No ones going to read a book called How To Be An Antiracist because no one is going to be willing to look in the mirror. How do you think about policies where they would undoubtedly decrease racial inequality but the political backlash they could create might increase it by electing reactionary politicians? And therefore, what neighborhoods we consider to be criminal-like and dangerous becomes highly racialized. Kendi explores the recent idea of post-racialism and colorblindness, and explains how these damaging ideas came to a head with the election of Obama. Now, thats not to say some people are not doing the real hard analytical and empirical work he calls for.
I saw that thats what people were looking for, and I try to be responsive. He is Professor of History and International Relations All talks at the Media Lab, unless otherwise noted, are open to the public. 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. Stamped from the Beginning Summary. In the 1960s, lynchings by Klansmen began to give way to increased police brutality. At the same time, misinformation efforts proliferated the idea that Black people were more likely to live on welfare, more likely to commit crime, and more likely to deal drugs. employee learning, in a film or online course), submit a Media Request here: http://media-requests.TED.comFollow TED on Twitter: http://twitter.com/TEDTalksLike TED on Facebook: http://facebook.com/TEDSubscribe to our channel: http://youtube.com/TED And so how would you build that policy to eliminate the racial wealth gap? 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. The idea that, say, Philadelphias corrupt comes from the fact that Philadelphia doesnt vote for Republicans. I think you do believe, if Im not wrong, that a community that is pushed into poverty, that is denied health care, that is denied mental health care, thats denied good jobs is a community where youre going to see more crime and more acts of desperation. As always, my email is [emailprotected] Heres Ibram X. Kendi. 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 when the bill is making its way through Congress, we would do an assessment on the racial impact on each aspect of the bill. Youre going to struggle in so many different ways. I think thats whats also been striking to me, that you can have such prominent white supremacist thoughts dominating the Republican Party that even Donald Trump himself isnt necessarily driving. eNotes.com, Inc. But I think that if Joe Biden came out tomorrow and said, Im for open borders, the practical effect would not be open borders but would be Donald Trump is president again in 2025. And so even the success of the American Revolution, there was a time when that seemed politically impossible. So as somebody whos, in a weird way, become at the center of this, Im curious how you read it. Segregationists believe that racial groups should be divided because some are inherently superior to others. You have a couple of passages in How To Be An Antiracist, where you argue that people who want to change the world need to be incredibly rigorous about whether or not their language is working and that the right thing to do when you find yourself facing a growing backlash is to actually ask if youre addressing people correctly to keep them open-minded. Kendi argues that theres no such thing as being not racista person is either racist or actively antiracist. For these accomplishments and more, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.In this episode of Equity Talks, Sherice Torres, Googles Global Director of Inclusion, sits down with Dr. Kendi to discuss what it means to be an anti-racist. Its also important to engage the child about these topics, because theyre going to have questions and Id rather you answer those questions than a white supremacist lurking online. And I think on a policy thats going to have a mixed impact on racial disparities and inequities, thats when we, of course, have to make a decision. Note: When citing an online source, it is important to include all necessary dates. They even create a plan in which theyre going to track their success, and how theyre going to hold themselves accountable to being better and to growing and to making an impact. So let me just say one at a principle level and one at a policy level. And one of the things that is striking about it to me is it kind of hearkens back to something old. But then I feel like its often been tossed aside for symbolic antiracism. Like, what you are asking for here actually would require so much rigor, so much constant measuring of policies and uncertain questions that would people really do it, and would they be able to do it? 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. Copyright (c) 2023 The Nation Company LLC, By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and, agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support. Kendi offers so little sympathy for symbolism and signaling in the book. And I wondered how you thought about that scene. My big question about the book was, is this level of analysis possible? And he talks about thinking about the question of whether or not it is motivated by racist animus against him and against the change in power that he represents. But what it also speaks to is the current crisis, the crisis of COVID-19, or even the crisis of democracy, or even the crisis of Trumpism could potentially open the door for people to be willing to be daring or countervailing forces allowing particular elected officials to support something that in another time may not be sound politically. And an antiracist act is one that decreases racial inequality, whatever the underlying motivation. LitCharts Teacher Editions. EZRA KLEIN: And theres a move youre making here. freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ And so I could completely understand how that would not necessarily be that effective. Oftentimes theres this belief that if were open and honest about racism, it will automatically hurt us politically, and I just dont know whether thats necessarily always the case. And Id like to get you to talk a bit about it. So let me then ask always a final question here. Christopher Rufo, whos sort of the architect of this push, said youre a leading figure in the critical theory movement. Theres so many aspects of white American history that people have not learned. And I found that actually was not the case. The last date is today's 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 And that case was, well, lets just essentially focus on the intent and argue that the only policies that are racist are the policies that, quote, have racial language in them. And these, quote, race neutral policies are by definition not racist, even if they are creating more inequity and injustice. He ends this passage by saying, basically and Im paraphrasing whatever truths history might suggest about the motivations of these folks, I knew it wasnt going to help me politically to call anybody racist. If you dont, you are being racist. Well, I think there are also studies that show, to give an example, that when youth, urban youth, are provided jobs during the summer, that those urban youth are not only less likely to engage in violent crime but even the effect of that job lasts long after theyre not even in that job. But I think a type of training that, instead of being centered on the individual changing, comes in and really allows the individual to see the ways in which policies and practices internal to the company can be improved and changed, I suspect may have more of an ability to make a difference. They actually needed 51 or 52 or 53. He is a National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author of six books, including Stamped from the Beginning and How To Be An Antiracist. 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. First and foremost, I think with any definition, when were really serious about eliminating a social wrong, when were focused on outcomes for anything, were likely going to have more success. EZRA KLEIN: 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. [MUSIC PLAYING]. If there are two dates, the date of publication and appearance
Well, Ezra, Im happy you ask about that because there are policies that are pretty straightforward.
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Our focus should be on the outcome. EZRA KLEIN: I do want to push you on whether or not the trade-up is there. All these people picked up the book, and then the book is just a pretty aggressive attack on symbolic forms of antiracism.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson faced tough questioning during the Senate confirmation hearing on her nomination to the Supreme Court. Click here to log inor subscribe. But in a lot of these communities now, if you reduce police officers, I think there is reason to think crime will go up and that that will have a disparate impact on Black Americans. But there are examples in which we do it in other ways. 
Is that then just symbolic antiracism? And that then allows us as a community, as a multiracial community, or even within the Black community, if on the one hand its going to help, on the other hand, its going to hurt, to essentially make a decision. But many, many, many whove assembled under his flag are not. The Civil War erupted over the question of slavery, which split the nation in two. And I guess one of the things thats happened and I write about this in my work. This I think helps me get at this distinction that I think youre making, which is, so on the one hand, you want to be able in your work to say racist policy has created differences in communities, differences in the opportunities and securities people experience, and on the other hand, not allow an emphasis of those differences to become either another justification for seeing people as inferior or much more attached as a way of seeing humans, as opposed to a way of seeing policy outcomes? It dominates bestseller lists. And that part of how we rectify some of the societys imbalances is to ease those underlying conditions. 
But then I think for that understanding to come about as a result of, least for many people, the brutal murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor obviously was very difficult for me to deal with it. EZRA KLEIN: One of the things that I think that picks up on, which is very sharp, is I thought its very telling that the locus of this backlash has been about what we will teach children in schools.
And so Id like to hear from you, how you tell the difference between the two. There are a lot of folks publicly acknowledging their privilege and issuing statements of solidarity and claiming to be antiracist while doing very little to truly reduce racial inequality, doing very little of the analysis of action and speech that he demands. And people have responded really well.
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ibram x kendi ted talk summary