#Center for Antiracist Research

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Adam B. Coleman

Published: Sep 18, 2023

The real measure of an individual’s character isn’t what he portrays to the public but how he treats people in private.

Truly righteous people treat others with respect and dignity when there is no one else around and no social credit to be earned for doing the right thing.

This distinction matters — especially for people who’ve made a career lecturing others on the appropriate way to treat people, especially those perceived as having less power in society.

But when no one was looking and nothing was to be gained, it seems Ibram X. Kendi used his power and privilege as the director of a think tank to exploit and mistreat the people who worked under him as if they were people who are beneath him.

Amid confirmation of layoffs being made at Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, former and current faculty have spoken out about Kendi’s mismanagement, “exploitation” and enrichment.

“There are a number of ways it got to this point, it started very early on when the university decided to create a center that rested in the hands of one human being, an individual given millions of dollars and so much authority,” stated Spencer Piston, a BU political science professor. 

A Former assistant director of narrative at the center and a BU associate professor of sociology and African American and black diaspora studies, Saida Grundy, also described a lack of structure, leading to her working additional hours that were unreasonable, especially for the pay she was receiving.

“It became very clear after I started that this was exploitative and other faculty experienced the same and worse,” Grundy lamented.

With tens of millions of dollars flowing in from major donors shortly after the center’s founding in 2020 from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, the Rockefeller Foundation and biotech company Vertex, Grundy also saw the missed opportunity to directly help black students at Boston University. 

“Those donations could have been going to benefit black students.”

Grundy is correct that much of the donation money could have been utilized in objectively more helpful ways to serve the people Kendi claimed to be advocating for. But the line between rhetoric and action was a line that Kendi never had any intentions of crossing.

Kendi used the dogma of antiracism to project a new moral standard at a time when many Americans momentarily questioned their behavior and culpability.

As he demanded that everyone should check their privilege and feel socially accountable for the exploitation of people, he was simultaneously exploiting the emotions of a nation to solidify his nobility status among the upper class in academia.

Kendi’s boutique moral philosophy on historical events and human interaction has only made him notable among the upper class.

Those elites declare racial enlightenment over the naïve majority who prefer to treat people like they’d want to be treated.

The antiracism think tank operated more like an antiracism piggybank with only one man listed as its financial beneficiary.

Kendi’s interests have become clearer as time has gone on: His “research center” was for the benefit of one black person, not black people.

Remember the $90 million windfall Patrisse Cullors and the Black Lives Matter organization scored and their frivolous spending habits with donation money, buying mansions and funneling cash to board and family members?

Activist Shaun King has also repeatedly been accused of raising money for recipients and causes that never saw it.

This is a similarly disappointing realization after tens of millions of dollars have been placed in the hands of an advocate who has shown little regard to produce a return for his bold aspirations.

Kendi had systemic control over his own research center yet used his position to take advantage of the people whom he was leading and continued to reap the academic clout that legitimizes his profiting in over $32,000 a speech.

Kendi suggests that people should become more race-conscious to be better anti-racists, but I believe it’s more important to be elitist-conscious.

We need to be aware of the behavioral patterns and condescending rhetoric of the people who think they know better than us about everything.

If we were all good anti-elitists, we’d ignore the utopian rhetoric of social progressives and anti-racists and focus on their behavior.

This readjustment would help us quickly realize that race is a tool to distract us from noticing they are getting rich from dividing us into categories of human characteristics.

The only remedy to moral elitism is moral anti-elitism: This is how we have an anti-elitist society.

Adam B. Coleman is the author of “Black Victim to Black Victor” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing. Follow him on Substack: adambcoleman.substack.com.

==

It was never about doing anything useful. It was always akin to buying indulgences from the Catholic Church.

[beardedmrbean]

A New York Times columnist criticized "antiracist" guru Ibram Kendi’s philosophy as "reductionistic" and "strident" while slamming the academic institutions, businesses and donors that bought into the notion in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder.

Times columnist Pamela Paul wrote on Thursday that institutions pushing Kendi’s school of thought were going "against the enlightened principles on which many of those institutions were founded — free inquiry, freedom of speech, a diversity of perspectives."

Paul’s column is the latest hit on Kendi, whose reputation has been damaged in recent weeks following news that his antiracism center at Boston University had undergone major layoffs.

In the fallout from these layoffs, workers came forward with bombshell allegations that the center "exploited" staff and "blew through" millions of dollars in grant money while failing to deliver on its promises.

Paul began her piece with comment on Kendi’s fall from grace and then continued with an examination of why so many cultural institutions bought into his mantras in the first place.

She wrote, "The recent turmoil at Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, with more than half its staff laid off and half its budget cut amid questions of what it did with the nearly $55 million it raised, led to whoops of schadenfreude from Kendi’s critics and hand wringing from his loyal fans."

