I am surrounded by white liberals at work and some of the things they just say off the cuff are outright racist. Lowered expectations, hatred for those who don't align with their viewpoints, and bizarre forms of patronization are rattled off like bits of common sense. To be truly "anti-racist" actually means to be comfortable being called racist by white liberals for standing against judgement based on race. To expect people of color to hold their own communities responsible, overcome adversity, and excel based on merit is somehow racist, but lowering expectations for people of color based on their race isn't?
Wokeism has replaced the perception of Blacks from the People who Overcome, to People of Victimization. Presently some leaders of the Jewish community (AJC, ADL, some JFEDs) are recasting Jews as Victims and erase our self-perception as Survivors, and they are demanding funding from the government.
I wonder how invested Kendi and others are in their perspective intellectually and if they actually believe it, or are cynically hiding behind an ideology that guarantees them lucrative work in perpetuity.
As a fellow of the Global Curiosity Institute with a focus on antiracism, it’s quite difficult for me to believe you’re expressing curiosity with your comment. Your comment used the word “wonder,” but that’s where the signs of curiosity end. The rest is insinuation poorly disguised as interest.
Your hint at questions that you could answer for yourself with research if you truly had curiosity about the answers is a dead giveaway. I won’t even delve into what it says about you that you’re wondering about his financial interest while he’s fighting against an ideology that has raped, maimed, and murdered hundreds of thousands of people through the generations and continues to do so today.
I wonder if you actually believe you’re curious about people who stand for antiracism, not just intellectually but as a value for their lives, or if you’re cynically hiding behind intellectual honesty to criticize a movement to suppress white supremacist ideology. 🤔
You're entirely calcified in your beliefs, so any lecture about wonder and curiosity falls flat. You wouldn't exhibit the slightest modicum of curiosity over judgement regarding someone who shares differing beliefs on anti racism, so why does the impetus to genuine curiosity only remain the burden of one side of the discussion? I say this as someone, legitimately, who thinks both crusades are equally harmful to the genuine peace and advancement of society.
Sir, you don’t know and clearly are not interested in my beliefs. Nor do you have any idea what I would or wouldn’t do. You need to believe all that mess you wrote to avoid self reflection. Totally your call, but don’t try to pretend that I have anything to do with your lack of curiosity. It has nothing to do with me.
As someone who actually has engaged in critical thinking on this subject, I do indeed have strong beliefs on the subject, but they are in no way calcified. They have changed throughout the years. So you’re wrong about that. I’ve criticized many other antiracist activists and been criticized by them myself, so you’re wrong about my exhibition of curiosity as well. Indeed, there is video evidence of that on my YouTube channel.
What can I conclude based on what you’ve written here? That you have not engaged in critical thinking on this subject matter. That you are not truly curious because when faced with someone who has engaged in intensive study over literal decades, it means nothing to you. That you’d rather race not exist, but you have zero idea of how to get from where we’re at now to where you imagine you’d like to go. Anyways, I’m about to be en route to Paris, so I’m out. ✌🏿
Oh, for sure. I knew Saira Rao and Regina Jackson were grifters the first time I heard of Race2Dinner. And what a grift it is!
Not to mention all the corporate HR "workers" who have no skills other than harassing people and wasting everyone's time on useless "training" sessions. Of course they keep selling the antiracist snake oil - that's all they've got to offer.
“This insight rings truer than ever in the context of modern antiracism, which is disproportionately driven by white progressives in academia, media, and corporate America.“
White progressives may have been at the forefront of “anti racism,” but to be fair, I don’t know many white people who were on board with stuff like reparations (among other issues) until black people like Kendi told them they were racists for not supporting those things. White progressives deserve blame here, but I know of a lot of black and other non white academics and activists who deserve an equal share of this blame. White people were not the only drivers of these narratives, or the only people who took advantage of some of the progressive lefts worst excesses. Blame white people, but a lot of these narratives did not start with us.
