Main Edition
US
FR
July 5, 2022 - 11:00am
Ibram X. Kendi is an anxious parent.
In his latest book, How to Raise an Antiracist, the antiracist activist describes wearing a gas mask, hazmat suit and gloves just to change his baby’s diapers. On one occasion, he beats himself up for putting on the diaper too tightly, with his body ‘stiffening’ any time the baby is in his arms.
But at an Intelligence Squared talk last night in London, he admitted that he has gone even further, including teaching his daughter about antiracism at the tender age of one. He described an incident where she only had white dolls to play with, which he feared would implicitly teach her to devalue blackness. So Kendi and his wife began instructing his child about the importance of antiracism:
In his book, Kendi expands on this programme in more detail. ‘Childproofing is certifying our babies’ personal libraries have books that reflect the full range of humanity and inspire antiracist action,’ he writes. The library to which Kendi refers stretches all the way from Innosanto Nagara’s ‘A is for Activist’ to Meghan Markle’s ‘The Bench’ as well as a sprinkling of bell hooks.
But books are just the easy part, Kendi explains. In order to prepare children for a racist world, ‘caretakers’ must prime youngsters for ‘all sorts of trying, uncomfortable, and menacing aspects of our world’. As he explained last night, racist ideas come at children like cars on the street:
It seems even a world-famous antiracist activist such as Kendi struggles to live according to his own worldview. For example, he confessed to failing to choose a neighbourhood that is not racially diverse enough for his child to grow up in, so he relocated to D.C. On another occasion, he could not find a dark-skinned doll at his child’s nursery, so he took her out of the school entirely. Being a good antiracist parent is evidently a tough job.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeAs somebody who is neither racist nor anti-racist (at least, not in the sense of Ibram X. Kendi), it is difficult to tell this kind of thing apart from Titania Mc Grath’s spoofery. Indeed, progressives share this same problem: Titania Mc Grath has appeared on the booklist for genuinely anxious, woke parents, e.g.
https://commonslibrary.org/how-to-inspire-a-young-activist-a-collection-of-books-for-kids-and-teens/
It’s a trend
It’s a necessity, as your comment indicates.
According to Kendi, if you are not actively anti racist, you are a racist. There are no other options.
If you are not actively against the idea of transporting a 1 tonne block of cheese to the moon, then you support the idea.
If you’re actively “anti-racist”, you are a racist. The only other option is to be non-racist.
That is the position into which white supremacist complacency has deliberately angled itself. Uncomfortable, isn’t it.
…anybody who treats his own Daughter’s dirty nappy as a health hazard is, frankly, demented…I’m not sure he should be bringing up children at all, much less turning somersaults to make one into an infant “anti-racist”…
Are we sure he wasn’t just trying to be funny with that story? That part felt like an “I’m-a-clueless-parent” self deprecating trope, designed to disarm readers who don’t like being preached at from “on high.” The made-up story about the white dolls seems to serve the same purpose. If even Ibram managed to wind up unwittingly almost raising a racist baby, then we better all be on our best guard.
…I’ve read odd bits of his work idling in bookshops…I don’t think either humour or self-deprecation figure much in his personality..!
Fair. But a gasmask? Really? It strains credibility to say the least. I guess my point was that he’s posing. He didn’t actually wear a gas mask, in real life, surely.
‘Humour’, ‘personality’, ‘self deprecation’ and humiliyy have served Black people poorly, when their existence as anything beyond athletes, comics and raconteurs is viewed with suspicion in 2022. The old adage about the devil convincing doubters that ‘he’ exists has been gainfully rinsed by white supremacists (unthinking and othrwise) of late; the slightest affirmation of Black identity is now pounced upon as a divisive gesture of ‘black power’ by paranoids too far gone to discern the difference.
Exactly. Extraordinary
The doll aisle in every major retail store has dolls of every race available. I can’t speak for his kids nursery, but if he himself discovered that his kid didn’t have non-white dolls, he’s either lying or he’s terrible at his own agenda. For someone with his background, it should be impossible to miss the options in the store. How could the world’s foremost anti-racist be discovering to his dismay that he’s perpetuating racist structures, when his own brand of anti-racism has already prevailed in the retail store offerings. He should do better.
Yes I thought that too. It’s his fault as the retail options are plentiful now.
If anything it’s white kids, especially boys, who are going to feel excluded in the current media mania for presenting minority children only on kids tv programmes and advertising to kids.
Yes. A concerned parent reported to my cousin that she had witnessed her son killing an ant, of all the toxic masculine things to do!
Clearly a future serial killer. Ants are just the beginning!
He could have brought some black dolls to the nursery for general use.
The correct response to Ibram Kendi:-
Ok groomer.
In what way is he grooming? I have seen this applied to a number of cases and I can’t see the connection.
He’s grooming his kids to be “anti-racists”, i.e. racists.