After noting how both right and left viewed Kendi, as either "what was right or wrong with America’s racial reckoning since the police murder of George Floyd," she wrote that it is "more interesting" that he was so propped up considering his "simplistic" ideas.

"More interesting is that many major universities, corporations, nonprofit groups and influential donors thought buying into Kendi’s strident, simplistic formula — that racism is the cause of all racial disparities and that anyone who disagrees is a racist — could eradicate racial strife and absolve them of any role they may have played in it," Paul wrote.

She rebuked these institutions, adding, "After all, this reductionist line of thinking runs squarely against the enlightened principles on which many of those institutions were founded — free inquiry, freedom of speech, a diversity of perspectives."

But because of their support, Paul added, "Kendi’s ideas gained prominence, often to the exclusion of all other perspectives."

After giving a brief history of how the racial thinker developed his ideas, the columnist claimed there are better, more nuanced ideas of confronting racism.

She first cited Kendi’s 2019 book, "How to Be an Antiracist," which was the basis for much of the antiracist thought that made him an often-cited expert in the George Floyd era.

Paula wrote, "In this book, Kendi made clear that to explore reasons other than racism for racial inequities, whether economic, social or cultural, is to promote anti-black policies. ‘The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination,' Kendi wrote, in words that would be softened in a future edition after they became the subject of criticism."

She summarized this assessment, adding, "In other words, two wrongs do make a right. As practiced, that meant curriculums that favor works by Black people over white people is one way to achieve that goal; hiring quotas are another."

Paula also noted how antiracism "requires a commitment" to "active opposition to sexism, homophobia, colorism, ethnocentrism, nativism, cultural prejudice and any class biases that supposedly harm Black lives. To deviate from any of this is to be racist. You’re either with us or you’re against us."

The columnist slammed these ideas, arguing that individuals can advocate less extreme positions and still be considered not racist. "Contra Kendi, there are conscientious people who advocate racial neutrality over racial discrimination. It isn’t necessarily naive or wrong to believe that most Americans aren’t racist," she said, adding, "To believe that white supremacists exist in this country but that white supremacy is not the dominant characteristic of America in 2023 is also an acceptable position."

Paula concluded the piece advocating for a "more nuanced and open-minded conversation around racism and a commitment to more diverse visions of how to address it."

[theremina]

Adoption causes way more intergenerational trauma and collective health crises than I think many "kept" people realize.

If you bother to read it, the science is clear: adoption is violently traumatic, causing devastating, irreversible health issues for millions of human beings. Yet I'd have more luck conveying the severity and longevity of my own trauma to most non-adoptees with "I was dropped on my head as a baby."

Heck, I didn't begin to contend with the horrors of my own situation until my mid forties. Being yeeted directly after birth into foster care and eventually adopted by lovely, well-intentioned folks who were not prepared *at all* to help me deal with the lifelong neurodevelopmental disorders and physical health problems directly caused by my abandonment at birth has permanently damaged me. I'm saying so as one of the "lucky ones".

I adore my adoptive family. They're incredible parents. We love each other dearly. This doesn't change the fact, not for one second, that I wouldn't wish adoption on ANYBODY. Thankfully, my folks understand this. I wish more adoptive parents did.

The modern adoption industry* is, by design, deeply misogynistic, racist, transactional, ableist, imperialist, colonial. Ignorance and hate and apathy and coercion and subjugation and dehumanization and capitalism keep the machine running.

We're already seeing the beginning of Baby Scoop Too: Electric Boogaloo on Facebook. On Twitter. On Instagram. On other social media platforms owned and controlled by obscenely wealthy white men who don't consider private adoptions to be unethical.

You may *think* that legalized human trafficking doesn't really effect you, but soon, if the Christofascists continue their cultural blitzkrieg, the amount of infants and children who end up in the foster care system, adopted by unqualified people, in devastating private "rehoming" situations like the one shared above, or worse, is gonna SKYROCKET.

So...I'm barely on Facebook anymore for a few different reasons. One of them is that I couldn't handle watching a whole bunch of ignorant self-proclaimed feminists making shitty adoption jokes after Roe was overturned.

Another reason is that Facebook is LITERALLY A BABY MARKET.

ADOPTIVE PARENTS ARE BUYING AND SELLING CHILDREN ON FACEBOOK. WHAT THE ACTUAL UNFORTUNATE FUCK.

Nearly 100 million American families are in the adoption triad, with a majority of adoptees' needs and voices being considered last instead of first. It's so backwards.

Non-kinship adoption is a systemic violence that cannot help but touch the lives of billions. That is so very, very bad for ALL of us, not just abandoned infants and children or their struggling parents.

Some straightforward response questions for every person who has ever asked me about about my adoption:

Are you a feminist? Are you antiracist? Are you a humanitarian? Anti-ableist? Do you consider yourself lefty, liberal, or otherwise progressive? Do you respect science? Then please reevaluate your perceptions of adoption.

