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What’s your disagreement with Kendi and those like him? What changed?
by barry-cotter 4y ago
What’s your disagreement with Kendi and those like him? What changed?
- tptacek 4y agoNothing's changed. I think Kendi is an ideological grifter. It's frustrating to see "normie" anti-racism, of the "BLM lawn sign" variety, tainted by association with him.
- random314 4y agoWhat are the examples of ideological grift? I just found out about Kendi through this comment thread and a simple Google search didn't yield anything.
- rayiner 4y agoI don’t think he’s a “grifter.” Kendi thought is just the logical combination of three mainstream progressive ideas: 1) (a) The history and experience of Black people in America is sui generis and (b) justifies responses that don’t need to be generalizable or measure up to ordinary standards of procedural fairness. 2) the “bootstraps”approach of Kendi’s parent’s generation has failed. 3) bureaucratic institutions operated by well meaning credentialed people can solve every problem. Really, the only area where I substantively disagree with him is (3)—the white people in charge of bureaucratic institutions will inevitably use any special powers given to them to advance their own economic and cultural interests.
- tptacek 4y agoI don't want to get too far into it, so I'll just say: 1. Virtually nobody with a BLM lawn sign believes this: https://twitter.com/DrIbram/status/1302724276412387334 https://twitter.com/DrIbram/status/1302724276412387334 2. I can't do any better than Kalefa Sanneh at pointing out the incoherence of Kendi's professed world view. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/19/the-fight-to-redefine-racism https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/19/the-fight-to-r...