Voice of Black Lives Matter era Ibram X. Kendi has $55 million Center on Antiracist Research shut down
Every era has its grifters, gurus, quacks, and frauds. This is an American tradition, from the snake oil salesmen to the pyramid-schemers to the New Age prophets of the 20th Century. One might be tempted to dismiss them as ethically compromised men, duping the gullible for personal benefit, but they’re something more than that: symbols of each generation’s hopes and anxieties.
The past decade’s examples, who sold us on critical race theory, transgender medicine and other insanities, are no different. Some Americans wanted to absolve themselves of guilt about race and sexuality and liberate themselves from the shackles of history and biology. Prudent observers could have warned them about the impossibility of this enterprise, but the gurus had, for a time, seemingly unstoppable momentum.
The most significant was Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi. After the 2020 death of George Floyd, Kendi became America’s race guru, selling books, delivering speeches, lecturing corporations, advising politicians, and everywhere preaching the new gospel of "antiracism." His key idea was that institutions must practice "antiracist discrimination" in favor of Blacks and other minorities to make up for past "racist discrimination." His ideology was rudimentary critical race theory, his agenda rudimentary DEI.
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Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Critical Race Theory at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal. He is the author of America's Cultural Revolution. This piece is adapted from City Journal.
Photo by Shedrick Pelt for The Washington Post via Getty Images