For every adoptive or bio parent you listen to, listen to three or more adoptees. For every shitty adoption "joke" you've ever told, check in with an adoptee (or first mom) in a kind and caring way. For every ignorant question you've ever asked an adoptee about our "real parents", crack a book!

Please. Do some research. Learn. Please. Center transracial adoptees, international adoptees, disabled adoptees, queer adoptees. Please. This stuff impacts all of us just as surely as countless other aspects of systemic rape culture do. Try to understand. Please.

I'm more certain than ever that we must abolish before we can rebuild.

Please give a shit. Please.

*The fact that adoption is an industry at all should shock and horrify us all, and yet... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[image description: a screenshot of a Facebook post with a black border and caption reading, “Welcome to America, where people try to regime adopted children on Facebook Marketplace.” The Facebook post itself reads, “So basically they either want him to come back home, or have CPS place him in a foster home. Or I can find someone willing to take him in, and ‘under the table’ pay them the stipend, we get. If CPS places him they will have to have an open case against me. In doing that I will lose my job. I cannot work at a daycare, school, group home etc. if I have an open active CPS case against me. How the hell do I go about ‘re-homing’ my child? Should I create a post in market place? Through no fault of our own, we are being forced to re-home our thirteen year old son. He can be the most loving, helpful young man. He does suffer some learning difficulties. He comes with a complete wardrobe and a monthly allotment. Only serious inquiries please.” End id]

[leo-fie]

The sheer state of the German left right now...

Seriously, if I wouldn't see it, I would not believe it. And I'm only seeing the small sample on Mastodon.

Antizionism, critique of Israel, suppost for Palestine get's thrown in with antisemitism so much that's it's basically impossible to figure out what's going on anymore.

Examples from Mastodon:

This picture shows a pro-palestine demonstration, we see people, palestinian flags and two signs reading "freedom for palestine" and "stop the israeli massacres in palestine". The left research network RABA writes: "After the attempted genocide of Jews with thousands of victims by the barbarous Hamas, the palestinian community Bonn and Cologne shows their ideological and personal closeness to the Hamas war. Replaying antisemitic, djihadi propaganda: transparent victim blaming"

Did they see the same picture as me? Do they know more than me? Or do they think any support of palestine is antisemitic by default?

This account called "punch a nazi" is in solidarity with Israel and against antisemitism. Thereby implying that anyone against Israel is antisemitic.

Same account saying: "The antisemitism bubbling to the surface all over the world right now is nothing less than disgusting. Openly disguised as "critique of Israel" or between the lines. Against all antisemitism!"

So no critique of Israel allowed ever? But no one is above criticism, especially not governments. Or do we make an exception for Israel?

Amadeu Antonio Foundation is a widely respected antiracist, antifascist group founded in the memory of a man murdered by nazis in 1990, Amadeu Antionio Kiowa. Here they say as part of a thread for teachers: "The antisemitism refering to Israel is to be differentiated from critique at Israeli government policy, a big challenge for teachers. With the practical handout teachers can react to slogans like "With the policy Israel is doing, I can understand why someone wouldn't like jews" or "Israel is an apartheid state" and catch insecurities and emotions."

Now, if you ask me, the first slogan is clearly antisemitic, the second is just true. How is that differenciating anything?

taz is a left leaning daily newspaper, basically the only one with any reach in Germany. It's staunchly zionist. While it is also showing the plight of the palestinian people, it is also joining in the chorus of other newspapers comparing Israel to Ukraine and therefore Hamas to Putin's Russia. This reads: The German peoples' demostration of solidarity with Israel are poor compared to the war in Ukraine. The actual test is still pending." The headline reads: Pro-Israel-Demonstrations: We don't care"

Same newspaper: "Dozens chant "free Palestine", a schoolground conflict get's political - but there are also other, quieter voices. A week in Neukölln (a neighborhood in Berlin)" With the headline: "Near-East-Conflict in Berlin: Symbol Sonennallee (a street)"

What's wrong with "free Palestine"? Does the palestinian people not have a right to self determination?

Rote Flora is an autonomous center in Hamburg since 1989. They fly a banner reading "Killing Jews is not fighting for freedom! We are in solidarity with all humans in Israel and all jews in the world. You are not alone." Someone posted this picture with the caption: Rote Flora stabil. which is kinda like saying it's based.

Examples end.

This is what I get from left and left leaning groups. Our public broadcast is of course zionist af, but to the point where American news like CNN are nuanced in comparasion.

The conflation of antisemitism and antizionism is just off the charts. I already lost one account for pointing out that these are different things, so I have to mute everything lest I blow up at any of these.

How can anyone look at the situation of the palestinian people and come away with anything but antizionism? That's why we have the term. Who but left and left leaning folks can look at this though a materialist lens? Isn't that our thing?