Nafees Alam knocked a dinger out of the park with this article! 🧢⚾️🏟️ Being told to “act your race!” is insulting and racist. Malcolm X’s warning about the white liberal rings true to today in light of the birth of DEI and woke ideology. White progressives and the DEI regime police black, brown, red, and yellow people and tell them who they are, how they should act and how they should think. Their POC counterparts are no better in this regard. Remember when Marc Lamont Hill said that the black community leaders meeting with Donald Trump back during his first term were “a bunch of mediocre negroes.” Or how about when MSNBC’s Jason Johnson said black Trump supporters are “self-hating people?” DEI advocates expound the virtues of a world where one’s color defines one’s character, lived experiences and political beliefs and values among other things. The world that folks like Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, Tim Wise, Jane Elliott, Peggy MacIntosh, Bryan Stevenson, Gyasi Ross, Tamika Mallory, Michael Eric Dyson, and Jay Smooth seek to create, is the exact opposite of the one MLK dreamed of his “I Have A Dream” speech. Black people who aren’t liberals like Clarence Thomas or Tim Scott are accused of being “Uncle Toms” or “c***s.” Kash Patel was basically called a race traitor by Aziz Anasari on SNL. Ricky Martin said that Latino Trump supporters is “just so sad.” These are all examples of the hostility non-liberal or leftist people of color face for thinking differently than they’re supposed to. White progressives in particular love to slur and insult POC who don’t meet their criteria for what “approved” thought for minorities should be. These people are fake allies who really care more about ideology than about allyship with that community in of itself. White guilt as Bayard Rustin explained decades ago, is used by white liberals to exploit blacks by have them take part in their own sadomasochism. It is also a fact that liberals use simpler words when talking to blacks, while conservatives do not. It is also the case that the modern social justice movement takes famous black historical figures and uses them as props. Let’s take the aforementioned Bayard Rustin for example. Woke liberals and leftists love to use him as an intersectional prop and talk about how he was a black, gay, pacifist, socialist. But you’ll notice what’s missing are his actual ideas.
Bayard held heterodox beliefs that today’s woke activists would hate. He opposed affirmative action and reparations for slavery, instead favoring universal solutions to racial injustice such as a living wage, a commitment to full employment and universal healthcare. He opposed African American Studies as a distinct academic discipline. Rustin once said “if a bigot tells me the sun is shining, if the sun shining I will say “yes, the sun is shining.” because I want to tell the truth.” Rustin was a champion of free speech who opposed even banning blackface minstrel shows. He once said “no economic or social order has ever been developed on the basis of color, it must be developed on the basis of class.” Mr. Rustin also emphasized that his passion for activism did not arise from his being black or his being gay, but rather his Quaker upbringing with its emphasis on the oneness of all humanity. Those beliefs got him called him Uncle Tom in his time and definitely would today. He was hated both by white supremacists and black radicals. He’d get savaged even worse today and cancelled by activists. Charlemagne Tha God, D.L. Hughley, the legacy civil rights organizations, Hollywood, the liberal media, SNL, and Democratic Party would roundly denounce him. Black activists would say he “was skinfolk, not kinfolk.” Suffice it to say, MLK would NOT be happy with the state of race relations currently. We as a society need to liberate racial minorities from progressive paternalism! Minorities can only advance when white liberals stop holding them back! White liberals engage in the soft bigotry of low expectations. They think blacks, Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Native Americans, Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians, women, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people are too stupid and too helpless to make it on their own in America, that is complete nonsense. They accuse any POC who doesn’t tow the liberal or leftist line of having “internalized racism” or any woman thinks differently of having “internalized misogyny.” We need to mature as a society and get past this way of thinking!
The author writes: "Antiracism, as popularized by thinkers like Ibram X. Kendi, posits that every policy or action is either racist or antiracist, with no neutral ground. In practice, this binary framework reduces people to racial archetypes. . . . Malcolm X, in his fiery critiques, saw through the facade of well-intentioned white allies. In a 1963 speech, he declared, “The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man.” In the 1960's, Constitutional scholar, Martin Diamond at Claremont, who died at 57 years before his time in 1977), made the same observation about the "group rights" trend in the Democratic Party. If he had lived, America might have avoided the take-over by the Woke establishment. In fact, the Claremont Institute MIGHT not have been founded in 1979. Sadly, history goes only in one direction.
Perhaps Dr. Alam or another FBT luminary might be willing to take on a challenge I haven't seen ANY black intellectual willing to face (if I am wrong, please provide links). I refer to performing a close examination of John Derbyshire's fateful "The Talk (Nonblack Version)" and explaining where Mr. Derbyshire went wrong, expressed racist views, and/or got black (and white) people all wrong. This piece, which resulted in Derbyshire's firing from National Review and his general cancellation elsewhere in literary circles, is from 2012 and can be found here: https://www.unz.com/article/the-talk-nonblack-version/
I am surrounded by white liberals at work and some of the things they just say off the cuff are outright racist. Lowered expectations, hatred for those who don't align with their viewpoints, and bizarre forms of patronization are rattled off like bits of common sense. To be truly "anti-racist" actually means to be comfortable being called racist by white liberals for standing against judgement based on race. To expect people of color to hold their own communities responsible, overcome adversity, and excel based on merit is somehow racist, but lowering expectations for people of color based on their race isn't?
