The Path Forward
My interview with Dr. Ibram Kendi
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On this week’s episode of Raising Good Humans podcast, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. He's an American author, professor, and antiracism activist, and has written many books and workbooks on raising antiracist children. In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action it felt important to speak with Dr. Kendi about the path forward for raising antiracist children, and for continuing to push for change in the face of this loss.
I am sharing the transcript of our conversation here, and I hope you take the time to read it, or listen to it. This work is critical for all of us. And, there's so much more of Dr. Kendi’s work to enjoy. He has beautiful children's books - Magnolia Flower, Goodnight Racism, and the Making of Butterflies - and How to Raise an Antiracist, and How to Be a Young Antiracist.
Me: Can we start with the recent Supreme Court ruling? Can you offer us some perspective on the impact of this decision?
Dr. Kendi: Well, I think that it is critically important for families to recognize that our K through 12 educational system is not only deeply inequitable, is not only deeply segregated, but it's also harming different families in different ways. I think people may be aware of the fact that on average, predominantly white school districts receive more funding than predominantly black and brown school districts. And like with anything else, those school districts and schools with more resources can likely create a better educational experience for students.
But studies are also showing that our highly segregated schools, not only segregated economically, but even racially, are even harming white students. And, one of the most obvious ways that it's harming white students is that studies consistently show that white students who go to diverse schools are not only less likely to express racist ideas, but they're also more likely to be taught antiracist ideas, ideas that really encourage many of the qualities that are critical to being successful in a number of careers like critical thinking, like multicultural sort of literacy. And so in many ways, by segregating our schools, even white students are being deprived of some of the skills that are necessary for them to thrive in our society.
Me: Do you think this is going to remove the opportunities and diversity that a lot of these wonderful schools could have inhabited or the space a lot of students could have inhabited?
Dr. Kendi: So, yes. I mean the anti affirmative action - both litigants and judges - went after the only collegiate admissions factor that primarily benefits black, brown and indigenous students as well as low income students. They did not go after the factors that primarily benefit white and wealthy students, which are legacy admissions, boosts if you're the children of employees or if you're the children of donors, or boosts if you're an athlete (and most athletic programs in colleges are predominantly white, particularly the non-revenue generating sports). So, they didn't go after those, they went after those that are actually diversifying student bodies. Clearly they aren't interested in diverse student bodies, and again, this is not only going to hinder students of color, but it's also going to hinder low income white students, middle income white students, even that white student who is quite brilliant, but doesn't necessarily show up on her standardized test or wasn't able to get test prep, which boosts her score like some of her friends.
Me: So what's a path forward?
Dr. Kendi: So, what I'm hoping personally, is that the path forward is that this opens up a larger effort to demonstrate that these other admissions factors are not race neutral. I recently wrote a piece in the Atlantic that argued that race neutral is the new separate but equal. A century ago you had the Supreme Court basically substantiating, or allowing, these highly segregated schools on the premise that they were separate but equal - when everyone knew that was not true. Similarly, the Supreme Court has banned affirmative action on the premise that it is the only admission factor that uses race. And so it’s time for us to now recognize how race is used in other admissions factors, which I also named, which can then allow us to challenge those admissions factors, which can then allow us to build a more equitable admissions series of metrics so that we can truly have a meritorious admissions criteria. To me that's the way forward, to expose the fallacy of race neutrality. Just as we exposed a century ago, the fallacy of separate but equal.
Me: So why is this so alienating? Is Antiracism work alienating some to the point where we've now got a Supreme Court ruling that feels overtly racist? Is this really all about fear?
Dr. Kendi: I think it's alienating because, well, first there are people who know that they benefit from the existing structure, right? They know that down the street from their home, there's a test prep company that they can easily send their kid to, and their kid could get their score boosted two or 300 points. And so why would they challenge the current system that they feel has allowed their kids to elevate over other kids into these highly selective institutions. And then you have other people who are the children who went to these institutions, who went on to their jobs, who all the while thought that they were so much smarter than everyone else and that's why they got into those colleges, that's why they got that job. And it's very difficult for people to look in the mirror of their past and say, “Hey, I received specific advantages because of policies and practices that other people didn't get. You know what? I'm not that smart. I'm not as smart as I thought I was. Or yes, I am smart, but there were other kids who were just as smart, but they didn't get the same advantages that I did.” It's very hard for people to admit that to themselves.
Me: I just went to take my daughter to debate camp at my alma mater, and I am embarrassed to admit I quietly went right to the thought of like, “Well how does this affect my backyard?” Is that the kind of thinking that is the problem?