[padawan-historian]

This May marks Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. As we recommit ourselves to collective liberation and restorative learning, I wanted send out a gentle reminder that these months should not be the extent of your antiracist (un)learning (x)

1. The Korean Women’s Relief Society in Hawai’i was founded in 1919 in response to the  March First Independence Movement in Korea (that called for full independence from Imperial Japan). Along with organizing aid through the Korean Red Cross, the KWRS also organized cultural activities and events like this mock Korean wedding ceremony (1921).

2. A family of Chinese immigrants relaxes in a San Fransisco park (1980s).

3. The wives of the Philippine delegation accompany their partners to Washington D.C. campaigning for the recognition of their independence and island sovereignty; here they are received by First Lady Harding and Mme. De Veyra (1922).

4. American soldier John Konopka holds out a piece of candy to a young Korean child carried  men of the 25th infantry division relax during their advance against the Chinese communist enemy troops in Osan, Korea (1951).

5. Japanese serviceman, Neisi, poses with American Japanese women (1945).

6. Two Chinese soldiers hold the captured Japanese flag as journalist Walter G. Rundle applies first aid to a freed woman who the Japanese soldiers had forced to act as a comfort woman. Although these bondwomen were thought to have been of Chinese descent, additional research speculates that they hailed from Korea (1944).

7. Australian soldiers of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) pull together to throw a feast for the 50 displaced Korean children from Bukhansan Orphanage in Seoul. Private Alpha Cashmore Hunter and another unidentified soldier help pass out plates (+ chocolate). After dinner, a the soldiers gathered to listen to the children sing folk songs, play the piano and violin, and recite English classics (1951-53).

8. Young Japanese-Americans from the Y.W.C.A. Summer Camp in Pueblo, Colorado, many of them displaced by the Relocation Center at Granada, working alongside white local farmers (1943).

9. The champion Chinese Hose Team of America, triumphed in the great Hub-and-Hub race at Deadwood, South Dakota (1888).

[ausetkmt]

NPR: In new documentary, Ibram X. Kendi asks 'What is wrong with Black people?'

In new documentary, Ibram X. Kendi asks 'What is wrong with Black people?'

Eric Deggans looks at the new documentary "Stamped from the Beginning," which looks at the history of racist ideas in America.

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

The Netflix documentary "Stamped From The Beginning" starts with a provocative question writer and professor Ibram X. Kendi asks of other Black academics.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING")

IBRAM X KENDI: Can you please tell me what is wrong with Black people?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: What is wrong with Black people?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: OK, what do you mean by that?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: What is wrong with Black people?

RASCOE: Kendi, who founded the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, answers by invoking how systemic racism can convince Black people and everyone else that Black people deserve to be marginalized. NPR TV critic and media analyst Eric Deggans has watched "Stamped From The Beginning" and has also been following recent allegations of mismanagement against Kendi at the BU center. Hi, Eric.

ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Hi.

RASCOE: So first, tell us more about this documentary. It's out on Netflix later this month.

DEGGANS: Yeah, it's this percolating primer on the themes in Kendi's award-winning 2016 book of the same name. Now, there's compelling animation, historical photos, interviews with lots of academics - although it might be tough for some people to watch. It's centered on this idea that much of the systemic racism that's directed against Black people was created as an attempt to justify enslavement and exploitation of Black people, not the other way around. And in the film, you know, Kendi speaks of this ruler known as Prince Henry of Portugal who he says turned to enslaving Black people from Africa in the mid-1400s instead of Europeans because it was harder for them to run away. Here's a clip. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING")

KENDI: Prince Henry didn't want to admit he was violently enslaving African people to make money, so he dispatched a royal chronicler by the name of Gomes Zurara.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KENDI: Gomes Zurara justified his slave trading by stating that Prince Henry was doing it to save souls and that these people in Africa were inferior.

DEGGANS: So that, Kendi says, is the creation of Blackness in which Europeans treat Africans from many different tribes and countries as one inferior race to justify exploiting them.

RASCOE: So these are some very complex concepts about race and history. How does this fit with his other work, you know, like his bestselling book "How To Be An Antiracist" or his ESPN series on sports and race?

DEGGANS: Well, you know, I've interviewed Kendi for NPR's Life Kit podcast. And at the core of a lot of his work is this idea that racism is a behavior, not just a state of being - that it comes down to choices you make every day. And in Netflix's "Stamped From The Beginning," that means examining these ideas like the myth of Black hypersexuality, which has been invoked throughout history to justify raping Black women or lynching Black men. And after the death of George Floyd in 2020, you know, Kendi gained new prominence speaking on these themes - the themes in "How To Be An Antiracist." And those ideas are found in so many contemporary issues that it makes sense that Kendi could leverage them into an ESPN project on racism in sports or this Netflix film.

RASCOE: And what about that criticism Kendi ran into following his decision earlier this year to lay off about half the staff at the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University? Where do those allegations of mismanagement stand?

