“Are you the only white teacher?”
“Yes, but—” I cut her off.
“Why are you the only white teacher?”
Puzzled, she looked away at my parents. My parents exchanged curious looks. I kept staring at the teacher, wondering why she was looking at my parents. Ma ended the awkward silence. “He has been reading biographies of white leaders.” Ma was talking about the critically acclaimed Americans of Achievement series. Dad had bought a stack of these biographies, towering over one hundred now. Robert E Lee. The Wright Brothers. Andrew Jackson. Henry Ford. Woodrow Wilson. Dad kept urging me to pull from the tower for every writing project. These gripping biographies were as exciting to me as new video games on my Sega Genesis. Once I started reading, I could not stop. Discovering through these books the long history of achievement by white Americans brought to life a kind of racial consciousness for the first time. “He is very much aware of being white,” Ma made sure to add, looking at Dad. She did not look for confirmation. Dad nodded in agreement anyway, as I stared at the teacher, awaiting my answer. In that classroom, on that day in my parents discovered that I had entered racial puberty."
A truly disturbing story right? Sounds like something that might have happened in a parent teacher conference in 1950 Alabama. But you'd be wrong. This is a story from 1990. The 7 year old boy in the story is New York Times best selling author Ibram X Kendi. The only details that were changed is that racial terms have been reversed from black to white.
This excerpt is from his book which is ironically called "How To Be An Anti-Racist" where this story is used as a POSITIVE EXAMPLE of how he gained a greater level of "race consciousness" and began to judge others based on the color of their skin as a young child. His book is filled with this sort of radicalism. He even explicitly calls for discrimination on the basis of race in his book.
"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."- How To Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X Kendi.
Yes you read that right...that is not a misquote or missing context. His book actually calls for present and future discrimination on the basis of race as a remedy to racism.
Yet his best selling book is pushed a great piece of social justice scholarship everywhere from conservative universities like BYU to more liberal ones like California Berkley. It is either required or highly encouraged reading for educators across the nation. He even has a children's book "Anti Racist Baby" so that school age children and even toddlers can begin the process that leads to 7 year olds being more "race conscious" and taking issue with the racial makeup of their teachers.
