"Kendi is so unbelievably stupid, mindbogglingly dogmatic, boring and limited in range that I would much rather read MLK [Martin Luther King] than have to endure sitting down with Kendi. I teach Kendi because he is useful. Where he is useful is there are no nuances in him. None whatsoever. No ambiguities. Everything is racism, all the time. I did learn something very interesting from Kendi. There's one line that appears in his two major books. This is what my life has come to, that I have read the two major books, "Stamped from the Beginning" and "How to be an antiracist". It reappears each time, and the line is "There is nothing wrong with black people." I think that line explains why Kendi is writing, and why white people buy Kendi's books. It's to be reassured that racism explains everything, and that there isn't one drop, one percent, one element, of black responsibility in black life outcomes today."
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Academics from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesJournalists from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesAfrican Americans
Original Language: English
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Sources
David Azerrad, interview by Alex Kaschuta, 2023
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ibram_X._Kendi
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Ibram X. Kendi
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