DEGGANS: Well, the university just released an internal audit finding there were no issues with how the center's finances were handled, which kind of backed up Kendi's contention that the layoffs were not a result of bad fiscal management. And it also pushes back against some critics who tried to delegitimize his concepts by suggesting he's some kind of fraud. Now, hopefully, this will allow people to focus more on his ideas, which he sums up at the end of "Stamped From The Beginning" by answering that original question. The only thing wrong with Black people, he says, is that we think something is wrong with Black people.

RASCOE: NPR TV critic and media analyst Eric Deggans. Thank you so much.

DEGGANS: Thank you.

[dracothelizard]

Hi, could you please clarify what you meant by non-Anglophone fans regarding your critiques of EndOTWRacism not caring about those fans because non-Anglophone means non-English & that excludes a plethora of fans from the Global South that were colonized by the English (like my country South Africa) and that makes me a bit uncomfortable.

Also, antiblackness is a global phenomenon & even happens in majority Black countries (once again, I highly recommend doing some research on South Africa & Afrophobia in that specific country). Being Asian alone doesn't mean someone will wholly support the very specific commitments OTW made in 2020 (where they also cited Dr Rukmini Pande [an Indian, and therefore Asian, fan scholar from India where English is spoken & even a mode of instruction in many of its schools & tertiary institutions - must she & fans like her also be excluded because they are Anglophone fans?] & Stitch without asking these two fan scholars for their consent to be cited by OTW leading to a barrage of harassment towards both individuals).

If you want EndOTWRacism to broaden their scope, you should definitely suggest that to them. But they are following the specific commitments the OTW made. Also, I have seen conversations about OTW not making enough commitments in 2020 to do something about racism on their platform by some of the mods of EndOTWRacism in a personal capacity but the main reason they are sticking to the specific commitments OTW made is because they are avoiding being accused of trying to make OTW do things they never said they would do. By sticking to the specific commitments OTW made, EndOTWRacism can hold OTW accountable for something they publicly made commitments to.

Also, OTW made these commitments in response to anti-blackness. So, centering antiblackness makes sense (and also just on a historical level - when antiblackness is engaged with in antiracist policies - the benefits of that move upwards to other racial groups - see the The Voting Rights Act of 1965 that included pro-immigration legislation that made it easier for immigrants of colour to move into the US (this was made possible because of Black Americans). Or my own country of South Africa that got rid of Apartheid in 1994 (I would be born just 3 years after that when my mom was 30) and Black, Coloured (this is a specific racial category in SA), Indian & Chinese South Africans could vote, move freely & live wherever they wanted in SA. This was made possible by Black South African freedom leaders in community with other South Africans of colour that worked in solidarity.

Anti-asian racism is a huge problem in fandom that has been discussed by fans of colour for a long time (see conversations in the early/mid 2010s in fandom about Lucy Liu's mistreatment by BBC Sherlock fans or Glen's mistreatment from the Walking Dead fandom). And with the increase of East Asian media in fandom since at least 2014, conversations about anti-asian racism are even more imperative. But that should not mean ignoring or hand waving away convos about antiblackness - especially when that was the origin of OTW commitments in 2020. If you personally have a problem with that, by all means ask OTW why they didn't specifically talk about other forms of racism or make any other statement with commitments when the StopAsianHate movement was in full swing. Why was OTW's statement so clearly influenced by BlackLivesMatter and the commitments various individuals, businesses & non-profit organizations were making to this specific movement. OTW will have more board meetings, so if you are a paying member, you can absolutely ask them these questions. I know those questions are things I have thought about.

All the best, H.

"because non-Anglophone means non-English & that excludes a plethora of fans from the Global South that were colonized by the English (like my country South Africa) and that makes me a bit uncomfortable."

I am also non-Anglophone and yes, End OTW Racism explicitly excluding non-Anglophone fans also makes me uncomfortable, because as you say, racism is a global problem.

I am not sure why you are bringing up anti-blackness and anti-asianness as if it is an either/or matter. Caring about anti-blackness doesn't mean not caring about anti-asianness. Caring about anti-asianness doesn't mean not caring about anti-blackness. Some fans are mixed race and are both. Some fans have to deal with other forms of racism (like the anti-Aboriginal slur which still gets used often to talk about Omegaverse)

The OTW's goals did not explicitly mention centering anti-blackness. End OTW Racism's goals did not explicitly mention centering anti-blackness.

If that is what the OTW and End OTW Racism want to center, they can, but they should say that explicitly. But in the case of End OTW Racism, excluding non-Anglophone fans makes no sense, because as you say, anti-blackness is a global problem.

