Ibram X. Kendi: ‘Racism is a bipartisan affair’

Presented by Bank of America: How race and identity are shaping politics, policy and power.

Jun 17, 2022 View in browser   By Brakkton Booker Presented by With help from Ella Creamer, Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz POLITICO illustration/AP photo What up, Recast fam! Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is called on to testify before the Jan. 6 committee, GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell signals his support for the bipartisan framework on gun safety, and the Golden State Warriors are NBA Champs again. Today, though, we focus on a lesson: How to teach children to be anti-racist.  Ibram X. Kendi is one of the nation's preeminent scholars on racism and its roots in the United States. He's more than comfortable engaging in the conversation urging Americans to rethink the origins of bigotry and how to combat it. He won the National Book Award for his 2016 work "Stamped from the Beginning," which explores the history of racist ideas in America, then followed that with his memoir and teaching tool "How to be an Antiracist" in 2019. (The young adult version of the book, "Stamped: Racism, Anti-racism and You" has been banned or challenged in some schools.) But in the aftermath of the racial reckoning protests that erupted in the summer of 2020 — buoyed by the sustained presence of young people, including children — Kendi found himself grappling with how he and his wife were raising their daughter, Imani. Were they doing enough to talk to her about racism? Eventually, he came to a realization: Trying to protect children by not talking about race and discrimination doesn't really shield them from racism's harms. All that soul searching led to his latest book, "How to Raise an Antiracist," which combines memoir and research into a how-to-manual for today's parents.   A message from Bank of America: Health care access, a tool for economic mobility: Increasing access to quality health care lowers unemployment rates and raises incomes. See how Bank of America is investing $25 million to improve health outcomes in 11 key cities.   We chop it about his book, why he says Republicans, like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, "distorted and weaponized" his work — and why he says "racism is a bipartisan affair" in the United States. ◆◆◆ This interview has been edited for length and clarity. THE RECAST: We are two years removed from the racial reckoning protests sparked by the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others. So why was it important to write your book now? KENDI: In many ways when people, including me, were thinking about how to go about transforming and being anti-racist and recognizing racial equality and recognizing the problem is bad policy and not bad people, oftentimes, we also started thinking about, "OK, how do I encourage our children, our students, to be anti-racist?" It's a question that I had — particularly as I became a father, as my daughter came up in age. I know that many parents, particularly in the summer of 2020, started asking those questions. But then I also realized through conducting research for this book, that we have a crisis on our hands. And that crisis is about the people, namely, children, who are the most vulnerable to racism, are the people we are the least likely to engage. So it may mean, as a lover of children, the thought of how unprotected children are to racist messages, from the harms of policies, is really what drove me to write this book.   Every week, we sit down with diverse and influential characters who are shaking up politics. Who should we profile next? Let us know. Email us at therecast@politico.com.   THE RECAST: You write about how you and your wife, who is a doctor, worked to childproof your daughter's environment early on to prevent unintended injuries. But you also acknowledge that preventing racial injuries also requires some childproofing, but that this didn't dawn on you until after your child was born. Can you explain? KENDI: We didn't think at all about how she could be harmed by the racial environment that is in our home and is in our neighborhood. What I mean by that is, we weren't thinking about, "OK, let's ensure that the books that we buy her have any different sort of skin colors. Let's ensure that the people who are coming to our home don't all look the same. Let's ensure that we're buying her dolls and toys, they're not all the same race." Kendi in Boston, October 2020. | Steven Senne/AP Photo We didn't even think about how, if she's only seeing a certain set of characters or a certain set of people, then we're speaking to her, even a young child, about who we value and who we don't. And that's harmful. What's striking is the average Black family is living in a neighborhood that is about 45 percent Black. You compare that to white Americans, the average neighborhood that they live in is about three-fourths white. So when you live in a heavily segregated neighborhood, in which people are primarily one skin color, and in addition to that, the dolls and toys and books all look the same as the people in your neighborhood — that's going to have an impact on young children. It's important, even for parents of color, to make sure that your kids are seeing different faces, but it's actually the most imperative for white parents, primarily because of how hypersegregated the neighborhoods that they live in are.   A message from Bank of America:   THE RECAST: Your book centers around the idea that folks are — or want to be — open about teaching their children to be anti-racist. But there's a large segment of the population that doesn't see themselves as racist and don't see what's being taught in school as being rooted in racism. How do you kind of get folks to bridge that gap, especially if they are listening to the political class who rail against this, labeling it as "woke-ism"? KENDI: If there is a person who is saying those things, but at the same time, they don't want their child to become a white supremacist, I would first inform them about all the studies that are showing how much white supremacists are actually recruiting. Particularly young white children online, and sending all sorts of propaganda through memes, direct messages and through talking to them in multiplayer video games. I would ask them: How can your child protect themselves from that ideology if they can't identify it? For parents who claim they don't want teaching about racism in their schools because it's going to make their white children uncomfortable and then on the other hand, they say, their kids don't see color. I would ask them: How is it that your kids are going to get uncomfortable? If you're gonna acknowledge that your kids then do see color, but you don't want them to feel bad about what white people have done in the past, what you need to also understand is that white people were actually abolitionists, too. White