Wokal Distance Profile picture
Sep 23, 2020 19 tweets 7 min read Read on X
1/
"No one ever becomes an Antiracist."

-Ibram Kendi, Author of: "How To Be An Antiracist," "Be Antiracist," and "Antiracist baby."

If you ever wanted proof that wokeness is a sham and it's academics are total frauds, there it is.

So, let's talk about Antiracism

A THREAD🧵
2/
Race in America is a difficult topic, and must be dealt with carefully, rigorously, and with an eye to helping people grow, learn, and heal. Americans of all races want to put an end to racism, and doing that means getting this stuff right.

It MATTERS.
3/
Antiracism is neither careful nor rigorous.

Look at Ibram Kendi: first he says people have the ability to be antiracist, then he says no one ever becomes antiracist.

How are regular people supposed to make sense of this as they try to understand difficult racial issues?
4/
This is not going to work, people aren't going to be able to move forward when they get contradictory messages like this. So let's have a closer look at this shall we?

Kendi starts with an old trick: he redefines racism. Kendi doesn't see racism as a matter prejudice...
5/
In his book "how To Be An Antiracist," Kendi says “One either endorses the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist or racial equality as an antiracist.”

The idea here is that racism is not a state of mind, or a matter of the heart, it isn't about prejudice or intent...
6/
Kendi thinks antiracism is anything that moves toward racial equality, racism is anything that moves away from racial equality.
It doesn't matter why the inequality occurred because intentions never enter into it. Anything that creates or allows racial inequality is racist.
7/
If it is not clear by now, Kendi judges all policies by whether or not they produce equal OUTCOMES.

So ANY policy that allows unequal racial outcomes to continue is racist. Again, it makes no difference WHY the outcomes are different.

Racial inequality = racism. Period
8/
Let's use an example:
If more Asians per capita get into law school but more blacks per capita get into Physics programs, and physics makes more money, that means there is income inequality between Asians and Blacks. Kendi would say this means racism is present...
9/
It doesn't matter WHY Asians prefer law or Blacks prefer Physics, or WHY physics pays better. What matters is that there is racial inequality and therefore that system is racist and anyone that supports that system is racist.
10/
This is a demand for equality of outcome. And Kendi's solution, pictured below, is to allow an agency of un-elected people to ban policies and ideas the agency decides is racist.

He wants to BAN IDEAS.

This is utterly authoritarian.
11/
And if you think Kendi is kidding, he is not. Kendi was recently hired by Boston University and given a 10 million dollar grant by @jack to start the BU center for Antiracist Research, but his ideas about Antiracism are already showing up, and it is not good.
12/
Here you can see Boston University ( @BU_Tweets ) has a statement of academic freedom. That statement says very clearly: academics have a right to teach and learn in an atmosphere of "unfettered free inquirey," and are granted "full freedom to engage in research."
13/
Normally, such a strong policy would be enough. However, the Boston Playwrights' Theatre, which offers programs as part of the BU English Department, has already adopted Antiracist policies which violate the Boston University policy on academic freedom...
14/
This policy is in CLEAR violation of the @BU_Tweets policy on academic freedom.
Forcing professors to adopt an "Antiracist lens," and demanding quotas for which texts are used is a violation of the right of to professors decide what they will teach, and how they will teach it
15/
Here, from the same policy (source: bu.edu/bpt/about-our-…) we see a requirement that professors make a land acknowledgement at performances. This is nothing less then compelled speech, and is a clear violation of the professors right to teach what he or she sees fit.
16/
So Kendi has Just been hired, and already the woke elements of Boston University are violating the policy of academic freedom at that university. Why? because inequality is racist, and if academic freedom allows inequality to persist, then academic freedom is racist.
17/
This is the problem with Kendi's ideas about Antiracism.
1. There's no nuance about WHY outcomes occur
2. There's no consideration for peoples' intentions
3. There's no consistency; Kendi can't even make up his mind about whether you can become antiracist or not.
18/
.@DrIbram created a theory that functions as a blunt instrument for creating equal outcomes. His theory lacks the nuance to avoid running roughshod over people's lives, but the theory demands we give Antiracists the right to make policy. This is a recipe for authoritarianism
19/
In light of this, we ought to avoid using woke theories of "antiracism." This is not because we are in favor of racism, it is because we need ideas that will help us get rid of racism in a way that doesn't run roughshod over people's rights.

We need liberalism.