[dixiedrudge]

anti-Southern Bigot Kendi’s ‘antiracist’ center dormant since 2023

Fight Censorship and Help Spread Mockingbird Non-Compliant News! Like, Share, Re-Post, and Subscribe! There’s a lot more to see at our main page, Dixie Drudge! View Source: (Except for fundraising I’m sure… – DD) The Center for Antiracist Research does not do research – or really anything There has been no apparent activity at Ibram Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research in the past year,…

[arcticdementor]

Abstract This article addresses a paradox between self-perceptions of psychology as a liberal, progressive, antiracist discipline and profession and the persistent criticisms of racism and calls for decolonization. It builds on the criticisms of epistemic exclusion and White centering, arguing that White supremacy is maintained by “conversational silencing” in which the focus on doing good psychology systematically draws attention away from the realities of racism and the operation of power. The process is illustrated by investigations of disciplinary discourse around non-Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic psychology and on stereotyping, racism, and prejudice reduction, which constitute the vanguard of liberal scholarship in the discipline. This progressive scholarship nurtures “White ignorance,” an absence of belief about systemic racism that psychology plays a part in upholding.

[usnewsper-politics]

Ibram X. Kendi, Leading Antiracism Voice, to Head Boston U. Center #antiracismIbramX.KendiBostonUniversityAmericarace.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Mike Damiano and Hilary Burns

Published: Sept 20, 2023

Boston University announced Wednesday it would conduct an “inquiry” into Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research after complaints emerged about the center’s culture and financial management.

The assessment comes the week after Kendi, a celebrity author, scholar of race, and antiracism advocate laid off more than half the center’s staff.

The complaints, a BU spokesperson said, “focused on the center’s culture and its grant management practices.” The inquiry announced Wednesday represents a broadening of a previous “examination” of the center’s grant management practices, according to the spokesperson, Rachel Lapal Cavallario.

Kendi “takes strong exception to the allegations made in recent complaints and media reports,” she said.

Since its announced launch in June 2020, just days after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the center has raised tens of millions of dollars from tech entrepreneurs, Boston-area corporations, and thousands of small donors.

At the time, Kendi, the author of the bestselling 2019 book “How to Be an Antiracist,” said the center would “solve these intractable racial problems of our time.”

The money was meant to finance a range of ambitious projects: a database to track racial disparities nationwide, a graduate degree program, a media enterprise, and research teams studying the effects of systemic racism on health and society.

Some of these projects have come to fruition, including The Emancipator, a digital publication launched with the Boston Globe’s opinion staff in 2021. The publication’s operations shifted to BU in March, although it continues to be hosted on the Globe’s website.

But others have not, including the Racial Data Tracker, which one former staffer described as a “centerpiece” of the organization’s goals.

Lapal Cavallario said Wednesday that the center “has been developing” the Racial Data Tracker. She referred follow-up questions to the center itself, which did not respond.

She also provided a list of the center’s achievements, including: funding for numerous research projects, collaboration in a project launched by journalists at the Atlantic magazine (where Kendi is a contributing writer) to track racial disparities in COVID data, and organizing two “policy convenings” on antibigotry and data collection related to race and ethnicity.

“Boston University and Dr. Kendi believe strongly in the center’s mission,” Lapal Cavallario said. “We look forward to working with him as we conduct our assessment.”

BU’s announcement of the inquiry came hours after the Globe sent the university extensive questions about the center’s operations.

In interviews with the Globe this week, current and former employees described a dysfunctional work environment that made it difficult to achieve the center’s lofty goals.

The organization “was just being mismanaged on a really fundamental level,” said Phillipe Copeland, a professor in BU’s School of Social Work who also worked for the center as assistant director of narrative.

Although most decision-making authority rested with Kendi, Copeland said he found it difficult to schedule meetings with him. Other staffers described paralysis in the organization because Kendi declined to delegate authority and was not often available.

Copeland resigned from the center in June.

Kendi has completed a number of personal projects since 2020, including a graphic novel focused on the history of racist ideas, a podcast called “Be Antiracist,” and a five-episode TV show scheduled to debut Wednesday on ESPN+.

In recent months, Kendi had been on leave from the center, according to BU.

He returned last week and, in a series of Zoom meetings, told approximately 20 of the center’s staffers that they would be laid off, according to Spencer Piston, a BU professor and leader in the center’s policy office.

The layoffs “were initiated by Dr. Kendi” and represented a strategic pivot, not a response to any financial difficulty, Lapal Cavallario said. The center will now pursue a fellowship model “rather than its current research-based approach,” she said.

The layoffs surprised some staffers.

“I don’t know where the money is,” said Saida Grundy, a BU professor who worked at the center from fall 2020 to spring 2021.

In December 2021, Grundy sent an email to BU provost Jean Morrison alleging dysfunction in the organization and a “pattern of amassing grants without any commitment to producing the research obligated” by them.

Lapal Cavallario said Wednesday that BU had “received some complaints from individuals questioning whether the center was following its funding guidelines. We are currently looking into those complaints.”

The center, she said, “would disagree with a characterization of it not having produced important work insofar as antiracism is concerned.”

==

I'm reminded that they got Capone on tax evasion, rather than all the gangstering and murdering and such.

I would prefer that Kendi fall into disrepute through exposure, analysis and refutation of his fraudulent "scholarship," but a financial scandal will suffice.