“In order to prepare children for a racist world, ‘caretakers’ must prime youngsters for ‘all sorts of trying, uncomfortable, and menacing aspects of our world’.”
This quote seems to encompass the paranoia that seems to grip the woke. Clearly a black parent would wish to ensure their children are as little affected by the remaining idiots who believe having a black skin says anything about a persons character and abilities, but to prepare for a “racist world” has more than a touch of paranoia about it even in the US where racist attitudes undoubtedly prevailed for a long time. In the US where positive discrimination officially prevails in many institutions it is unrealistic to pretend that a child has to be prepared for life in the Jim Crow South of a century ago.
He refers to encouraging her not to see her hair as bad. Of course there is nothing wrong with typical black hair but inevitably hairdressers as a whole will specialise in the predominant hair type. There is nothing racist about it since black hairdressers can set up businesses to cater for black hair.
I am rather surprised he managed to find a nursery without black dolls unless he moved to an unusually insular white only area. It all smacks of a somewhat disingenuous as well as paranoid approach to life.
Heavy on the disingenuous
And then there is the old advice – ‘follow the money’. He is making millions of dollars a year out of this. Very few could resist the temptation, so I’d not judge that harshly….were it not for his judging everyone else harshly.
White leftists are the dumbest people on the planet, Kendi is a scammer nothing more, pay up suckers
How much cash would Kendi make in China, India, or Japan, ect, he’d be laughed at. only white people fall for this BS
He’s so woke he can’t even say “parent” or “parenting.” ‘Caretaker’ makes me think of a groundskeeper.
Radical slam poet and queen of social justice Titania McGrath has turned her talents to the realm of children’s non-fiction. Aimed at activists from the age of six months to six years
OMFG I can’t believe this got included! Doyle must have done backflips when he heard
Please, someone think of the children!
Hm so he lives in DC for the racial diversity? I’m willing to bet it’s somewhere like Adams Morgan rather than Columbia Heights.
I’ve never heard a good word said about the guy, yet, on reading those quotes I thought what he said was mostly reasonable. Except it would have been easier to buy some coloured dolls and donate them to the nursery rather than remove his child.
Those were my thoughts. Ensuring that his child has positive images of black people seems a responsible thing to do, I would do the same. I also agree with you that I would just ask the nursery to buy some black dolls, not withdraw my child. Of course, a truely ‘woke’ person wouldquestion his stereotyping his daighter by giving her dolls. 🙂
My thoughts exactly. Which stereotypes must be upheld and which ones rejected?
There’s a surface reading of wokism that always sounds reasonable. The very term “anti-racist” is a perfect example. Who except a few fringe deranged people is not against racism? Of course anti-racism is totally reasonable as a simple notion. But there’s a whole ideology packed in here and it’s pursued disingenuously. It’s also overblown. People like Kendi, who manages to have his kid in a nursery, should spend some time in the slums of Hyderabad Pakistan where I grew up. There’s real oppression and abuse in this world, but white dolls in fancy day cares aren’t it.
So what does he do when his kid is afraid of the dark and wants the light on? Is it possible that humans might have preferences for light over darkness that have nothing to do with racism, but a basic survival instinct without which our ancestors would have been eaten by nocturnal predators?
Kendi is simply a hater.
Most recent children’s literature is time-wasting trash, including The Bench. (A friend’s child started a parody of it —” A bench is a perch for bums. Some people are all bum to the crowns of their heads…” Such uncluttered possession of reality.) Children can sense preachiness a mile off. So glad my own parents just passed on their parents’ copies of Greek myths for children (Disney’s Ariel is very wet compared to Clyte!) and fairly unbowdlerized Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Jumped-up pseudo intellectuals like Mr. “Kendi” are bound to be deeply superficial.
Poor kid.
So he’s raising a racist baby?
Seems unherd really loves Kendi….
When my daughters were babies, black dolls were easily available. We had one of each colour, which was our childrens’ choice. It was also rare to find a contemporary book that didn’t feature black, brown and white faces, and this was 20 years ago so I would imagine it’s even more the case now.
Of course, I live in the UK, not the US. I can only assume that they still have massive problems with structural racism that we don’t, and books are white only. So why is he telling us his story, when it only applies to the seemingly apartheid neighbourhood in which he resides?
African Americans have been provided every opportunity in the book to elevate themselves in US society. The fact that they haven’t is now taken to be an indicator of white supremacy.
I would like to say that out of the African American students I have taught there are a notable number who abhor CRT preaching. Unfortunately, their views and opinions are often ignored for more sensationalist anti racist ones.
I’m 60 and I had a black Barbie in the 70’s–“Julia” from a TV show about a nurse. Black dolls have always been available. Maybe black dolls don’t comprise 50% of all dolls, but blacks only comprise 12% of the population. Also, you forgot the /s!