/fin

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More from @wokal_distance

Dec 26
1/
Today's fight shows the coalition between tech and MAGA is uneasy.

MAGA sees HB-1 visas get abused in order to drive down wages and want to end the HB-1 visa.

Tech doesn't want to lose high level talent thinks HB-1 visa's are needed.

Here's how to thread this needle...🧵
2/
For starters, MAGA doesn't trust the government or corporations on immigration

They think open borders people will game the system by handing out HB-1 visa's like candy

This concern must be addressed. To do this, the government must:

A) stop the flood of illegal immigration
3/
B) Create a robust deportation policy, rigorpusly enforced, that deports illegal immigrants (including visa over-stayers, illegal border crossers, fraudsters.....all of them)

When this is done, and is working effectively, then you can address the concerns of tech people...
Read 15 tweets
Dec 20
1/
I think the left is about to have a civil war.

Left leaning institutions (universities, think tanks, NGO's, non-profits, consulting firms, and the democratic party) are staffed by woke activists who see woke political goals as moral imperatives, not mere political preferences
2/
According to woke ideology, anyone who in not actively advocating for woke social and political objectives is "complicit" in the systemic oppression of marginalized groups. On this view, a political compromise with people who oppose wokeness is like cutting a deal with Hitler.
3/
The woke have a concept called the "unbearable searchlight of complicity." It's their term for constant, unending, hypervigilant searching for anything complicit with "systems of oppression" (racism, sexism, etc)

It's the conceptual equivalent of an all seeing eye of wokeness
Read 12 tweets
Dec 17
1/
Congress gave The National Endowment for the Arts *207,000,000*, and then told the NEA to fund projects focused on "the history of Systemic Racism"

Let's look at what the NEA did with your money.

A thread🧵 Image
Image
2/
Congress has the power to fund agencies and tell them how to spend their funding, and Congress told the NEA to "Continue prioritizing diversity" and to prioritize increasing diversity among "NEA staff, the National Council of the Arts, Discipline Directors, and Peer Panelists" Image
3/
In 2021 the NEA said they were "centering equity and justice along the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, disability, religion, gender identity and sexual orientation, geography, poverty, and the infinite ways these intersect in everything we do"

So this isn't something new.Image
Read 9 tweets
Dec 16
1/
Much of what @GreeneMan6 said in our debate caught me off guard. If I looked unprepared it's cause I was.

For Example, I wasn't ready for claims like:
"The people will have the opinion that the state teaches them, we are talking about how the State will create public opinion"
2/
In the moment, I wasn't prepared for that, but I think I have an answer to that now.

I do no think that State has the ability to reach into the heads of people and re-arrange their thinking. The sort of brainwashing that is implied by his claim simply won't work at scale.
3/
The claim that he has is that the widespread practice of transing kids is due to everyone believing in trans cause of schools is deeply flawed. It was not that most people agree with trans ideology and in fact, trans ideology and queer theory are intensely unpopular...
Read 14 tweets
Dec 12
1/
DEI has taken over The Department of Veteran Affairs.

The VA is using Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for "hiring and position and talent management," and also created a "Gender-affirming Program with Speech" to help people change sex.

How DEI captured the VA,

A thread🧵 Image
2/
In September 2021 the Department of Veterans Affairs created an Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Action plan Pursuant to E.O. 13985 on racial equity.

This action plan is the Genesis for the adoption of DEI across the entirety of the VA. Image
Image
3/
According to the Action Plan, the VA created "an 18-member Task Force to elevate and identify strategic opportunities across VA’s vast ecosystem of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (I-DEA)."

The VA had *18 people* dedicated to creating a plan to DEI implementation. Image
Read 21 tweets
Dec 11
1/
Last May I said when woke dies the left will pivot to old school materialist politics (IE: Class warfare, Union Politics, economics)

You can see in leftist CEO murder discourse; it's all about income inequality, poverty, access to resources

They're pivoting to class warfare
2/
As "woke" dies, Leftists will abandon the woke "oppressor/oppressed" categories (white vs black, straight vs gay, queer vs normal) and will move back to the old materialist oppressor/oppressed categories (rich vs poor, capitalist vs worker, proletariat vs bourgeois, etc).
3/
This materialist focus will be paired with "sustainability politics" revolving around environmental issues (pollution, climate change, global warming, etc).
So, we will see two "mass line" formations emerging: one focused on class warfare, and one focused on "sustainability.
Read 12 tweets

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