Dr. Kendi: Certainly. But I also think part of it, particularly as we think about raising our children, is when a parent realizes that like, you know what, if my daughter does want to go here, she'll benefit from the fact that she's a legacy. And then that parent recognizes, hey, you know, students of color at this institution have historically been excluded so there's more white legacies than students of color. If a parent recognizes that, then that parent has two options. One option is to tell that child, “You know what, if you get into this school, then you are going to benefit from this policy that predominantly benefits white children” and then say to the child that there's nothing wrong with that, or we should be benefiting from this. To me, this is problematic on one hand because then it's sort of teaching the child to chase every sort of area in society where they can sort of get up on others based on who they are or their background.
The other option, is that you don't say anything to the child. And then the child assumes that they got into that institution solely based on their own merit, which then causes them to have a higher sense of self or basically think higher of themselves than they truly are. Right? And then that leads to what I call in my work, this sort of conceited insecurity. In my book How to Raise an Antiracist, the last chapter specifically talked about raising a child who is humbly confident. So they have a sense of humility. My personhood, the groups that I come from, are not better than any other group, but at the same time, I'm worthy, I'm smart, I'm special, I'm confident in my abilities. And so it’s a tough choice.. If we don't tell the child how they got boosted, they won't develop a humble confidence. If we do tell the child that they did get boosted, then we almost directly create this sort of conceded insecurity.
Me: Is it possible to say, “Hey, I'm aware of this. I know you're working hard and this is one of the paths you might take. You will benefit In many ways, and this is just one example. Use that responsibly in this world.”
Dr. Kendi: I think you can say to a child that “I recognize that this practice or policy that we're benefiting from is unjust. So when we get in there, we should be part of the struggle to eliminate this policy.” So it's almost like for instance, a person of color or woman is able to enter into a deeply sexist or racist space as the only one (because they can only sort of stand one of us). And then that person decides, ”Okay, you know what? Since I'm here I'm going to use my space, my power, to ensure that the sexist and racist policies that have led to there being only one of me are eliminated.”
Me: How do you get to a point where you can make big changes, be convincing, not sit in comfort, and also not alienate people by putting them in a stress response so they just shut down and then nothing happens.
Dr. Kendi: What's interesting is that you asked this question as we're talking about affirmative action, because for 20 years the court allowed affirmative action based on what was known as the diversity rationale. And that diversity rationale was largely advocated for by corporate America in the Grutter case that happened in 2003. There you had corporate America basically come in and state that studies have shown that the more diverse sorts of business units and staff, the more efficient and more profitable the company. So what that ultimately states is that if you are, let's say, an older white male at a company and you're advocating for women and people of color to be excluded, you're advocating literally for your company to not be as profitable as another company. Which means you're advocating for you not to get that raise, for you not to get that bonus, for you not to be able to advance in your career And it can be spoken to that person in that way. It's actually in your interests in this specific sense to bring in more women and people of color because then you'll be able to benefit from it.
Me: So that's the language. It's not asking people to just care for others, it's also saying like, this is on all of us for the benefit of all of us. Because if you approach it as an expectation of caring for others, some people view that as a threat. Is that what I'm hearing?
Dr. Kendi: That is what you're hearing. I wrote another book called Stamped from the Beginning andI talked about the idea that we don’t actually need altruism for people to be Antiracist, but we need people to have intelligent self-interest. What racist ideas do is actually result in people having unintelligent self-interest. They advocate for policies and practices that they think are helping them when, in the end, they're actually harming them.
Me: I think some white families are still confused about whether this ruling really benefits their kids or not. Can you explain?
Dr. Kendi: Yeah. I think that the opponents of affirmative action have framed affirmative action as anti-white and to a lesser extent an anti-asian. And that then means that they have simultaneously almost indirectly framed standardized test scores, or legacies, or some of these other factors, as pro-white. And it's actually much more complicated than that. Take standardized tests for example. They primarily, according to studies, show the wealth of the parents of the test takers and reflect our massive racial wealth gap. Which means that having that as an admissions factor primarily benefits white people relative to people of color. But what I've long urged white Americans to think about, isn't whether a policy benefits them relative to people of color, but whether the policy benefits them relative to another policy. So as an example, “Would it benefit my child more if there were no standardized tests? If that wasn't an admissions factor?” And what I think white Americans will see is actually it would benefit their child more. What the conservators of racism have largely been preaching to white Americans to get them to support racist policies is that it's very simply, “This benefits you more than people of color. So therefore you should support it as opposed to a different policy.” For instance, our current funding model benefits white families more than kids of color, but a radically different funding model, where we fund education like we fund the military, would benefit white families more.
