Intellectual Affirmative Action - National Association of Scholars
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Acad. Quest. (2021) 34.2 10.51845/34su.2.21
DOI 10.51845/34su.2.21
Reviews
assassinated a federal judge during an
attempted prison break in a California
Stamped from the Beginning: The courtroom; and the career criminal
Definitive History of Racist Ideas in and murderer George Jackson, whose
America, Ibram X. Kendi, Bold Type several book-length paeans to thug-
Books, 2017, pp. 608, $11.34 softcover. gish violence and mayhem may well
have been ghost-written by the same
Intellectual Affirmative team of radical attorneys who smug-
Action gled him the gun he used to kill several
prison guards before he was himself
Alexander Riley shot dead while attempting escape.
These self-professed revolutionary
thinkers flew at a literary and intel-
lectual level just a few inches above
We have been here before, though the ground, though the current polit-
not quite. At the tail end of the 1960s, icized nature of much of academic
the radical Black Power movement life has enabled them fifty years later
produced an array of pseudo-intel- to find their way on to college syllabi
lectuals who held forth to those who and into other campus programming,
would listen, presenting ignorantly including Martin Luther King Day/
counterfactual accounts of American Week celebrations.
history, culture, and politics. This The essential point is that, in their
group included the multiple-murderer time, these criminal subversives were
who led the Black Panther Party, read only by other self-professed rev-
Huey Newton, whose written wisdom olutionaries and radicals, and no one
included a book titled Revolutionary in any position of real cultural, polit-
Suicide that was cited by Jim Jones ical, or economic power attended to
as the more than 900 followers of their rantings. Their blathering about
his cult drank the poison that killed the purportedly fundamental corrup-
them; the Stalinist totalitarian philos- tion of American culture and society
opher Angela Davis, who in addition was rightly relegated to a fringe posi-
to crafting turgid communist tracts tion on the spectrum of American
materially aided the terrorists who
Alexander Riley is Professor of Sociology at Bucknell University whose latest books include Toward a
Biosocial Science: Evolutionary Theory, Human Nature, and Social Life (Taylor and Francis, 2021) and
Reflecting on the 1960s at 50 (Routledge, 2021); atriley@bucknell.edu.Intellectual Affirmative Action 139
political discourse, ignored by all seri- that first put him on the map of the
ous members of the educated public. woke black intelligentsia, which is
Today, we have a new crop of acclaimed widely on the left as an
self-righteously mendacious, intellec- exemplary work of political scholar-
tually empty, and politically destruc- ship, was Stamped from the Beginning:
tive black writers who produce the The Definitive History of Racist Ideas
same genre of tendentious essays and in America. Because the events that
books based in unargued assertion pushed Kendi and others into the ele-
and a total disregard for facts and vated cultural position they currently
reality. Their thought is of the same occupy had not yet taken place on its
base quality as that of the 1960s rad- publication, it has received rather less
icals, but unlike Newton, Davis, and attention than How To Be An Antiracist.
Jackson, this new generation of black But a fair, honest effort to evaluate the
radical writers are awarded book quality of his thought ought to start
prizes and huge gifts for their aca- with this work that his fans claim
demic centers by the people and insti- as his most substantive and weighty
tutions that direct American society. offering to date.
Their writings are also given to stu- The first clue to what one is deal-
dents, not merely in college but at the ing with here is in the book’s subtitle.
earliest entry into the educational “Definitive” means “being the most
institutions, the better to insinuate accurate and thorough,” and its syn-
themselves into the consciousness of onyms include “authoritative,” “clas-
American youth. sic,” and “magisterial.” What serious
Ibram X. Kendi, a professor at writer would dare to describe his own
Boston University and director of its work in such a blusteringly pomp-
Center for Antiracist Research, who ous way? Proper intellectuals know
will doubtless soon be offered a posi- that such judgments are to be made
tion at one or another of America’s by intellectual communities, not by
most elite universities, has emerged the authors of their own works. Yes,
as the lead prophet in this collec- it’s true that publishers sometimes
tion of subversive writers. Much has provide titles that authors mightn’t
been published already in criticism prefer, but this is not a trivial matter.
of the shoddiness of How To Be An If Kendi were a serious intellectual, he
Antiracist (2019), the book no woke would have anticipated this justified
academic or student can be without reaction and he would have required
in the George Floyd era. But the book his publisher to omit that term. That140 Intellectual Affirmative Action
he did not, I submit, tells us something differ in many ways along these lines
useful. explains why you see them dispro-
What then of its substance? On portionately represented in various
its very first page, in the prologue, realms of social life.
