi says, “allows the ruling races and classes to keep on ruling” (55) and continue to oppress people. In fact, Kendi says, “To love capitalism is to end up loving racism. And to love racism is to end up loving capitalism” (163).
Kendi also claims that defenders of capitalism define capitalism, among other things, as “the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin…to ‘assassinate’ unions…to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and environments” (161). It might just be me, but that doesn’t strike me as the way people who believe in free markets define capitalism. It sounds very much the way a Marxist/Communist defines capitalism. And speaking of socialism and communism, Kendi does give a critique of them. Simply put, he says the problem with them is that they don’t take race into consideration as much as they should, and he quotes Karl Marx and hails him as being one of the first people who recognized the “conjoined twins” of capitalism and racism.
I think it is pretty telling that Kendi’s “criticism” of communism isn’t that it is responsible for millions upon millions of deaths, but that it doesn’t factor in racism as much as it should. And no, I’m obviously not suggesting Kendi wants to kill anyone. I’m saying he is willfully blind to communism’s evils, though.
Black Bodies…and a Hodge Podge of Random Grievances
It is hard to adequately cover everything in Kendi’s book because aside from his repeated emphasis on racial equity and how capitalism is racist, throughout most of his book he simply jumps from one complex issue to another, but with little or no critical thinking regarding the complexity of the issues. If I can put it this way, the book comes across as full of emotional appeals and simplistic and reductionist thinking about historically complex issues—like a term paper by a kid with self-righteous zeal but rather short on substance. So, allow me to run through a number of random things in Kendi’s book.
First, I found it strange that throughout the entirety of the book, Kendi refers to black people as “black bodies.” He doesn’t do this occasionally, for example when talking about the dehumanizing slave trade, but rather throughout the book, whenever referring to black people. I don’t know what to make of it. Perhaps he is trying to give the impression that white people in general don’t view black people as full human beings? But that simply isn’t true. Furthermore, even though it is true that there are some white racists who might have that view, to impugn that view on all white people is quite the broad brush. Not only that, but it flatly contradicts his own point near the beginning of the book that we shouldn’t generalize the behavior of individuals onto the entirety of the racial group to which they belong. That, by the way, is absolutely true—we shouldn’t do that. That is why it is so odd to see Kendi turn around and do that very thing throughout his book.
Second, Kendi takes umbrage at how Americans, both white and black (including his parents, by the way), feel that the inner cities throughout America are dangerous and say that something must be done about the crime, poor schooling, and broken families. Kendi interprets that as saying “black culture” is inferior to “white culture,” and he objects to when white people (and black people like his parents) talk about the need to fix those neighborhoods. He sees that as white people trying to get black people to “assimilate” into their own racist European civilization. For that reason, he says that abolitionists were racists because when they spoke about the horrors of slavery and oppression of black people, they were saying that slavery and oppression had “degraded the behaviors” of black people. (I don’t know how to respond to the notion that abolitionists were racist).
Third, Kendi is not only against assimilation, though, he’s also against “racist segregation,” which he defines as the view that says since “black culture” is inferior, that white people shouldn’t let black people infect white culture. What he wants is “antiracist segregation,” where everyone agrees that “black culture” and “white culture” are equally valid, with neither one being better than the other. That way, “black bodies” can move away from white people and have their “spaces of survival.” Language like this lends me to assume that in Kendi’s ideal America, the federal government is all-powerful enough to forcibly equally distribute all wealth and resources to the various racial groups so that black people and white people could live separate from each other. As Kendi says, “Separation is not always segregation” (175)…except when it’s “antiracist segregation”?
This view dovetails into a number of other objections Kendi has. Attempts to expect black children to learn English/American Literature (Shakespeare, or Fitzgerald, for example) is racist because it is saying that the way to be “civilized” is to accept White European standards. Expecting black kids to reach certain academic standards is racist too. Why? Because standardized testing began in the 1800s-early 1900s hundreds by racist people. To be fair, though, Kendi makes a very valid point that part of the reason black children tend not to test as well is that there is a significant lack of funding in many traditionally black schools. Of course, I think a better solution to the problem of poor schooling isn’t to do away with standards, but rather to improve those schools.