[beardedmrbean]

Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, headed by critical race theory activist Ibram X. Kendi, revealed last week that it was laying off about 40% of its staff as part of organization restructuring. About 15 to 20 of its approximately 45 employees were let go. Testimonies from former employees have exposed alleged mismanagement of Kendi’s center, which in turn has exposed the fraudulence and fragility of the diversity, equity, and inclusion complex.

Disgruntled former employees have accused Kendi of mishandling grant funding, failing to complete major projects, and fostering an exploitative company culture in which he ruled with an iron fist yet was routinely missing in action. The center has raked in $43 million since its inception, according to 2021 budget records obtained by the Daily Free Press. It received corporate support from Peloton, Deloitte, Stop & Shop, TJX Companies, and Deckers Outdoor Corporation, according to a 2020–2021 donor report. Only six weeks after its launch, then-CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey gifted $10 million without conditions.

“Your $10M donation, with no strings attached, gives us the resources and flexibility to greatly expand our antiracist work,” Kendi posted at the time. “The endowment is vital, as we build our new Center.”

Despite the investments, the center did not deliver on some key priorities, such as the much-hyped Racial Data Tracker that would document racial inequities in all sectors of society to finally root out racism.

“I don’t know where the money is,” Saida Grundy, a BU professor who worked at the center from fall 2020 to spring 2021, told the Boston Globe after the staff cuts.

Multiple other BU professors served as faculty leads on various projects at the center. Professor Sanaz Mobasseri of BU’s business school led the Antiracist Tech Initiative, professor Kaylene Stevens of BU’s education school led the “Designing Antiracist Curricula” team, and political science professor Spencer Piston led the Policy Office, for example.

In December 2021, Grundy emailed BU provost Jean Morrison that the organization had been showing a “pattern of amassing grants without any commitment to producing the research obligated” by them.

Like its umbrella idea DEI, “antiracism” actually translates to, well, nothing of note. Serial academics such as Kendi have built careers around racial fearmongering, even inventing new disciplines to study racism and its early-stage minutiae “microaggressions” and “implicit bias.” Rather than confront actual crimes of racism, these courses seek to aggressively manufacture racist intent.

Despite all this bureaucracy, academic DEI projects have unclear aims and products. Kendi’s center published just two research papers since its founding, the Washington Free Beacon reported. A January paper, "Association of Neighborhood Racial and Ethnic Composition and Historical Redlining With Build Environment Indicators Derived From Street View Images,” found that predominantly black neighborhoods had more dilapidated buildings than white neighborhoods. The center released a report from its "Antibigotry Convening” from fall 2021 and winter 2022 that included many intersectionality themes such as “Ageism,” "Anti-fat Bigotry,” and “Transphobia,” further confusing its purpose.

Rachel Lapal Cavallario, spokeswoman for Kendi’s center, told the Boston Globe Wednesday that BU had “received some complaints from individuals questioning whether the center was following its funding guidelines. We are currently looking into those complaints.”

However, the center rejects the “characterization of it not having produced important work insofar as antiracism is concerned,” she said.

To raise Grundy’s question again, where did the money go? Echoing that sentiment, BU has launched an “inquiry” into the center amid the scandal, the Daily Free Press said.

The situation is reminiscent of the lawsuits against Black Lives Matter, another embattled racial justice organization. In 2023, Black Lives Matter reported a $9 million deficit for 2022 after raising $90 million in 2020. Only 33% of that massive sum went to charitable activism, federal filings showed, as a significant chunk was squandered on the leaders’ mansions, personal expenses, and favors for friends. Both Kendi’s center and BLM followed a similar model: drum up rumors of racism, prescribe DEI, create an apparatus, lure in donors, get paid.

The racial grievance business welcomes little accountability — or accounting, for that matter — which explains why it’s found a home in academia. Many colleges, such as Boston University, or my alma mater Boston College down the road, charge their students exorbitant tuition for useless degrees and boatloads of debt. Tenured professors collect big paychecks while hawking critical race theory, turning students into activists instead of real scholars.

Despite its self-destructive tendencies, the DEI racket continues to spread throughout academia. Some colleges are trying to meet demand for so-called DEI experts by creating a corresponding major, USA Today claimed. At least six colleges across the country offer DEI degree programs or will in the future, according to the publication’s analysis. Tufts University and the University of Pennsylvania even have DEI graduate programs.

Some universities have also woven DEI into their academic missions. Duke University in 2020 launched a Racial Equity Advisory Council, composed of four subcommittees including faculty members and students, which will propose “measures to assess and foster racial equity” to the university’s leadership. Every year since fall 2020, the Duke Endowment has sponsored professors with seed grants to pursue research proposals related to race as part of the school’s anti-racism mission. That’s more money down the drain.

DEI in America’s prestigious colleges contributes nothing, wastes money, and fuels a bubble of empty courses, professions, and promises. But if the shakeout at Kendi’s BU center is any clue, it might be starting to pop.