the reader finds this statement: “If Kendi is correct that Blacks are
Black people make up 13.2 percent of among those killed by police at a
the U.S. population, then Black people higher percentage than their repre-
should make up somewhere close to sentation in the population. But here’s
13 percent of the Americans killed by another fact which is helpful in untan-
police, somewhere close to 13 percent gling the most likely explanation, a
of the Americans sitting in prisons, fact Kendi never troubles himself to
somewhere close to owning 13 percent mention: Blacks are also quite signifi-
of U.S. wealth.” A freshman student cantly overrepresented among the
in any of my classes who wrote such ranks of those who kill police officers.
a thing in a paper would immediately According to FBI data from 2010 to
attract my attention as someone in 2018, they were responsible for 39
need of remedial instruction, as this percent of the total officers killed in
shows ignorance of basic reasoning the line of duty. Now, given that con-
skills required for success in college. text, which is more likely: that blacks
Imagine a writer who claimed: “If are killed at disproportionate rates
White people make up 70 percent of because of the systematic racism
the US population, then White people of police, for which we have almost
should make up somewhere close no evidence, or that this happens
to 70 percent of the Americans who because blacks are also dispropor-
play professional football and bas- tionately predisposed in interactions
ketball . . . ” Kendi has committed the with police to respond with poten-
same egregious fallacy. This kind of tially lethal violence?
claim would be true only if members Stamped from the Beginning is little
of racial groups were entirely indis- more than a long series of such asser-
tinguishable in their behavior, their tions, with little evidentially-based
aptitudes, and their interests. But no argumentation to support them.
one with any experience of different Historical vignettes are strung about
racial groups could possibly believe throughout its length as ornaments,
that to be so, and empirical sociolog- and a case for general principles about
ical data support that experiential American culture is made from them
knowledge. The fact that these groups alone. There is no philosophical orIntellectual Affirmative Action 141
social scientific depth to the book at 10 was a racist phenomenon because
all. Kendi fawns over risibly ideal- she appropriated the black cultural
ized and easily falsified versions of practice of hair braids. The Rocky
various subversives in the history film franchise is racist since Rocky,
of black radicalism. Malcolm X is a a white boxer, defeats black boxers,
great humanist who never expressed some of whom are modeled too closely
any hatred for others, while Angela on historically existing heavyweights
Davis is a righteous sister who could such as Muhammad Ali or Sonny
not possibly have supported totali- Liston. Entire scholarly disciplines
tarian Stalinism and actively worked of academic research—evolutionary
alongside murderous terrorists like psychology, physical anthropology,
the Jackson brothers, George and and sociobiology—are ignorantly
Jonathan. All insinuations that some dismissed as “segregationist fields”
black cultural practices (single par- because they do not ascribe to the
enthood, for example, or anti-school- anti-scientific view Kendi promotes in
ing attitudes) are a net negative for which racial difference can never be
black advance are, here as in Kendi’s spoken of as having potentially any-
other writings, dismissed as racist, thing at all to do with demonstrated
as are any arguments that assert genetic differences in different human
that, as a racial minority, blacks must regional populations.
assimilate to at least some basics of The citation method utilized in the
the majority culture—educational book is sloppy at an undergraduate
attainment, work ethic, commitment student level. Frequently, no notes are
to marriage and attentive parenting— given for substantive claims. When
if they hope to advance. The reader they are, they arrive in clusters at the
finds here the same morally abhorrent end of paragraphs, often making it
1960s language of the black prison next to impossible to verify sources of
abolition movement, referring to con- information. This cluster method, it
victed black murderers as “slaves” turns out, is a good way to hide omis-
victimized by a system of “slavery.” sions. The number of unsubstantiated
The efforts to make sense of claims is enough that one could write
aspects of mainstream American an entire book documenting them.
culture are equally distorted by Let’s look for illustrative purposes
Kendi’s rigid ideological lens. The in detail at one example. Kendi claims
omnipresent Bo Derek image run- that white violent crime rates are
ning on the beach in the 1980s film higher than those of blacks because142 Intellectual Affirmative Action
violent crime as a category does not blacks have a higher crash involve-
include the carnage produced by ment than white drivers.
drunk drivers. Leave aside the legal So Kendi’s astounding claim is the
and moral question of the proper cat- following: some significant number of
egory for the deaths that result from people are killed by drunk drivers; in one
drunk driving and those that are a specific year, whites made up a particular
result of murders, that is, the fact percentage of the population of arrested
that drunk drivers are in almost all drunk drivers; thus, whites must pose a
cases not intending to harm or kill more significant threat to harm and death
anyone but do so out of a species of for the general population than blacks.