Kendi also says that standards of beauty are racist, and objects to black people accepting “white standards” of beauty. In fact, he says that to be an antiracist, one must “eliminate any beauty standard based on skin and eye color, hair texture, facial and bodily features shared by groups” (113). I’m sorry, but I don’t care what anyone finds beautiful—people like what they like. And what does Kendi’s statement even mean? How is that possible? He criticizes Michael Jackson and Sammy Sosa for bleaching their skin, and white people for getting tans—I’m sorry, who cares? Who in their right mind thinks that is a major racial issue facing our country?
I’m not going to discuss Kendi’s two chapters regarding intersectionality, genderism, sexuality, gender racism, queer antiracism, and race-sexualities because, quite frankly, it made zero sense to me. I still don’t understand his contention that religious freedom and voter ID laws are taking away the rights of queer people.
A Few More Questionable Quotes
In addition to those things, Kendi makes a number of other statements that baffle me. At one point he says that “when racist whites see black people conducting themselves admirably in public, they see those blacks as extraordinary, meaning not like those ordinarily inferior black people” (204). Well, I’m a white guy, and I have never thought that ever in my life, and at no time in my life has any other white person leaned over to me and said, “Hey, look at that black family over there! They’re eating at a restaurant just like white people! That’s extraordinary!” Now, I’m not a psychologist, but given Kendi’s own person story that I covered in Post 6, statements like this one make me think he is simply projecting his own personal insecurities and sense of failure from his childhood onto white people.
And then there is this quote: “After winning the Civil War, racist Republicans…voted to establish the Freedmen’s Bureau, reconstruct the South, and extend civil rights and voting privileges to create a loyal Southern Republican base” (206). Am I missing something, or is Kendi saying that freeing the slaves, extending civil rights, and giving black people the right to vote…was racist? “Oh, but the Republicans knew freed slaves would vote for them!” Who cares? “That just shows their self-interest!” Again, who cares? “But that means they didn’t really care about the freed slaves because they just wanted votes!” Are you clairvoyant? Are you able to read the thoughts of these long dead Republicans who freed the slaves to know that the real reason they did all that wasn’t because they viewed black people as human beings with inalienable rights, but just they were a source of more votes?
Or how about this quote? “Racist power started civil-rights legislation out of self-interest” (207). I’m sorry, but such juvenile cynicism drips from every page. Of course, political self-interest was involved. Spineless politicians rarely do anything that doesn’t involve self-interest. That holds true for every bit of legislation, not just civil rights. But to dismiss the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, or the emancipation of the slaves after the Civil War, as “really racist” because they ended up having a positive impact on some of the politicians who got them done is just shockingly cynical, to say the least.
Quite frankly, such an attitude is reflected throughout the book. I don’t want to be mean, but How to be an Antiracist is not a well-argued book. Once you get a glimpse of Kendi’s personal story that he freely gives in his book, it is easier to understand why his arguments are so poorly argued and come across as petty complaints of a bitter underachiever. Despite the fact his parents worked hard, got ahead in life, and put him in good schools, Kendi, by his own admission, was never a good student and never really even tried to be. Nevertheless, he never really does blame himself. Instead, he blames everything and everyone else—his racist parents, his racist teachers, and all those racist policies that don’t equally distribute wealth.
And the solution he comes up with an antiracist amendment and a Department of Antiracism that uses power to force “unsympathetic policy makers” to institute antiracist policies, or else “drive them from power,” and to have the power to monitor everything to make sure that antiracist policies are enacted and that “new racist policies are prevented from being instituted.” He wants a totalitarian state to enforce equity and to redistribute wealth and resources evenly among all racial groups. I’m sorry, that is not a smart solution. Anyone who paid attention in school or knows anything about the 20th century knows this.
In any case, I am going to need a Part 8 to summarize my thoughts regarding what I’ve learned and come to conclude about CRT and the popular teachings of writers like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi.
