Ibram Kendi’s entire platform is based on the argument that every single aspect of human affairs—every idea, policy or action—is either “racist” or “anti-racist” with no in between. Many of the same people who buy this also hold that not even gender falls on a binary so extreme.
When I heard him speak, I asked him this in the Q&A: if every significant discrepancy between “racial” groups is the result of racist policy, frankly how do we explain the powerful differences between “Asian” and “white” academic achievements? His answer was a complete dodge.
In Sanneh’s deep-dive New Yorker piece on D’Angelo and Kendi, he points out a really instructive example of how this is all going off the rails 1/newyorker.com/magazine/2019/…
There is a a rapper called Bang ‘em Smurf from Kendi’s neighborhood in Queens. He absolutely terrorized people, an extremely violent guy before making some music with 50 Cent and eventually being deported to the West Indies 2/
Kendi says now he understands that his *own* highly understandable fear of Bang ‘em Smurf was actually, he understands now, just internalized anti-black racism. And he implies Smurf wasn’t responsible even for his own actions. 4/
(Sorry previous tweet was 3). But Sanneh tracks down a quote from Smurf where Smurf insists that he WAS absolutely responsible for his own actions and it that these actions were a result of the culture he grew up in, which was problematic. /4 
By Kendi’a racist/anti-racist logic Bang ‘em Smurf is a “racist” for wishing to repent for his own criminal behavior and assuming responsiblity for his own actions. /fin
(Excuse typos, typing while trying to get toddler to sleep)
