This article got a bit longer than I expected it to but there is a lot of information in it. I would apologize but the information is important. I hope everyone will read it with an open mind.
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Ibram Kendi is a black man, a professor, and the director of the Center for Anti-racist Research at Boston University. Kendi describes himself as an anti-racist activist and a historian of race and discriminatory policy in America. He has written books about racism and anti-racism.
Kendi's professed definition of the term “racism” is interesting. According to Kendi, the definition of racism is:
“A collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas”
Now, I'm no college professor. I don't even have a college degree. But I'm fairly intelligent, well read, fairly well traveled and I have lived in cultures different from my own in my lifetime. When I read Kendi's definition of racism all I can say is... “Huh?” Kendi's simplistic definition of the word is a lot of words strung together that really say:
“Racism is racist stuff.”
The guy is a college professor who makes his living studying and teaching about racism and that's the best he can do?
Merriam-Webster defines racism as: a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.”
Interestingly, after all of the racial issues in the news last year and after receiving an email from a young, black college student, Merriam-Webster updated their definition of the word to include: the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another - specifically white supremacy.”
I don't know if Webster is specifically referring to the United States when talking about systemic oppression and white supremacy but it would seem so. President Biden says it's the most dangerous threat to our country today. I personally don't think Biden actually believes that but instead is merely pandering to his base.
Systemic racism is defined as: a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas.”
Has anyone noticed that no one who preaches about systemic racism ever really defines those “racist policies?” What are they? And exactly how is white supremacy oppressing any racial group? Unless, of course, one believes that simply being white oppresses people of color.
Professor Kendi defines anti-racism as: supporting and instituting policies and ideas that level racial disparities of socio-economic outcome.
That's all well and good except what he really means is instituting policies that insure racial equity. Many people, if not most, don't understand what equity means. Many believe equity and equality are the same thing. They are not.
Webster's definition of equality, “the quality or state of being equal,” doesn't go far enough. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as: the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities.
That describes fairly accurately what we have in this country today with the exception of status. Everyone has the same rights and opportunities but status is determined by what one does with the opportunities afforded to them. Of course many will say status is most often a product of white privilege but that is simply another talking point.
Equity as it is used in today's society has no good definition in the popular dictionaries. The Urban Dictionary defines it pretty well. Equity: providing various levels of support and assistance depending on specific needs or abilities.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF), a philanthropic organization in Baltimore, defines equity and equality this way: Equity involves trying to understand and give people what they need to enjoy full, healthy lives. Equality, in contrast, aims to ensure that everyone gets the same things in order to enjoy full, healthy lives.
Equality means equal opportunity. Equity means equal outcome, which is one of the main goals of socialism, communism and Marxism. After all, the motto of Marxism is “From each according to his means, to each according to his need.”
Democrat politicians and social justice warriors are taking advantage of people's lack of knowledge about equality vs equity. They understand if they pretend equity is the same thing as equality many Americans will be in favor of the push for equity. But equity favors some people over others, in this case by race, in an attempt to make everyone equal in society. And it's often illegal.
The Biden administration has recently tried to introduce policies that promote equity, giving out government loans to people based on skin color. The Small Business Administration was successfully sued over their recent practice of giving Covid relief loans to businesses owned by people of color and women who are non-white, excluding white men, and by a disabled white farmer who was denied a relief loan because the money was directed to go to people of color. Federal judges have issued injunctions against the Biden administration for these practices saying they are discriminatory and illegal.
This was a push by Biden for equity, trying to give certain people an advantage over others based on skin color and/or ethnicity – the very definition of racial discrimination.
Most of what society deems to be racism today is not. Disliking someone or some group based on their skin color is not racism, it's bigotry. Disagreeing with a person or group whose skin color is not the same as yours is not racism. Police enforcing the law and/or using force on a person of color is not racism. The word racism has become a catch-all term for anything negative involving people of color and whites or people of color and police, regardless of the skin color or ethnicity of the officer in question.
The main stream media loves to make things about race even when they are not. Racism, or the suggestion of racism, brings in viewers which in turn brings in advertising dollars. Democrat politicians like to scream racism in attempts to shut down opposition. I listened to Chuck Schumer yesterday tell his Republican colleagues they are all racists because they opposed the Democrats' attempt to take complete control of all elections with the absolutely horrid HR-1 voting reform bill.
Democrats use the word a lot. Making people of color believe Republicans are racists helps keep them voting for Democrats, even as Democrats are the ones who are oppressing them by working to keep large numbers of the them on social programs and telling them society is against them. Lyndon Johnson was one of the few Democrats who was honest about it saying (very colorfully) after signing the Civil Rights Act that it would keep black people “voting Democrat for the next 200 years.” So far it has worked.
This country had come a long way in racial relations until Barack Obama became President. Obama's open hostility toward police, particularly white police, began a chain in which people of color and leftists began seeing racism in nearly everything. Despite what people like Kendi and Obama might think, the average American doesn't see skin color in every person.
The average American believes in and abides by Martin Luther King, Junior's infamous words “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." It's who we are as a nation and a people. If that wasn't true there would be far more violence by whites against people of color. That's just a simple fact.
