Olivia Prevost

*** PRIZE ESSAY ***

A Critical Analysis of Antiracism

Olivia Prevost

To understand the cultural resonance and the true message of Ibram Kendi’s book How to Be an Antiracist, we must examine closely his use and definition of the concept of race. Kendi defines race in a very particular way. Race, for Kendi, is “a power construct of collected or merged differences that lives socially.”1 He sees race not as a shared scientific or biological fact, but as a purely constructed sociological phenomenon. Race is not a physical aspect of Kendi’s anthropology; rather, it is completely determined by cultural and historical forces. Biological diversity is anthropologically meaningless, so there cannot exist any natural racial hierarchy. All physical differences are rooted in a common humanity that subsists despite racial categorizing.

Race, as a sociological category, is created and preserved by power structures. Kendi traces the origins of the concept of race to the West African slave trade. Prince Henry the Navigator first began classifying the African people primarily in terms of race in order to demarcate them as a group worthy of enslavement. Race was then tied inextricably to racial hierarchy, with the people in power, the Spaniards, using the concept of race to dominate and dehumanize. Racism, then, is not something inherent to human nature, but is instead a relative phenomenon to the group that possesses political power.

Kendi defines racism as “a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequalities.”2 Racism, for Kendi, is only possible when there is a power imbalance between two social groups. Members of any race can be racist against another race, or even members of their own race, as long as the discrimination affects the underprivileged race. Racism is not discriminating on the basis of race; it is discriminating against a weaker group of people on the basis of race. “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist

1 Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist (New York: Penguin Random House, 2019), 38. 2 Ibid., 18.

discrimination,” Kendi writes.

“The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”3 Kendi takes discrimination against oppressed people as a normative wrong: to be good is to be antiracist (supporting policies and ideas that better the oppressed racial groups, equalizing the condition of the races).

This definition of racism allows for any person, regardless of his or her race, to be racist. For example, a wealthy black American could be racist against a poor black American or even a poor white American. The context and consequences of the actions in relation to existing power structures are what constitute their moral rectitude. Kendi restricts racism to policies and ideas, and the actions that propagate them. Racism is emphatically not, as some believe, interpersonal acts of discrimination based on race for better or worse. It not something founded in ignorance and hate. On the contrary, racist acts are related only to the conditions present in society and how the consequences of the actions affect others in society broadly. The driving force behind racism is economic, political, and cultural selfinterest, not hatred. All policies are either racist or anti-racist in their results, and thus in their nature: no racially neutral policies can exist, as long as a racial power imbalance exists. Policy discrimination on basis of race is not racist if it results in the empowerment of the weaker group of people.

The solution to racism, then, is to struggle for anti-racist power.4 This first takes the form of intense self-examination, which involves analyzing one’s thoughts and ideas for traits that might result in the disenfranchising of an oppressed race. When one’s own racist tendencies and inclinations have been confronted and rejected, then one must move to seize positions of power in society to effect antiracist policies. By providing a definition of racism that allows for any person to “be a racist,” Kendi’s approach aims to bring nuance to a dichotomic racist/not racist understanding that prevents selfexamination and growth in personal virtue. However, Kendi operates from certain assumptions that hinder his theory’s usefulness from a Catholic anthropological perspective.

Kendi’s theory falls short because it struggles to provide a firm ground for normative claims and neglects the spiritual nature of man. Kendi assigns blame for racial suffering to societal policies and

3 Ibid., 19. 4 Ibid., 226. 6

practices that cause or sustain racial inequalities. He does not see racism as a vice or quality inherent to human beings. Instead, he views racism as a completely social phenomenon. “This is the consistent function of racist ideas,” he writes, “and of any kind of bigotry more broadly: to manipulate us into seeing people as the problem, instead of the policies that ensnare them.”5 This definition of racism stands in the shadow of cultural relativism.

Cultural relativism is evident in his analysis of the assimilationist approach to racial injustice. For Kendi, any assimilationist approach is fundamentally racist. An assimilationist seeks to change one race to match the norms of another. For example, an assimilationist in the Jim Crow South would believe that African Americans were capable of becoming worthy citizens as completely as white Americans, but he would require that the African Americans change and educate themselves to meet the same standards as those applied to white Americans. Kendi objects to assimilationist ideas, claiming that they reduce non-whites to children who need instruction by whites in how to be adults. Kendi’s point is a good one; there is significant danger of a totalizing, colonizing mentality running amok that would demand black Americans become white Americans in order to become Americans. However, Kendi grounds his assertion that all assimilationist ideas are wrong in the claim that there is no objective norm of behavior or value that can be applied to all races.

