Thinking About "Anti-racism" and Being An "Anti-racist"

A lot of people are buying books about race and racial inequality, including here in Louisville. I worry, just from my conversations, that a lot of people aren’t reading said books. I get it. Simply buying a book called “White Fragility” or “How To Be An Antiracist” probably feels like a good political action itself right now--even if you don’t really have time to read it. And actually reading some of these books is a chore, both because they are quite academic and complicated and also because reading about racism is kind of a downer and you are already stuck in your house, unable to see friends/family and reading news articles/tweets/Facebook posts about COVID-19, racism and lots of other bad news. I get it. 

So over the next month, I am going to devote a few editions of the Bluegrass Beat to breaking down some of the major ideas of White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. I don’t endorse all of the ideas in those books. I don’t necessarily think those are the best books on racial issues. I do think they are fairly easy to read, have some interesting ideas and mostly importantly, the conversations I have had with friends about racial issues have been much deeper and better after they have read those two books in particular. So consider this as something on an informal bookclub on White Fragility and How To Be an Antiracist. (My impression is that most book clubs are full of people who haven’t read the whole book but want to talk about the general themes of it. So you have my email, perrylbacon@gmail.com, and I am happy to discuss these themes.) The ideas in these books are related to the Bluegrass Beat because Louisville is a city struggling with what it should do about its racial divides. 

I should emphasize---I hope that you read these books in full. They are worth it. I read them before they were massive bestsellers and am finding some value in rereading them. 

I’ll start with some of the main ideas of chapters 1-8 of “How To Be An Antiracist.” 

Anti-racist vs. racist 

“The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘anti-racist.’ What’s the difference? ... One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of the problems in power and policies, as an anti-racist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between space of ‘not racist.’ The claim of ‘not racist’ neutrality is a mask for racism.” 

“Racist’ is not--as Richard Spencer argues--a pejorative. It is not the worst word in the English language; it is not the equivalent of a slur. It is descriptive, and the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify it and describe it--and then dismantle it. The attempt to turn this usefully descriptive term into an almost unusable slur is, of course, designed to do the opposite: to freeze us into inaction.” 

“There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.” Kendi’s introductory chapter and then first chapter. (Kendi usually writes “antiracist,” not “anti-racist,” although he uses the hyphenated form at times. I am going to generally refer to these ideas as anti-racist and anti-racism.) 

Those quotes are the essence of Kendi’s anti-racism book and his comments on social media and in television appearances. I worry people are buying Kendi’s book in part so that they can announce on social media or to people who visit their homes that they are “anti-racist.” Who wouldn’t want to be an anti-racist, particularly if the only options are to be a racist or an anti-racist, as the professor suggests? 

If you think about these definitions carefully though, Kendi is actually taking a fairly radical stance, at least as defined by the standards of current U.S. politics. The bloc of U.S. elected officials who are actively confronting racial inequality in America is probably pretty small and includes very few Republicans and not that many Democrats either. So Kendi’s definition of a racist might include the vast majority of people in elected office in America. 

I myself struggle with the idea that there are literally no race-neutral policies. 

That said, Kendi’s project here, in my view, is to reclaim the term “racist,” which seems to be essentially reserved in America right now for people who actively use the “n” word and/or privately say that black people have smaller brains than white ones. He is suggesting that the term racist should be more broadly applied in America to policies, systems, institutions and even individuals--even if whatever is being cast as racist doesn’t involve overtly saying black people are lazy or stupid. I think that’s a very important project. 

Assimilationist vs. Segregationist vs. Anti-racist 

A segregationist, in Kendi’s view, has the general perspective that a “permanently inferior racial group can never be developed and is supporting policy that segregates away that group.” An assimilationist, he argues, generally takes the view that “a racial group is culturally or behaviorally inferior and is supporting cultural or behavioral enrichment programs to develop that racial group.” An anti-racist “is expressing the idea that racial groups are equals and none needs developing, and is supporting policy that reduces racial inequity.” 

