Okay, so for those who are excited about Kendi, here’s a brief analysis.

Kendi has set up an easy, but rather unsophisticated binary between racism and antiracism. This binary is popular because it is simple. It is also widely applicable: anyone can be in either of these camps at any time.

This might sound good on paper (it doesn’t to me, but it might for others), but in reality, it obscures that the very discourse of race is already a discourse of power. “Race” as we know it came into being as a hierarchical classification scheme.

White people were at the top; and—you guessed it—blackness was at the bottom. What this meant was that those at the bottom—even their “ideas”—had no weight. It didn’t matter what they thought because the only thoughts that mattered were white thoughts.

This deconstructs the first cornerstone in Kendi’s analysis—namely, that black people’s purportedly “racist” ideas (if we are to use this term) contributes to racist violence.

If my thoughts do not matter—and all you have to do is listen to Joe Biden to recognize that black thoughts do not matter—then even the most heinous of my ideas will neither contribute to nor detract from the violence enacted against me. At most, they will be used to justify it.

Okay, so first point is undone. Second point: racism is a collection of racist ideas and racist policies and vice versa. Here, we don’t simply have a circular definition—which is the worst of logic—but we also have an equivocation. Everyone can be or not be racist.

This equivocation is CENTRAL, from what I can tell, to Kendi’s approach. And, in many ways, it operates as the inverse of the first point. If black people, for example, can be racist, then white people can be antiracist. And here is where the most profound dilemma lies.

What does it mean for the norm to be anti-normative? What does it mean for whiteness to be antiracist? The logical conclusion would be the eradication of the norm: it would require the death of whiteness—and all the capitalist, heteropatriarchal violence that comes with it.

But, it would seem that Kendi doesn’t offer this. By framing his work around policy, he gives the norm a way out. In this regard, @jack giving a large donation (which, in the end, was probably small pennies for him anyway) can be read as antiracist when it actually keeps the...

game going. Kendi’s work, then, is dangerous—not simply because white people can believe themselves to be antiracist, but because their alleged antiracist actions (like @jack’s) can, in the end, perpetuate the antiblack violence of racial capitalism in niceface.

Put simply, Kendi’s antiracist program enables white people to do penance and have their conscience cleansed. Vote for the right people (like Joe Biden); advocate for the right polices (like police reform—not abolition), and refrain from thinking the wrong things and voila!

In the end, kendi emerges as a kind of black savior figure for white people.

And please know: I’m not hating. He’s playing the game well. But if we’re about something like liberation, if we’re against antiblackness, then Kendi’s guilt (pyramid) scheme ain’t it.

I’ve given many talks to white people about my research. And one of the main questions I get is “what are we to do?”

And I always respond: if I knew, I’d be loaded.

Kendi’s loaded. And it’s because he gave the folks what they wanted.

But some of us know it ain’t that simple.

I should also say that I am not above critique. If anyone has a better perspective on Kendi’s work—if I’m missing something (and I might be)—feel free to reply. I have a low tolerance for those who reply in bad faith, but I’m always open to hear other thoughts. Fin.