Ibram Kendi wrote an op-ed piece about Trump's racism that is of a piece with his book. To me, it's a fascinating example of the difference between the Academy and the rest of the world, when it comes to discussing racism. For instance, Kendi excoriates Dick Durbin, when Durbin said that Trump's racism was unprecedented. Kendi is right on the facts. Trump's racism is hardly unique in the Oval Office.
But that wasn't the point Durbin was trying to make. Durbin was making a political argument designed to delegitimize both Trump's statement and Trump's presidency. Durbin wants to redefine what we expect from our president, especially Trump.
Kendi goes on to make a point that, again, is probably correct but also not practically helpful. Look at this quote near the end:
Racist is not a fixed category like “not racist,” which is steeped denial. Only racists say they are not racist. Only the racist lives by the heartbeat of denial.
How do you proceed from there? His next line say that the proper course is to accept and confess to America's and our own racist past. I teach US History with race at the very center of everything. I can confess to feeling racial animus while living in LA, having been mugged, having my car broken into and ransacked duringe the King Riots. I've worked to get over it, but I confess I felt it.
I could say that I'm not the problem, but then I'm just participating in the denial the Kendi condemns. I find myself agreeing with Kendi's point that we must confront the racist history of this country, but wondering how to get there, if we start calling people racist. Even or especially those who are racist.
You can't dislodge racist ideas by calling someone racist. That effectively ends the conversation. Kendi's formulation that denying you're racist makes you racist...where do you go from there?
Race as a social construct as opposed to a biological reality is a good place to start, I think. Once you move beyond the idea that race is somehow genetic - aside from the melanin content of someone's skin - you can begin to strip away the cultural preconceptions that are built on the idea of race-based biology.
Kendi's book is of a piece with other contemporary writers on race who see so much left undone. There is a natural hunger to end racism immediately. Ironically, Kendi's own book is about the centuries long evolution of the idea of race and racism. Nothing happens quickly. WEB DoBois harbored racist ideas ("the Talented Tenth") himself in his youth.
It's bleak. It's hopeless. It's impossible.
You can't engage social change by labelling and judging, at least not out loud. If Kendi believes that the "real problem" is white liberals who aren't quite committed to the pace and depth of change he suggests (without really explaining who to effect that change), then he shuts the door to natural allies. Leonard Pitts makes the case that Democrats need to do more for black voters. But he does so acknowledging the context of the current GOP. He, too, however confuses Doug Jones' rhetoric about bipartisanship as a sellout of black voters. Jones is saying that, because that is what politicians say. Judge Jones by his votes. Not the votes he won't be able to make, say, on a new Voting Rights Act, or Criminal Justice Reform. Judge him on the votes he takes.
You can take the position that America remains hopelessly racist. That the progress some point to since the end of slavery or Jim Crow is illusory. But if you do that, what is the agenda of change? Why bother to tweak marijuana sentencing laws if the whole system is hopelessly corrupt? Why fight one voter ID law, when gerrymandering still exists?
How do you build a movement out of despair?
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