[sorchanitua]

Bates College Assistant Professorship in Anthropology

Deadline: December 13 Length/Track: Tenure track Description: “We welcome applications from all qualified applicants, but are especially interested in candidates who work in the Native Northeast and who have an established and robust research program working with Indigenous communities. We are looking for a dynamic scholar-teacher whose program of research centers decolonial, antiracist,…

[sutrala]

With the fall of the House of Kendi – the $40 million Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University – it may finally be allowable to discuss the death of the man who turned on the spigots, George Floyd. In the way of background, Kendi was born Ibram Henry Rogers in...

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: Profiting From Your Ideas Doesn’t Make You a Grifter by John McWhorter

By John McWhorter To delight in Ibram X. Kendi’s failure as the head of the Center for Antiracist Research is small. Published: October 4, 2023 at 11:15AM from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/hnNmZHt via IFTTT

[ausetkmt]

Comedian Chris Rock recently got into trouble after posting a meme with a picture of Betty White, the former “Golden Girls” actress.

“The first thing people say when a mass shooting is announced,” Rock wrote in the caption. The unspoken punchline: Bet he white.

Some white critics called Rock a racist. But the comedian’s defenders invoked an old argument: He can’t be racist because he’s black. While others can debate whether Rock is a racist or not, the reaction to his meme raises a bigger question:

Why can’t blacks be racist?

There’s a popular belief that people of color can’t be racist because they don’t have enough power. Racism, the thinking goes, transcends prejudice. It’s a system of advantage based on race and people of color don’t have the institutional power to oppress others.

But Ibram X. Kendi systematically demolishes this notion in his provocative new book, “How to be an Antiracist.” Kendi, a lean man with long dreads and an encyclopedic knowledge of Western history, says the notion that black people can’t be racist is tainted by racism itself.

“Like every other racist idea, the powerless defense underestimates black people and overestimates white people,” Kendi says.

Kendi’s new book is essential reading for anyone trying to figure out why racism remains such a destructive force in American life. There is arguably no better commentator on race in America today. Kendi’s previous book, “Stamped from the Beginning,” won a National Book Award. He is also the founding director of The Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University and a 2019 Guggenheim fellow.

In his new book Kendi explains why there is no middle ground between being a racist and someone who says “I’m not a racist,” why Americans are trained to see deficiencies in people instead of policy and why he fears a second term of President Trump.

CNN talked with Kendi about the book. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

I think people will understand the people who are actively supporting racist policies. I think people will (also) understand people who are actively supporting anti-racist policies, and how they are anti-racist. But what about the people who are literally doing nothing? The status quo – what is mainstream – is racial inequity. So to literally do nothing in the face of the status quo of racial inequity is to essentially support the status quo. It’s just like, for instance, what slaveholders wanted people in the North to do in the face of slavery, which was nothing.

You have white people who are in positions of power to shape policies, and then you have everyday white people. Who should we focus on? Should we see those people in positions of power as pretty much the same as ordinary white people? I’m saying, no we should not. Specifically those whites who are in positions of power, who are using that power to defend or institute racist policies, they are the source of this race problem.

For us to focus our efforts on any white person who says something or does something that’s racist as opposed to those in positions of power – whenever we take the focus off of those people in positions of power, we are taking the focus off of the source of the problem. By taking our focus off of the source of the problem we’re allowing that problem to fester. And by allowing that problem to fester we’re making the lives of black people worse. That’s how hating white people becomes ultimately hating black people.

So generally white people say, I’m not racist, and black people say, I can’t be racist. There’s a similar form of denial that is essential to the life of racism itself. You have black people who believe that they can’t be racist because they believe that black people don’t have power and that’s blatantly not true. Every single person on earth has the power to resist racist policies and power.

We need to recognize that there are black people who resist it, and there are some who do not because of their own anti-black racism. And then you have black people, a limited number, who are in policy-making positions and use those policy-making decisions to institute or defend policies that harm black people. If those people were white we would be calling them what they are – racists. If they’re black, they’re no different. They’re racists.

His policies will have an even more damaging effect on so many communities, the way in which his racist ideas are dividing and conquering Americans. That will only grow deeper. White domestic supremacist terrorists – they will continue to rise and harm Americans, specifically because the President is not willing to view them as as a domestic terrorist threat. And ultimately I think he will try to run again in 2024. He will try to figure out a way to operate as a king.

Yes. Cynicism is the kryptonite of change.

Yes. The reason why I believe that is first based on my reading of history. In 1860, if you had talked about eliminating chattel slavery, people would have said that was completely impossible. Slaveholders are extremely powerful. They’re the richest people in the world. In 1790, if we were having a conversation about Haiti becoming a free black republic by 1804, people would have said that’s impossible. Haiti is the most profitable colony in the world. There’s no way the French or any European power would allow Haiti to be lost to freedom. If someone said that someone named Barack Hussein Obama would become President of the United States, people would have said that’s impossible.