Thread by @socialistdogmom

excited to hear my mayor talking about antiracism tonight

https://twitter.com/dribram/status/1176250221787004928

starting off this discussion about racism with an old white woman with a can i speak to your manager haircut loudly lecturing dr kendi about how his microphone is positioned wrong - just shouting it from the back of the room.

kendi talks about the important difference between “not racist” and “anti racist” being a primary motivator for writing his newest book.

kendi says the book contains a lot of personal narrative, including how formative his parents belief in liberation theology was - jesus was a revolutionary & revolutionaries liberate oppressed people. this is an explicit rejection of “civilizer theology,” he says.

where do people trying to survive in a racist culture fit in in the conversation about racism & antiracism, mayor walker asks kendi.
“there’s no such thing as a ‘not racist,’” he says. everyone of all races is either racist or anti racist.

if someone has racist ideas, they can’t see the source of policies that perpetuate racial inequality as the racism of the society in which they exist, kendi says.

it is essential not to center whiteness & white people when we talk about racism & antiracism, kendi says. he says his schema is victim & outcome centered. “we’re constantly thinking of white people” instead of the “victims of these policies and these ideas.”

“we’re just now figuring out how to have these difficult conversations,” mayor walker says about charlottesville’s recent reckoning with racial inequity. she’s worried kendi saying that nonwhite people are racist too will be seen as an escape route for white people.

kendi: “if we allow racist power and policy to continue to predominate,” that continues to harm people. we have to provide resources & opportunities to victims, focus on reducing inequity. “we’re too focused on feelings” of people who don’t want to acknowledge racism.

affected communities should always be at the table when policies that impact them are made. “we should not have a top down approach,” he says.

mayor walker talks about intentions. good intentions can sometimes be more of a hindrance than a help. kendi says someone’s good intentions are irrelevant to him. again, his framework is outcome-centered.

“people use that as a defense mechanism because they don’t want to confront the ways in which they are being racist,” kendi says of the “good intentions” argument.

kendi says assimilationism is racist just like exterminationism. believing that black people need to be “civilized” is just as racist at its core as believing that they must be removed.

there is a long history in america of well meaning “progressive” white people who believe black people need to be saved from themselves - from abolitionists who believed slavery turned black people into brutes to liberals who supported busing to get black kids white teachers.

it took a new york times/propublica article to even get the conversation started about the educational inequality here in charlottesville, mayor walker says

propublica.org/article/charlo…

kendi says dr king foresaw precisely what is happening now - the pervasive anti blackness of white liberals.

particularly in the context of schools, this is an ugly problem. much of standardized testing was designed by eugenicists to prove that black people are inferior.

kendi says what is fundamental about this struggle is power. “it’s always been a power struggle.”
he defines “racist power” as people in policy making positions who use that power to create & perpetuate racial inequity.

“every single person has power,” kendi says. “every single person has the power to resist. to resist those policies. to resist those policy makers.”
that is antiracist power.

and now audience questions. please do not embarrass us all, white ladies of charlottesville.

the first question asker says the definition of racism she’s familiar with is “prejudice plus power.” she asks if his definition excludes the power dynamic from the definition.

kendi says he doesn’t focus on words like “prejudice” or “bias” - those are the result of racist ideas & he’s focused on those ideas.
he also rejects the idea that black people don’t have power, which is at the crux of that power+prejudice definition.

“i used all the power i had, which was a lot, but it was exhausting,” mayor walker says. “i have been an advocate at the expense of myself.”
it’s not that she as a black woman has no power, but using it comes at great personal cost.

“it’s easy to be racist. because we live in a racist society, it is extremely hard to be antiracist,” says dr kendi. particularly for vulnerable people, resistance to racism comes in many forms & is often hidden.

the next question is about how to identify antiracist changes in policy. she gives a long explanation of an example of using “grit & persistence” as criteria in a program that helps identify marginalized people for a school program, which she identifies as problematic.

the program is aimed at helping marginalized people, but is it doing that in a way that addresses underlying problems?

“when a policy is trying to solve people, it’s racist. when a policy is trying to solve a structural inequity, it’s antiracist,” dr kendi says.

mayor walker says that the example the woman gave is absolutely racist. identifying students with “grit” is aimed at identifying oppressed people worth assimilating.

kendi: “they think that since they believe that black children can be educated, that they can be made whole, that the achievement gap could be closed,” that they are not perpetuating a racist idea. but those beliefs mean you think black people are currently inferior.

“what we have now is a massive hoarding of resources and wealth” that wealthy white people are using to “divide and conquer america,” kendi says.

kendi says white fear about black crime, middle eastern terrorists, and latinx immigrants have resulted in white men having more guns... which has caused a spike in white male suicides. these racists policies are hurting everyone, even white people.

“you have white people now who are worshipping confederate monuments,” monuments to a society ruled by a very small minority of slaveholders. he’s talking about how poor, working class, even middle class whites have historically been harmed by the racist policies of rich whites.

“native women would have as much wealth as white men, that’s the kind of equality we’re talking about,” kendi says.

to achieve that we have to talk about why white men have hoarded so much wealth & why native women have so little. “and it’s not because there’s something wrong with native women.”

the last question comes from a woman who says she’s found this conversation impossible “because white people do not see themselves as a racial group.”

“the heartbeat of racism is denial, it always has been,” says dr kendi. he says even the el paso shooter said in his manifesto before he murdered all those latinx people that he isn’t racist.

the problem in charlottesville is mostly white liberals & progressives who think that exempts them from accusations of racism. but if you’re not actively engaging in fighting racism, you’re perpetuating racism.

kendi: “there is a role for every single person. are we fulfilling our role is the fundamental question.” resistance comes in many forms but we all have to do something.

mayor walker says the most challenging thing is people who “think that we’re having the same conversation” and aren’t open to listening & learning.

she says it feels like the community is starting to move back toward the comfortable status quo and that people are looking at the ballot & wondering who can take them back to the status quo. “who can stop this conversation that is very uncomfortable for me?”

“they don’t want to be healed?” dr kendi asks. “pain is essential to healing.”

if i could editorialize here, i think until white people realize we, too, are harmed by racism in our community, there will be little willingness to do that painful healing.