I haven't read anything from him (except that one line, I assume, you quoted a few comments back), but now I'm interested. Can you cite the relevant parts?
Kendi argues that policy outcomes are central in measuring and effecting racial equity. He has said, "All along we've been trying to change people, when we really need to change policies." When speaking in November 2020 to the Alliance for Early Success, Kendi was asked if that even means abiding racist behavior and attitudes if it leads to winning an antiracist policy. Kendi answered with a definitive yes. "I want things to change for millions of people – millions of children – as opposed to trying to change one individual person."
Kendi provoked controversy when he tweeted about the relationship between Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump's third Supreme Court nominee, and two of her seven children, who had been adopted from an orphanage in Haiti. Kendi said:
Some White colonizers 'adopted' Black children. They 'civilized' these 'savage' children in the 'superior' ways of White people, while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity. And whether this is Barrett or not is not the point. It is a belief too many White people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can't be racist.
His remarks were interpreted as criticizing interracial adoption. A substantial backlash against Kendi ensued. He later said his comments were taken out of context and that he does not believe that white parents of black children are inherently racist.
I can't really say much about this. It's typical vague bullshit. Kendi projects everything onto white people. (This argument/rant that "white person does X and now they think racism is no more" or "white person does X and now white person is automatically a hypocrite" is typical in radical social justice texts. Here he hedges it with "too many" white people have this belief.)
That said, I don't see where they say that fuck poor Asians, or where they say that being black entitles someone to more social help/justice than being a poor Asian.
"That said, I don't see where they say that fuck poor Asians, or where they say that being black entitles someone to more social help/justice than being a poor Asian. "
It isn't just Asians, any racial minority that is "too" successful, like Jews, Indians, Asians, Persians, etc, would be hurt by Kendi's ideas because they are essentially just the same philosophy that is mocked in the story Harrison Bergeron. Kendi thinks any difference in outcome between racial groups proves racism and thus must be fixed.
For too long, Kendi told the audience, society’s understanding of racism has focused on the perpetrators rather than the victims. “We should be outcome-centered and victim-centered,” he said. “If a policy is leading to racial injustice, it doesn’t really matter if the policymaker intended for that policy to lead to racial injustice. If an idea is suggesting that white people are superior, it doesn’t really matter if the expressor of that idea intended for that idea to connote white superiority.”
If we train our focus on outcomes and victims, Kendi said, “intention will become irrelevant.”
The book presents 5 questions to settle the question of "Am I racist?"
__always giving primacy to the individual over the collective, or group;
__always embracing the concept of individual rights to help me judge problematic social interactions;
__never assessing quantities of stuff in gauging whether a policy is racist;
__always attempting to embrace the “color-blind rule” when making choices;
__always maintaining awareness of the distinctions between equity and equality; never compromizing equality of rights in order to bring about equity of stuff.
the central idea of antiracism seems to be that all racial groups are equal, and therefore, any inequality is proof of racism, and any policy that arguably contributed to that inequality is also racist. This too, does not make sense. If inequality is due to racism, how can we explain inequality within racial groups? Why do white people in one state make more money than in another state? Why do chlidren from two parent households generally do better academically than children from single parent households of the same race? Racism can't be the answer. And Kendi rarely offers any proof that racism is the primary source of inequality between groups, let alone the only source. The book also feels overly long and highly repetitive, with Kendi driving home the same handful of points/ideas over and over again.
His name is Ibram Rogers Kendi, and under this name he has published books that make his "anti-racism" a moderate view. He's switched to this X pseudonym to make readers forget what kind of extremist he had been.