Wokeism has replaced the perception of Blacks from the People who Overcome, to People of Victimization. Presently some leaders of the Jewish community (AJC, ADL, some JFEDs) are recasting Jews as Victims and erase our self-perception as Survivors, and they are demanding funding from the government.
I wonder how invested Kendi and others are in their perspective intellectually and if they actually believe it, or are cynically hiding behind an ideology that guarantees them lucrative work in perpetuity.
This is a lie. This is a comment devoid of wonder and curiosity.
Even as I wondered it aloud? 😄 I literally don't have the answer. I have my suspicions, but they are just that. I am legitimately curious.
As a fellow of the Global Curiosity Institute with a focus on antiracism, it’s quite difficult for me to believe you’re expressing curiosity with your comment. Your comment used the word “wonder,” but that’s where the signs of curiosity end. The rest is insinuation poorly disguised as interest.
Your hint at questions that you could answer for yourself with research if you truly had curiosity about the answers is a dead giveaway. I won’t even delve into what it says about you that you’re wondering about his financial interest while he’s fighting against an ideology that has raped, maimed, and murdered hundreds of thousands of people through the generations and continues to do so today.
I wonder if you actually believe you’re curious about people who stand for antiracism, not just intellectually but as a value for their lives, or if you’re cynically hiding behind intellectual honesty to criticize a movement to suppress white supremacist ideology. 🤔
You're entirely calcified in your beliefs, so any lecture about wonder and curiosity falls flat. You wouldn't exhibit the slightest modicum of curiosity over judgement regarding someone who shares differing beliefs on anti racism, so why does the impetus to genuine curiosity only remain the burden of one side of the discussion? I say this as someone, legitimately, who thinks both crusades are equally harmful to the genuine peace and advancement of society.
Sir, you don’t know and clearly are not interested in my beliefs. Nor do you have any idea what I would or wouldn’t do. You need to believe all that mess you wrote to avoid self reflection. Totally your call, but don’t try to pretend that I have anything to do with your lack of curiosity. It has nothing to do with me.
As someone who actually has engaged in critical thinking on this subject, I do indeed have strong beliefs on the subject, but they are in no way calcified. They have changed throughout the years. So you’re wrong about that. I’ve criticized many other antiracist activists and been criticized by them myself, so you’re wrong about my exhibition of curiosity as well. Indeed, there is video evidence of that on my YouTube channel.
What can I conclude based on what you’ve written here? That you have not engaged in critical thinking on this subject matter. That you are not truly curious because when faced with someone who has engaged in intensive study over literal decades, it means nothing to you. That you’d rather race not exist, but you have zero idea of how to get from where we’re at now to where you imagine you’d like to go. Anyways, I’m about to be en route to Paris, so I’m out. ✌🏿
Oh, for sure. I knew Saira Rao and Regina Jackson were grifters the first time I heard of Race2Dinner. And what a grift it is!
Not to mention all the corporate HR "workers" who have no skills other than harassing people and wasting everyone's time on useless "training" sessions. Of course they keep selling the antiracist snake oil - that's all they've got to offer.
“This insight rings truer than ever in the context of modern antiracism, which is disproportionately driven by white progressives in academia, media, and corporate America.“
White progressives may have been at the forefront of “anti racism,” but to be fair, I don’t know many white people who were on board with stuff like reparations (among other issues) until black people like Kendi told them they were racists for not supporting those things. White progressives deserve blame here, but I know of a lot of black and other non white academics and activists who deserve an equal share of this blame. White people were not the only drivers of these narratives, or the only people who took advantage of some of the progressive lefts worst excesses. Blame white people, but a lot of these narratives did not start with us.
White progressives are not even remotely on the forefront of antiracism.