Me: So along those lines, what is the danger of not kind of thinking about raising our kids in this Antiracist framework? And while we're talking about this Antiracist framework, can you please help everybody understand the misuse of critical race theory or CRT? What's the path forward?
Dr. Kendi: So I think I can answer the second question first because it's quite simple. We had this pretty significant emergence of not only demonstrations against police violence, and racism, in the summer of 2020, but a tremendous number of people who were buying books and learning about black life or learning about racism. And this included young people. They were young people all over the country demonstrating at their high schools, at their middle schools, demanding a more Antiracist education. They felt that their curriculums were not diverse enough. And so in reaction to that, there was an effort to say that antiracism is the actual problem, not racism. And those who wanted to make that case - and they actually have been open about this - they couldn't directly say Antiracism is wrong, because how could Antiracism be wrong? So instead they used the term critical race theory, which was not a term that was widely used or known among the populists, but instead largely a feeling that existed among legal professionals and in law schools. And then they packed that term with meaning, essentially saying that CRT is anti-white. And then that allowed them to say Antiracism was CRT, which then allowed them to say Antiracism was anti-white. And actually the phrase “Antiracist is anti-white” is an old white supremacist talking point, and this allowed it to now go mainstream and it caused many white families to say, “Oh this is harmful to me and my children.” But, I think what many of those families did not realize, is that what's actually harmful to your child is racist ideas. Which is exactly what this Antiracist education is trying to protect your child from. And so just as you have kids of color who, because they're being hit by these racist ideas, think that there's something wrong with them because of the color of their skin, you have white children being taught that there's something right about them because of the color of their skin. Just as you have kids of color who are thinking that they are a problem because of their skin color, you have white kids who are saying, “I'm not just special because I'm kind, I'm special because I'm white.” And so what is protecting them from those ideas? And to me, sending a child out into the world where we have all these messages of white superiority and black inferiority swirling around them, is equivalent to taking your child who just started walking out on the street and just letting them walk without teaching them to look both ways so they can protect themselves. Because that's really what it's about. It's about teaching children to protect themselves by knowing that they're living in a dangerously racist society.
Me: I hate to talk about Antiracism from a marketing perspective, but I don't think it needs to be sold to people of color as much. It's just that it became so central to the conversation in a way that it hasn't been before for a lot more people than it was before.
Dr. Kendi: Yeah. I try to speak to both parents of kids of color and white kids because this is impacting them in different ways. There are kids of color who think that Antiracism is for white people, just as they're white people who believe they're not racist. And so there's two different forms of denial. I do think it is important for parents to realize that if a teacher gives a unit on slavery, that unit will not only chronicle white enslavers, it's also going to chronicle white, black, and indigenous abolitionists. And so that white child, like that black child, will be able to see white people on the good and the bad side of history, and that white child, like that black child, will be able to hopefully identify with the abolitionists who look like them or don't. I'm mentioning this because the assumption that when we teach about racism - in the past or present - is that white people are always the villains and that's just simply not true. Those making that assumption are demonstrating that they don't even know white American history, and that they don't know that our movements have been multiracial. And I think that's been one of the challenges that the very people who are against teaching history demonstrate through their arguments against teaching history. They don't know history. And, it just becomes this circle, right? Their lack of knowledge of history is leading them to support the non-teaching of history.
But I also think that it is just so important for us as parents to realize that our children are the group of people that we are the least likely to engage about race and racism, even though they are the most vulnerable to racist messages. We know how our kids are like sponges, right? We know how impressionable they are. But somehow when it comes to race, they're not impressionable, they're not sponges, they're not going to see what we see, they're not gonna hear what we hear, they're not gonna internalize that. I don't know how people sit in that contradiction.
Me: How do we learn to be Antiracist while raising Antiracist kids?
Dr. Kendi: I think we could do it together. I think just as we, as adults, are unlearning racist ideas and seeking to learn Antiracist ideas, so too could we be learning those Antiracist ideas with our young people. The beauty about young people is that they're not having to unlearn, right? So it's easier for them. But we can do it together because chances are our kids are gonna have a number of questions based on if we're introducing them to books and experiences that allow them to learn and understand, and we likely are not gonna be able to answer those questions. That then allows us to show curiosity by learning those answers together. To me, that's a beautiful thing.
