PD KENDI: Chapter 18; Facilitators: Katharine Kays and Jim Tillotson

 Reminder:

9/16/20, 3:45-445pm;

Facilitators: Katharine Kays and Jim Tillotson

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In Chapter 18, “Survival” (228), Kendi recalls that, shortly after he married his wife Sadiqa, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo chemotherapy and surgery to remove a tumor. He found himself often comparing racism to cancer. Having educated himself on the causes and best practices for eliminating racism, Kendi founded the Antiracist Research and Policy Center in Washington D.C. The center was intended to put into action Kendi's theories and plans about identifying racist policies and ideas and eliminating them. Shortly after opening the Center, in January 2018, Kendi became ill and was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer, which has an 88% fatality rate. Once again he compared racism to cancer; he was determined to fight both. He underwent six months of chemotherapy followed by surgery to remove the tumor. His cancer was completely eradicated. He suggests a similar treatment plan for racism: “Saturate the body politic with the chemotherapy or immuno-therapy of antiracist policies that shrink the tumors of racial inequalities...Remove any remaining racist policies, the way surgeons remove the tumors” (237-8). This plan will require hard work and vigilance, but the possibility of reducing or eliminating racism from American society altogether is worth the effort. Most importantly, we must have hope.

Analysis

The chapter on failure is an astute critique of respectability politics and suasion as effective means of correcting racist attitudes; Kendi provides numerous examples of this method's inadequacies throughout history. He begins with an abolitionist document from 1804 stating that “on good Black 'conduct must, in some measure, depend the liberation of their brethren'” (202). Certainly, good conduct did not result in the abolition of slavery, nor did it provide a single right to Black people after emancipation. If anything, the opposite is true, as Civil Rights were won after a prolonged period of civil disobedience and general upheaval. W.E.B. Du Bois believed early on that “the ultimate evil was stupidity” (207), by which he meant that racism was the result of ignorance about the true character and capacity of people of color, but later felt that this was misguided, that, “Americans know the facts; and yet they remain for the most part indifferent and unmoved” (207). Martin Luther King eventually realized the same: “We've had it wrong and mixed up in our country, and this has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through love and moral suasion devoid of power” (208).

Furthermore, Kendi notes that suasion does not account for the true motivations of a vast majority of racists which, he has already established, is not ignorance, but self-interest. If a person feels that racism benefits them, they will not be persuaded to hold people of color in higher esteem based solely on respectable conduct. This is to say nothing of the fact that suasion puts an unfair onus on the victim of oppression instead of the oppressor. Kendi accepted suasion as a reasonable approach for a good portion of his life before realizing it was pointless and refusing to carry that burden any longer. “I represent only myself,” he declares, “if the [White] judges draw conclusions about millions of Black people based on how I act, then they, not I, not Black people, have a problem” (205).

In differentiating a protest from a demonstration, Kendi hopes to educate readers on the forms of activism that are most likely to generate results, but this distinction is also meant to adjust the reader's mindset from one of failure to one of success. He likely knows from experience that it is disheartening to attend demonstration after demonstration and see no meaningful change come about as a result. This is because demonstrations, while they do serve a purpose, do not create the level of change that one might see from a long-term protest. Kendi uses his own experience with the BSU at Temple as another lesson about failure and success. Kendi failed in this instance because he did not respond appropriately to the concerns of his fellow activists. If a group is unable to unify on a basic message and/or methodology, they are unlikely to accomplish their goals. “At a time when I thought I was the most radical, I was the most conservative” (212), Kendi states, referring to his bias toward his own way of thinking and refusal to consider the input of his fellow activists.

It is important to note that, though Kendi criticizes the construct of institutional racism, this is not because the concept itself is a fiction; people of color are more likely to experience adverse effects from the system that involve an increased poverty rate, lower life expectancy, less access to healthcare, and the many other inequities Kendi has pointed out throughout the book. These systemic problems are the result of policies that have been enacted by individual lawmakers. He explains this cogently: “Covering up the specific policies and policymakers prevents us from identifying and replacing the specific policies and policymakers. We become unconscious to racist policymakers and policies as we lash out angrily at the abstract bogeyman of 'the system'” (221). This goes hand in hand with Kendi's thoughts about failure in the previous chapter. Organizing a demonstration to protest, say, the high incarceration rates of Black men, while not pointless, is not particularly effective. In this scenario one would be wiser to look for a means to apply public pressure to the judges responsible for sentencing Black men to prison, and also being careful to vote and campaign for the politicians who will be more likely to appoint judges that are antiracist, or at least cognizant of the racial disparities in the justice system. “[W]hen we realize old words do not exactly and clearly convey what we are trying to describe, we should turn to new words” (222), he declares.

Kendi's inspiration for writing this book further demonstrates the righteousness and urgency of his goals. The death of Trayvon Martin sparked Black Lives Matter demonstrations in its wake. The demonstrations continued over the years as Black men and women continued to be killed by police or other people who deemed themselves authority figures. These horrific incidents and righteous protests gave Kendi the inspiration and strength he needed to write his book on the history of racism in America. During this process, he found himself questioning the doctrines surrounding racism he had previously absorbed and believed, planting the seeds for How to Be an Antiracist. He believes he has emerged from this intellectual reevaluation a better man. “Racist ideas fooled me nearly my whole life,” he explains, “I refused to allow them to continue making a fool out of me, a chump out of me, a slave out of me...It felt so good to cleanse my mind” (227).

Kendi's strategies for fighting racism demonstrate the need for varied, comprehensive, and robust methods. Kendi's realization that racism is rooted in self-interest as opposed to ignorance forced him to rethink his entire life plan, as he had been working as a professor in order to “educate away racist ideas” (230). Seeing that this was a futile exercise, he changed his approach to one of direct action with the founding of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center. He outlines the center's mission statement, which consists of the principles established throughout How to Be an Antiracist, including the necessity to “Admit racial inequality is a problem of bad policy, not bad people” (231) and “Deploy antiracist power to compel or drive from power the unsympathetic racist policymakers in order to institute the antiracist policy” (232).

The final chapters is called “Survival” because it operates around the metaphor of racism as a cancer that must be eradicated in order for the nation to survive and thrive. Just as a metastatic tumor cannot be passively educated out of a person's body, but must be obliterated by chemotherapy and surgical excising, racism requires an aggressive and committed approach. But the possibility of an antiracist society is decidedly worth the effort.