Nafees Alam knocked a dinger out of the park with this article! 🧢⚾️🏟️ Being told to “act your race!” is insulting and racist. Malcolm X’s warning about the white liberal rings true to today in light of the birth of DEI and woke ideology. White progressives and the DEI regime police black, brown, red, and yellow people and tell them who they are, how they should act and how they should think. Their POC counterparts are no better in this regard. Remember when Marc Lamont Hill said that the black community leaders meeting with Donald Trump back during his first term were “a bunch of mediocre negroes.” Or how about when MSNBC’s Jason Johnson said black Trump supporters are “self-hating people?” DEI advocates expound the virtues of a world where one’s color defines one’s character, lived experiences and political beliefs and values among other things. The world that folks like Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, Tim Wise, Jane Elliott, Peggy MacIntosh, Bryan Stevenson, Gyasi Ross, Tamika Mallory, Michael Eric Dyson, and Jay Smooth seek to create, is the exact opposite of the one MLK dreamed of his “I Have A Dream” speech. Black people who aren’t liberals like Clarence Thomas or Tim Scott are accused of being “Uncle Toms” or “c***s.” Kash Patel was basically called a race traitor by Aziz Anasari on SNL. Ricky Martin said that Latino Trump supporters is “just so sad.” These are all examples of the hostility non-liberal or leftist people of color face for thinking differently than they’re supposed to. White progressives in particular love to slur and insult POC who don’t meet their criteria for what “approved” thought for minorities should be. These people are fake allies who really care more about ideology than about allyship with that community in of itself. White guilt as Bayard Rustin explained decades ago, is used by white liberals to exploit blacks by have them take part in their own sadomasochism. It is also a fact that liberals use simpler words when talking to blacks, while conservatives do not. It is also the case that the modern social justice movement takes famous black historical figures and uses them as props. Let’s take the aforementioned Bayard Rustin for example. Woke liberals and leftists love to use him as an intersectional prop and talk about how he was a black, gay, pacifist, socialist. But you’ll notice what’s missing are his actual ideas.
Bayard held heterodox beliefs that today’s woke activists would hate. He opposed affirmative action and reparations for slavery, instead favoring universal solutions to racial injustice such as a living wage, a commitment to full employment and universal healthcare. He opposed African American Studies as a distinct academic discipline. Rustin once said “if a bigot tells me the sun is shining, if the sun shining I will say “yes, the sun is shining.” because I want to tell the truth.” Rustin was a champion of free speech who opposed even banning blackface minstrel shows. He once said “no economic or social order has ever been developed on the basis of color, it must be developed on the basis of class.” Mr. Rustin also emphasized that his passion for activism did not arise from his being black or his being gay, but rather his Quaker upbringing with its emphasis on the oneness of all humanity. Those beliefs got him called him Uncle Tom in his time and definitely would today. He was hated both by white supremacists and black radicals. He’d get savaged even worse today and cancelled by activists. Charlemagne Tha God, D.L. Hughley, the legacy civil rights organizations, Hollywood, the liberal media, SNL, and Democratic Party would roundly denounce him. Black activists would say he “was skinfolk, not kinfolk.” Suffice it to say, MLK would NOT be happy with the state of race relations currently. We as a society need to liberate racial minorities from progressive paternalism! Minorities can only advance when white liberals stop holding them back! White liberals engage in the soft bigotry of low expectations. They think blacks, Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Native Americans, Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians, women, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people are too stupid and too helpless to make it on their own in America, that is complete nonsense. They accuse any POC who doesn’t tow the liberal or leftist line of having “internalized racism” or any woman thinks differently of having “internalized misogyny.” We need to mature as a society and get past this way of thinking!
There is nothing diverse in the "D" of DEI. There is incredible sameness.
Excellent article! Thank you, Dr. Alam!
The author writes: "Antiracism, as popularized by thinkers like Ibram X. Kendi, posits that every policy or action is either racist or antiracist, with no neutral ground. In practice, this binary framework reduces people to racial archetypes. . . . Malcolm X, in his fiery critiques, saw through the facade of well-intentioned white allies. In a 1963 speech, he declared, “The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man.” In the 1960's, Constitutional scholar, Martin Diamond at Claremont, who died at 57 years before his time in 1977), made the same observation about the "group rights" trend in the Democratic Party. If he had lived, America might have avoided the take-over by the Woke establishment. In fact, the Claremont Institute MIGHT not have been founded in 1979. Sadly, history goes only in one direction.
Perhaps Dr. Alam or another FBT luminary might be willing to take on a challenge I haven't seen ANY black intellectual willing to face (if I am wrong, please provide links). I refer to performing a close examination of John Derbyshire's fateful "The Talk (Nonblack Version)" and explaining where Mr. Derbyshire went wrong, expressed racist views, and/or got black (and white) people all wrong. This piece, which resulted in Derbyshire's firing from National Review and his general cancellation elsewhere in literary circles, is from 2012 and can be found here: https://www.unz.com/article/the-talk-nonblack-version/
Common ground conversation starters "Are you a member of the human race? Is there anyone else in all of humanity that is exactly like you and me?