-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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1/ There's a genre of woke-posting where they state their views as if they were talking to toddlers as a way of making their views look obvious (even kids get it!), grabbing moral authority (I'm the teacher!), and leveraging condescension to imply their opponents are beneath them
2/ These women are not actually trying to explain anything, the explanation is just a front for their condescending tone. The real goal is to "put you in your place" by treating you like a toddler so they can grab the social high-ground in the conversation
3/ The reason they do this is because by adopting the posture of a kindergarten teach it forces you fight through layers of snark, sarcasm, and condescending tone while being put in the social position of a child talking to a teacher.
Making the Friend/Enemy distinction the fundamental axis of politics is to reject the Aristotelian claim at the heart of western civilization that says politics is about human flourishing and pursuing the good, and to replace it with the political ideology of 3rd world tribalism.
If you want The West to turn into Somalia, tell people that the fundamental distinction all political motives and actions revolve around is "who is on my team and who isn't," and the goal is to reward your friends while harming enemies.
Cause that's how Somalia works
There are a whole lot of people running around acting like "friend/enemy" is some kind of deep idea, or profound simplification of politics, when in fact it's little more than the rejection of the grand political tradition of western civilization in favor do 3rd world tribalism.
2/ They don't do land acknowledgements and such in order to make my son feel unwelcome, they are just applying the things they were taught in college about "reconciliation." For the most part, these teachers mean well and are really trying their best, but because of the skew...
3/ of the teacher toward being both progressive and toward being women, the result is a very feminine coded social justice oriented environment across the education system. The result is that the environment is terrific for little girls, but can be difficult for little boys...
People coming from third world nations to advanced western nations bring their ideas about of how society works with them.
So they don't see electoral politics as a tool for ensuring proper governance, they see it as a way to get goodies for their clan and win tribal conflicts
This isn't because those people are evil, stupid—it's because in third world nations the primary use of politics really is for winners to give goodies to their friends and settle scores with their enemies.
The competent management of infrastructure and services is secondary.
So, rather then ask "how can I govern in a way that is best for the health of the nation as a whole, and whst is the best way to ensure competent management of the advanced systems that make society work?" The third worlder asks "how can I reward my friends and harm my enemies?"
Mamdani's win today had absolutely nothing to do with anything happening on X, nor did it have anything to do with Nick Fuentes, Groypers, or intra-right squabbles.
The Mamdani cake was baked weeks ago, this win, and margin of victory, were predicted by polling for weeks...
Mamdani won because he was able to appeal to the professional creative class demographic of NYC. The fact that Mamdani only won 50% of Muslims, but 70% of non-religious people tells you who his base was: downwardly mobile educated creative class professionals....
Nothing on X, and I mean nothing, played any role in his getting elected.
Cuomo and Adams both staying in the race despite their unpopularity didn't help (a centrist without either of their baggage might have pulled out a win) but anyone telling out that this was about...
1/ The Advisory Board of the Community Development Financial Institution Fund is staffed by leftists, and it funnels money into leftist causes.
For example: Justin Maxson, who sits on the board of the CDFI Fund, created a "racial equity lens" in his previous job.
2/ Jennifer Sun works at Asian Americans For Equality which "advances racial, social, and economic
justice for Asian American, immigrant and other systematically disadvantaged communities"
Again, it's a social justice focus.
3/ Maria Bilonick works at the Opportunity Finance Netowork, which funnels money into "racial equity" and "environmental justice."