people were fighting against lynchings, too. White people were fighting against Jim Crow, too. So then your child could see themselves in those ways, just as much as they can see themselves in the enslaver. THE RECAST: How do we get our elected leaders and those running campaigns to have that nuanced conversation about it and not bring it up as a way to score political points? KENDI: I don't know if it's possible to get many of these politicians to stop misrepresenting and distorting critical race theory and then weaponizing it. Then using it to enrage and organize their constituents against those of us who are fighting against racism. And that fight against racism includes those very politicians. In many ways this is all a distraction. They're trying to change the conversation from the problem is racism, to the problem is anti-racism. They're trying to change the conversation from the problem of their policies and what they're not doing, to the problem of those other people who don't look like them. But we can change the minds and their constituents and show them they are being manipulated, exploited — literally, look at all the money that's been made on "the big lie" — that they are not being honest about what critical race theory truly is. Kendi in conversation with Clint Smith. | Courtesy of Ibram X. Kendi THE RECAST: You name-check Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the book for mischaracterizing critical race theory. He name-checked you and "How to Be an Antiracist" during the confirmation hearings of Ketanji Brown Jackson . What did you make of that exchange? KENDI: To me, it was just sort of tragic. Instead of Sen. Cruz engaging on the judicial record and judicial philosophy, he distorted a book and weaponized it. And then tried to use it to undermine the confirmation. There is a belief among Republicans that they have struck a nerve — particularly with some of their white constituents. They feel they can sort of gain political favor if they present themselves, if they present critical race theory or anti-racism as anti-white, which is a white supremacist talking point. Now that has gone sort of mainstream, it's a Republican talking point. WATCH: Cruz grills Ketanji Brown Jackson on critical race theory It distracts their constituents from the true source of their pain, from the true source of their economic and social and cultural struggles. To cause them to blame people of color, as opposed to their own political leaders who have refused to pass policies that will help. THE RECAST: What role do Democrats play in this? KENDI: I think they should have a forceful message about how anti-racist education is actually protective for our children. It protects children from thinking that there's something superior or inferior about them. It protects children from white supremacist recruiters online. Kendi in March 2020. | Michael Loccisano/Getty Images THE RECAST: But you don't feel like Democrats are stepping up to the plate? KENDI: I think part of the challenge is one of the ways Republicans try to delegitimize my work is they try to strip me of my professorship and my vocation as a scholar, and they try to position me as a Democratic political operative. Even though when you actually read my work, I am critical of people who identify themselves as liberals, people who identify themselves as conservatives, people who identify themselves as moderate. Indeed racist ideas are operating within each of those ideologies in different ways. I am also critical of certain policies about race or, more so, the refusal to engage in anti-racist policies by Democrats. I do think Republicans are … supportive of policies that are more likely to support white supremacist violence. I do think in too many cases Republicans are supporting racist policies. But there are times Democrats are as well. THE RECAST: We're talking on the eve of the Juneteenth holiday. In my conversations with other Black folks who didn't grow up celebrating this day, we are sort of at a loss about how to feel about it. What are your thoughts on the holiday? KENDI: It's certainly a time in which parents should be using to talk to their children about the emancipation, about the legacy of slavery, and the fight — the anti-racist fight — against that legacy.   A message from Bank of America: Increasing access to quality health care lowers unemployment rates and raises incomes. As part of Bank of America's ongoing work to advance racial equality and economic opportunity, a new signature initiative partners with leading public health organizations to improve health outcomes in communities of color. This new health collaboration will provide health education, preventive services, and community outreach. See where Bank of America's $25 million initiative is launching.   Even for Black parents — I know it's hard for me to talk to my daughter, about slavery — but I also know it's important for her to know her history. I also know it's important for her to know, the Black folk who constantly challenged slavery. For her to know about Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass , for her to know about those who organized slave revolts. So she could know that, yes, Black people were enslaved, but we constantly resisted. And we're still resisting today. ◆◆◆ OK, family, let us at The Recast be the first to wish you a happy Juneteenth and a happy Father's Day for those who celebrate. Now to some pick-me-ups on this Fri-yay! The annual Poor People's Campaign descends on Washington this weekend, calling on lawmakers to enact policies to help lift the nation's lowest earners. Plus, debuting Saturday on the History Channel: "After Jackie." A documentary about the generations of Black baseball players who kept fighting for equality after Jackie Robinson broke the sport's color barrier. We're intrigued by this trailer of "Dark Winds," a new thriller series starring Zahn McClaron. Just about everyone involved in the show, from McClaron, to creator Graham Roland to the writer's room to the crew is Native. Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez hit U.S. theater screens today with "Official Competition," a satirical masterpiece that pokes at the egos of the film world. Check out this new exhibition at the Ford Foundation Gallery, "everything slackens in a wreck," showcasing the work of four artists with a common diasporic heritage: East and South Asian indentured servants who migrated to the Americas. Champs … again. Beyoncé is officially back with a soon-to-be-released album, "Renaissance," and a jaw-dropping British Vogue cover. Drake, AKA @champagnepapi, drops a new album and a mini-movie/music video, where he takes a big life step and finally commits … to a whole harem. TikTok of the day: When you wanted a dog but got a cat.   Follow us on Twitter Brakkton Booker @brakktonbooker Rishika Dugyala @rishikadugyala Teresa Wiltz @teresawiltz   Follow us

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