Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has donated a “no strings attached” $10 million to Ibram Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi is a bestselling author who’s gotten famous by telling white people that they’re racists.
Announcing the donation on Thursday, Dorsey said that the center’s research “will inform and fuel much needed and overdue policy change.” According to Boston University, which hosts the center, teams of academics, lawyers, social workers and scientists will collaborate to “track and study racial data” and “advocate for new corrective policies.”
$10M to Dr. Ibram Kendi and the Center for Antiracist Research at BU. This research will inform and fuel much needed and overdue policy change. I appreciate you Dr. Kendi, and I’m grateful for your work! https://t.co/M2zvIQYeEO
What that means is still unknown, though the center’s research will focus initially on racial disparities in coronavirus deaths. Kendi’s other policy recommendations are laid out in the five books he’s published, which contain some radical ideas. In the New York Times bestseller ‘How to Be an Antiracist,’ Kendi declares that “Capitalism is essentially racist,” and “racism is essentially capitalist.” Under the current economic system, he insists that black people will “never” be equal to white people. Coupled with this is the assertion that all racial disparities are the result of racism – be they crime rates or education outcomes.
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination,” Kendi wrote.
Kendi also insists that everyone, and every policy, is either “racist” or “antiracist.” In his worldview, there are no neutral parties, even babies. He argues that if a government were truly antiracist, and not just “not racist,” it would set up a ‘Department of Antiracism,’ whose unelected officers would have the power to monitor and punish politicians they deem racist.
These views have made Kendi popular. He’s appeared on CBS, MSNBC and NPR, ‘How to Be an Antiracist’ has sold around half a million copies, and his speaking schedule was jam packed all summer.
Given Kendi’s uncompromising stance, Dorsey’s donation stirred controversy on Twitter. While a number of tweets backed Jack, many commenters said that Kendi’s views themselves are “racist,” while others accused the Twitter boss of paying “high end luxury penance.”
This is so so so sad. It breaks my heart. This will not feed or educate children. It will most certainly not change attitudes. This is an example of high end luxury penance.
$10 million more to support the work of a man who believes there is no such thing as objectivity, rhetorical suasion is "suicidal," and that opposing any number of discrete policies, from universal healthcare to the Green New Deal, makes you racist. Excellent https://t.co/3ePFUni5H7
Dorsey has thrown himself headlong into racial activism of late. In addition to his donation to Kendi’s center, he has also chipped in to Black Lives Matter, Color of Change, The Movement for Black Lives, and kneeling NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp.
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