He claims that the very idea that “racial groups are culturally or behaviorally inferior” is fundamentally detrimental to racial equity, and thus racist.6 He goes beyond saying that there is nothing anthropologically superior or inferior about a race as a race and claims that there cannot be anything better or worse about racialized behavior. Not only can a race not be better or worse intrinsically, but it cannot be better or worse behaviorally. No objective standard of morality can be applied to the actions of one race or another. And any ideology that tries to do so is problematic. “One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an anti-racist.”7

This refusal to apply moral norms across racial divides prevents Kendi’s condemnation of racist action from striking to the heart of the matter: individual human hearts. His approach has the potential to

5 Ibid., 8. 6 Ibid., 31. 7 Ibid., 9. VOLUME XV (2022) 7

fall into the same trap as second wave feminism: the difficulty of assigning moral norms to a structurally relative system. As Fr. Francis Martin writes in his overview of feminist history, without the ability to appeal to moral (or anthropological) norms that apply to all people regardless of their political power, it is difficult to articulate why one form of social consciousness is better than the other. Either social theory is approached through rational discourse regarding the truths of human nature or it “runs the risk of being another instance of social engineering on the part of an enlightened elite who have access to the means of communication.”8 Why is it better to be an antiracist than a racist? The only normative answer Kendi can provide is the force of his own personal perspective and the power he wields in society.

As shown by Danielou, a Marxist anthropology views the human person as a puzzle piece in a grand temporal unfolding of an economic power struggle. To be human is to engage in the conflict between the exploiting class and the exploited class, and virtuous actions are those that allow the afflicted class to rise up and overthrow the oppressors. 9 This materialistic humanism does not allow for a supernatural destiny for man, because man has no supernatural origin. Man creates humanity, transforming himself and others by improving or degrading the material conditions of human life. For Marxism, says Danielou, “[m]an is the supreme value for man.”10 This humanism is a foil to the Christian concept of human history, which sees human beings not as fundamentally locked in a power struggle with no way out but rather as engaged in a constant struggle against sin, from which humanity is delivered through the grace of God. While economic struggles are real and significant materially, the real captivity is not physical but spiritual.

This contrast and continuity between liberation from sin and liberation from oppression can be seen in Kendi’s description of his parents ’ spiritual journey as African American civil rights activists. Kendi contrasts his own secular journey for racial justice with his parents’ experience in the evangelical liberation theology movement. His parents both converted from mainstream evangelical Christianity to the church of the Black Power movement. This theology saw Jesus as, in essence, the original, prototypical revolutionary. It emphasized

8 Francis Martin, S.J., The Feminist Question: Feminist Theology in Light of the Christian Tradition (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 158. 9 Jean Danielou, S.J., “Marxist History and Sacred History,” Review of Politics 13 (1951): 503. 10 Ibid., 504.

Jesus’ role in societal reform and his wish for his disciples to “proclaim liberation to the captives.”11 A Christian, to Kendi’s parents, was someone who “is striving for liberation.”12 This theology provided a feeling of reconciliation between their racial identity and their Christian faith.

This theological emphasis on Jesus’ role as liberator is valuable and necessary to a complete Christology, as long as it includes the ever present anthropological fact of the relationship between sin and grace. Jesus not only commanded his disciples to proclaim liberation to captives but he also commanded them to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”13 Spiritual liberation both precedes and is the end goal of societal liberation, with the Sacrament of Baptism being the means through which Christ actively liberates his people from the bondage of sin, temporally. In restricting his diagnosis of the evil of racism to societal power structures and external systems of oppression, Kendi leaves out the essential element of personal sin and corruption. Kendi’s definition falls short of providing a compelling anthropological approach to issues of race because it attributes all meaning and value to power structures within human society. He fails to address the deepest causes of human misery: sin and the effects of sin.

While structural societal injustices are a real and present concern, the origin of human suffering lies in the sin inherent in each postlapsarian heart. As John Paul II writes, “the ‘heart’ has become a battlefield between love and concupiscence.”14 A proper antidote to the evil of racism must provide a paradigm for addressing the individual sins of hatred and bigotry. Kendi’s analysis of the way that power structures support racist practices is insightful and important. His critique would be enhanced, however, by a more substantial consideration of the role that personal virtue and vice play in the perpetuation of racial oppression.

11 Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist, 15. 12 Ibid., 17. 13 Danielou, “Marxist History,” 509. 14 Karol Wojtyla, Man and Woman He Created Them (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2006), 258. VOLUME XV (2022) 9