criminal negligence that all courts But, again, he has given only a figure
recognize as serious but separable on arrests for drunk driving. We do
from the willful act of intentionally not know how many people were
taking another’s life. The real problem injured or killed by those arrested
with Kendi’s claim is not legal philo- individuals. We do know that the vast
sophical but statistical. He insinuates majority of drunk drivers, including
that all drunk drivers who kill people those arrested for the fact, did not
are white but gives no figures on the even have automobile accidents, much
demographics of drunken driving less kill anyone; they are arrested for
or injury and death resulting from driving erratically, or at routine stops
it. He provides one claim of a statis- where breathalyzer tests are admin-
tical nature here, asserting that 78 istered to all drivers. We simply do
percent of arrested drunk drivers in not know what the racial demography
one year (1990) were white. (None of of drunk drivers who kill or harm
the sources in the collective footnote others looks like, though some data
at the end of the paragraph in which suggest that blacks are higher crash
this claim appears contain this sta- risks than whites, and Kendi gives no
tistic). But whites were 80 percent of indication that he has even considered
the American population in 1990, so if this question, which he would have to
Kendi’s figure is right, it would show answer to hope to back up the claim
that whites are in fact slightly under- he makes.
represented among arrested drunk The need to substantiate one’s
drivers. Data from the National Traffic claims does not occur to Kendi as a
Highway Safety Administration show reasonable obligation because his goal
that, based on vehicle miles traveled, in this book and in his other writing
is not scientific illustration of howIntellectual Affirmative Action 143
social reality operates. His purpose rejected by all who care about real
is propagandistic. In this, again, he intellectual standards.
fits neatly into a tradition of black The support given to Kendi by
radical writers stemming back to the these people has led him, among other
1960s. The poor writing and research things, to repackage Stamped from the
quality of the current BLM intellec- Beginning for an audience still less
tuals is related to a broader decline literate and critical than the one for
in the standards promulgated by the whom he wrote the original. In collab-
humanities and social science disci- oration with a “youth” writer, we now
plines, as they relate to racial matters. have Stamped, a still more dumbed
Ultimately, one cannot blame Kendi down version of an already very dumb
and others like him for utilizing the book. Here is a representative bit of
tried and true model of gaining prom- prose from this latest effort:
inence through charges of racism
without evidence. It is the largely This isn’t a history book . . .
white cultural elites who fund him, This is a present book . . .
who assign his books in their classes, Segregationists are haters. Like,
and cheerlead for him from their sites real haters. People who hate
of institutional power; these are the you for not being like them.
true culprits to whom blame should Assimilationists are people who
be assigned. Their affirmative action like you, but only with quotation
commitment, reflected most illus- marks. Like, “like you.” . . . So
tratively in their almost universal where do we start? We might as
support for the classics scholar Dan-el well just jump in and begin with
Padilla Peralta who insisted “I should the world’s first racist . . . you’re
have been hired because I was black” thinking Yeah, tell us, so we can
and “[m]y merit and my blackness are find out where he lives. Well, he’s
fused to each other,” has resulted in
1
dead. Been dead for six hundred
a fundamentally racist effort to pro- years. Thankfully. And before
mote substantively vacuous black I tell you about him, I have to
radical thinking based on the nar- give you a little context. Europe
rative it represents rather than the [was] conquering everyone . . .
intellectual quality of that work. This The year is 1415, and Prince
fecklessness should be disdained and Henry . . . of Portugal . . . pull[ed]
1 John Rosenberg, “Is Being Black a Badge of Merit?,” Minding the Campus, January 9, 2019.144 Intellectual Affirmative Action
a caper and capture[d] the main places of employment are requiring
Muslim trading depot on the you to read him. Newton could safely
northeastern tip of Morocco . . . be ignored by the sane; Kendi cannot.
Stolen. A jack move. A robbery. We have our work cut out for us to
Plain and simple. The take, a resist this wave of intellectual cre-
bountiful supply of gold. And tinization provoked by the American
Africans. cultural elite’s soft bigotry of low
expectations.
Nowhere in the midst of this
unsophisticated rendering do we find
acknowledgement of the fact that
Muslims in that part of the world had
been operating a lucrative trade in
African slaves for centuries before the
Europeans showed up. We do learn a
bit later along, though, that Puritan
ideas about witches are the beginning
of stereotypes of blacks as criminals:
“Since the devil represented crim-
inality, and since criminals in New
England were said to be the devil’s
minions, the Salem witch hunt made
the Black face the face of criminality.
It was like racist algebra. Solve for x.
Solve for White. Solve for anything
other than truth.”
I found myself, as I was leafing
through Stamped, wondering if I were
being put on, if this was some kind
of not very funny prank or parody.
Lamentably, no. This is what political-
ly-motivated affirmative action in the
intellectual world has wrought. Ibram
Kendi has replaced Huey Newton,
with the difference that now every
educational institution and manyYou can also read