As Kendi hints at in both this antiracist book and his 2016 book “Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America,” lots of probably well-meaning white people and even some people of color regularly express assimilationist ideas. When an organization suggests that they can’t hire black people for job X because of a “pipeline problem,” they are implying that no black people are qualified for that role, which is both unlikely to be true (44 million black people live in America) and has the implication that black people are unskilled and therefore need development or training so that one of them can be hired. A lot of initiatives to address racial inequality center on education, which has the implication that black people are massively undereducated (and therefore to some extent, the racial wealth gap would be addressed most simply if black people were just educated more and better.) 

I have expressed some of these assimilationist ideas before. I probably still do now at times. This is the place where I am most persuaded by Kendi’s ideas and have shifted my views in his direction. Whenever I’m in a space where there are only white people (or only men in some cases), I used to think, “maybe this field/job is so specialized that no women or people of color are currently qualified--so we need more and expanded training/coaching/diversity initiatives.” I almost never think that anymore. Now, I almost always think, “what are the norms of this organization, structure of its leadership, etc.” that might result in it not having any black members. This perspective almost always points me in a more fruitful direction. 

To be specific about this, if 2015 Perry were asked, “why doesn’t Yale have more black students?” I/he would have responded about how Yale is too focused on SAT scores and that this disadvantages black students. 2020 Perry would probably suggest that Yale has an admissions system that advantages students with high SAT scores, as well as students whose parents donate money to the school, students whose parents went to the school themselves and students who play white-dominated sports like squash, because Yale wants to admit a class of students who are disproportionately the children of America’s current elite (mostly rich white people.) 

Here’s Kendi’s framing, in thinking about reducing crime in heavily-black neighborhoods: 

“Segregationists who consider Black neighborhoods to be war zones have called for tough policing and the mass incarceration of super-predators. Assimilationists say these super-predators need tough laws and tough love from mentors and fathers to civilize them back to nonviolence. Antiracists say that Black people, like all people, need more higher-paying jobs within their reach, especially Black youngsters,” Kendi writes in Chapter 6 of his book. 

I don’t know if Kendi intentionally meant to invoke the actions and rhetoric of Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in his descriptions of segregationists and assimilationists, but he did. 

“Race is a mirage but one that humanity has organized itself around.” (Chapter 4) 

There is basically no truth to race science (say black people are better at dancing and worse at math than other groups.) So knowing that, some people argue that the best way to address racial issues in our society is not talk about them--we should act as if we have a post-racial society and that will help us achieve a post-racial society. 

But the actual path to a post-racial society would be one where race is not a predictor of so much. If I told you we were visiting a room of billionaires, I think you would correctly assume that would be full of white men. If you met me on the street here in Louisville briefly and were asked to guess where I lived, you would be better off guessing “Russell” than “Norton Commons.” If I told you I was going to write an article about presidential candidates who would be deemed “electable” by political pundits, I think you know what they would look like (white men.) 

“Terminating racial categories is potentially the last, not the first, step in the antiracist struggle,” Kendi writes. 

“Racial-group behavior is a figment of the racist’s imagination. Individual behaviors can shape the success of individuals. But policies determine the success of groups. And it is racist power that creates the policies that cause racist inequities.” (Chapter 8) 

You might say that majority-black churches are different from majority-white churches in terms of music and singing and well, fun at times. Kendi would describe those as differences in “culture,” not behavior. I think this distinction between behavior and culture is complicated. But Kendi makes explicit his point when he argues that, “no evidence has ever been produced, for instance, to prove that Black people are louder, angrier, nicer, funnier, lazier, less punctual, more immoral, religious, or dependent; that Asians are more subservient; that Whites are greedier. All we have are stories of individual behavior.” 

Kendi’s project here is push back against arguments like, “Black people don’t value education.” This is very important. Once our culture starts to define it as a norm that black people don’t value education, that norm 1. Presents an inaccurate portrayal of a ton of black people (I would say the overwhelming majority but I don’t have any study showing that) 2. Forces those who do value education to overcome a stereotype that doesn’t apply to them and shouldn’t have been linked to them and 3. Allows the broader society to write off making schools better for black kids as a fruitless, doomed-to-failure project. 

You can also see, in his language here, an obvious rejoinder to the, “But Obama, Oprah, Kamala Harris … Perry Bacon [a way, way lower-level of achievement than the first three, way, way lower] did X, why can’t the rest of them?” rhetoric you at times hear. 

Thanks for reading. 

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