From Uncle Tom To Auntie Racist
In my White Fragility and Coates of Arms posts, I referenced what I call the “trilogy of tribulation”; the trio of texts that serve as the foundation of modern Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs across America. From Coca-Cola to Harvard University to the Department of Veterans Affairs, DEI guidelines strongly suggest and often mandate study of these books; these three oracles interpreting America’s original sin of racism.
Professor Ibram Kendi’s How To Be An Anti-Racist is the third leg of the triad, and the most cited amongst HR offices and college campuses around the country. Like White Fragility and Between World And Me; Mr. Kendi posits an America where white supremacy reigns…well, supreme. In this vision, life for black people is entirely dependent upon white people; African-American success or failure in every field of endeavor is solely a function of what white supremacy permits or denies.
Let’s start with the good news: Professor Kendi differs from his peers (Robin DiAngelo and Ta-Nehisi Coates) in two key respects. First off, he believes it is possible for a white person to not be racist. It’s telling that we have to give props to a contemporary author for allowing that some white people may not be the moral equivalent of hooded cross-burners, but these days we’ll take what we can get.
To be sure, Professor Kendi still crafts a binary model, a framework where you are either part of the solution (anti-racist) or part of the problem (racist). To avoid falling into the latter category, one must dedicate oneself to the principles of the former – helpfully made available by Mr. Kendi on Kindle for just $11.69. Still, it’s refreshing to see a DEI-championed writer like Kendi depart from DiAngelo and Coates, who both imply that calling a white person racist is redundant.
Which brings us to the second aspect of How To Be An Anti-Racist differs from rest of the DEI syllabus – Professor Kendi believes white supremacy can be solved. Where DiAngelo and Coates see American racism as eternal as the heavens, Kendi says we can reduce or even eliminate supremacy as a barrier holding back people of color around the land.
Of course, to eradicate something, we must first define and then measure it – and when it comes to racism, Professor Kendi has just the tool for the job.
His method?
- Assign every person into an identity group, principally based upon color
- Measure the proportion of each identity group in America’s population
- Anything that deviates from that proportion is ipso facto proof of racism
For example, African-Americans are 13% of the nation’s demographic – so ideally, blacks should be no less than 13% of the Fortune 500 CEOs; no more than 13% of the country’s prisoners and so forth. Every institution, process or standard should reach these numbers – if not, then they must adopt the principles of How To Be An Anti-Racist until the appropriate metric is achieved.
Professor Kendi’s polemic may be the most robust example of “correlation equals causation” to be found in political discourse today. In his view, racism is not just the primary driver of inequity, it is the only driver. Individual agency, cultural practices, economic constraints, educational outcomes or governmental mandates play no role in why outcomes for many groups often differ from the population as a whole.
To sustain this argument, Professor Kendi has to carefully circumscribe his analysis. As an example, he correctly notes the delta between black and white unemployment levels over the last 50 years, with African-Americans facing rates twice as high as Caucasians. But by setting the baseline at 1970, he is able to exclude the peculiar fact that prior to 1970, the black/white unemployment difference was near zero for decades. If we are to ascribe the current delta to racism, then how come such disparities did not exist in an era where Jim Crow was the literal law of the land? Could something besides racism yield this result?
To engage with these facts would confound How To Be An Anti-Racist’s mission; it would require exploration of other factors besides institutional racism to explain why all too many black people too often fall behind in contemporary America. And so Professor Kendi them simply ignores them as he charges towards his proposed solution.
Here, he is bracingly brazen: we must fight fire with fire. Racism got us into this mess, so we will use racism to get us out. We must move from equality of opportunity to equality of result. The former champions the individual regardless of group, the latter elevates the group over the individual.
Which brings us to equity, the exquisitely insidious term at the core of How To Be An Anti-Racist’s proposal. Under equity, race will be the first, last and final determinate of every institution. Don’t have the right mix of faces in your workforce? Then you must hire, fire, and promote by race. SATs, MCATs and bar exams produce unequal outcomes? Eliminate the tests. Too many Asian-Americans in your university? Emphasize subjective leadership criteria over objective academic standards.
And so on. Under no circumstances are we to ascertain if other challenges contribute to inequity. Disdain for education as “white”, a 70% fatherless household rate, or multi-generational dependency on public assistance are not to enter into the calculus, save perhaps as further examples of racism. Even when such phenomena are replicated in poor white communities - with similar results - we are not to examine any underlying issues.
No – it’s racism all the way down. And so equity via identity becomes How To Be An Anti-Racist’s fundamental principle. We must orient our entire civilization torwards race until all the groups are perfectly balanced in every walk of life. What happens to individual people along the way is irrelevant.
Professor Kendi recognizes this would be a problem legally, since under our body of law, each human has certain rights that must not be abrogated, regardless of identity. While honored all too often in the breach, this principle is nevertheless a priceless gift from our past, earned at tremendous cost.
But alas, that would get in the way of race-based equity, and so Professor Kendi proposes a constitutional amendment and the creation of a Department of Anti-Racism (DOA), using the power of government to ensure that individual rights are subordinated to those of the groups. And since it is mathematically impossible for every institution to represent every group in perfect proportion, DOA's mission will never end.
He pulls no punches when he says:
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.”
There was something about this quote that was oddly familiar, a syncopation that resonated with me.
Then I got it:
Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. (George Wallace)
Sadly, that is where Professor Kendi would lead us – right back where we started. By making race the preeminent determinant of who gets what in our society, we are returning to the worst practices of apartheid. Professor Kendi argues that this time it will be better, because now we're doing racism the right way - against the omnipotent white supremacists responsible for all our ills. The sentiment brings to mind Western intellectuals who refuse to learn from the horror of Stalin and Mao, the gulags and the purges; convinced that communism will surely work if we just put the right people in charge. Mr. Kendi's argument is cut from the same cloth - a rejection of centuries of tragic lessons from around the world, lessons we should have learned from whenever we make what we are more important that who we are.
The problem remains: the current status of impoverished African Americans (and their white peers) is unacceptable. From education to lifespan to healthcare, too many people are being left behind for us to tolerate the status quo. But if we are to truly resolve iniquities past and present, it's clear we’re going to have to look elsewhere.