Restating the title for accuracy: Candace Owens dismantles Candace Owens’s flawed anti-racist rhetoric. Yet again someone is describing my work in a way I reject and attacking their own flawed description. 1/7
thepostmillennial.com/candace-owens-…
"What he is alleging is that unless you are anti, which he defines as meaning, you are aggressively, constantly attacking it, then somehow you become it. So if you are not aggressively everyday waking up and looking and seeing racism everywhere, then you're a racist." 2/7
That’s actually not what I’m saying or even alleging, and I oppose this rhetoric. This flawed rhetoric defines racist as a fixed category, as who a person is, or becomes. 3/7
If Owens were addressing my book #HowtoBeanAntiracist, then she’d know I wrote that “racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be racist one minute and antiracist the next.” These are descriptive terms, describing what a person is being in any given moment. 4/7
If Owens were addressing my work, she’d also know I don’t see racism everywhere. There’s sexism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, Islamophobia. There are many different forms of bigotry, and different structures of oppression. 5/7
And those structures intersect and reinforce each other to hinder people of all races. And lest we forget there are people building just and antiracist spaces that are not oppressive. 6/7
I also oppose the idea that racism is everywhere because it's that type of flawed idea that causes some Black men to defend Black men like Bill Cosby or R. Kelly. To imagine they aren’t sexual predators. To imagine they are victims of racism. In those cases, they are not. 7/7

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More from @DrIbram

9 Jul
“These critics aren’t arguing against me. They aren’t arguing against anti-racist thinkers. They aren’t arguing against critical race theorists. These critics are arguing against themselves.”

My latest @TheAtlantic. 1/5
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
“What happens when a politician falsely proclaims what you think, and then criticizes that proclamation? Is she really critiquing your ideas—or her own?” 2/5
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
“If a writer decides what both sides of an argument are stating, is he really engaging in an argument with another writer, or is he engaging in an argument with himself?” 3/5
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Read 5 tweets
23 Jun
Yesterday, Senate Republicans filibustered the For the People Act, escalating the GOP's battle against a multiracial democracy. This week on my podcast #BeAntiracist, I speak w/ @AriBerman, one of the foremost reporters covering voter suppression. 1/5
podcasts.pushkin.fm/be-antiracist-…
I've seen this GOP battle my entire adult life. I was a freshman @FAMU_1887 in Tallahassee during the 2000 election that was marred by voter suppression. Like other Americans in history, voter suppression opened my eyes to racism and set me on the journey to be antiracist. 2/5
There was so much to discuss with @AriBerman, especially as Senator McConnell says the electoral system isn't broken right now. The For the People Act "is a solution in search of a problem," he said. 3/5
podcasts.pushkin.fm/be-antiracist-…
Read 5 tweets
22 Jun
Over the last few months, more and more people have been saying this nation is "not-racist." Let's add some context. “America is not a racist nation” is the new “America is a postracial nation.” We're witnessing the birth of the new postracial project. 1/7
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
The postracial myth is a distraction. Because the signposts of racism are staring back at us in big, bold racial inequities. But many Americans ignore the signposts and believe the nation is post-racial; that systemic racism doesn’t exist. 2/7
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
These believers in the postracial myth are saying racial inequity and injustice and violence aren’t the racial problem. To them, critical race theorists, Black Lives Matter activists, and the 1619 Project are the problem. 3/7
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Read 7 tweets
31 May
A century after a racist White mob devastated #BlackWallStreet in Tulsa, I keep reflecting on the vicious cycle of anti-Black racism.

Mobs of racist policies silently roaming structures stopping Black people from rising and stopping the rise of their resistance. 1/4
When racist policies failed to stop the rise, racist mobs violently knocked Black people down. When Black people were downed, racist ideas chalked up the plight of Black people to their inferior behaviors, and denied racist mobs ever knocked them down. 2/4
I can’t stop picturing this enduring history—and the antiracist resistance that battled at every rotation. I can’t stop thinking about what this all means from us today. 3/4
Read 4 tweets
11 May
Presenting #StampedforKids, an introduction to the history of racist and antiracist ideas for middle graders.

Brilliantly adapted by @SonjaCherryPaul.

Beautiful art by @thelittleanimal.

#StampedforKids is out today! Shouts @JasonReynolds83! 1/5
bookshop.org/books/stamped-…
Our kids are trying to make sense of the different skin colors and cultures they see, and the racial inequity they see. They hear verbal and non-verbal messages that some certain groups are better or worse; that certain groups have less because they are less. 2/5
These messages are harmful. We can’t protect our kids from these harmful messages by *not* talking to them about racism, by *not* telling them the truth about the nation’s past and present, by *not* actively talking to them about racial equality. 3/5
bookshop.org/books/stamped-…
Read 6 tweets
3 May
So I have an announcement that I've been holding for too long! I'm jumping into podcasting!

Introducing #BeAntiracist, a new action podcast I'm launching with @pushkinpods & @iHeartMedia. 1/5

Subscribe now: podcasts.pushkin.fm/be-antiracist-…

deadline.com/2021/05/ibram-…
Working on this new podcast has been uncomfortable and challenging. But I feel a sense of criticality, a sense of urgency to embark on this new project. 2/5
podcasts.pushkin.fm/be-antiracist-…
Now, I have a forum to sit down each week with some of the boldest and bravest and clearest thinkers, writers, and activists to discuss the antiracist policies and platforms we can rally around to construct an antiracist society. 3/5
deadline.com/2021/05/ibram-…
Read 6 tweets

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