The very heart of racism is denial: NewsCenter

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February 25, 2021

The anti-racist activist and author spoke about several topical issues during the university’s annual MLK address.

The only way to beat racism is to admit we’ve been racist in the past, Ibram X. Kendi told a virtual audience of nearly 3,000 on Wednesday evening as the University of Rochester celebrated the 20th anniversary of the memorial speech of Martin Luther King Jr ..

The very heart of racism is denial, the bestselling author, anti-racist activist and Boston University professor told a one-hour Zoom event. When people say they are not racists, they are sharing the words white supremacists use. The Jim Crow segregationists said they were not racists. The lynchers maintained that they were not racists; the problem was the people they lynched. The slave owners have said the same.

But to be anti-racist is to say that the strangulation was racist and that the policy that impoverished this community was racist. When I supported him I was racist, but I’m going to change him and be different.

Kendi spoke with moderator Kristin Doughty, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Susan B. Anthony University Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies and Acting Director of the Frederick Douglass Institute .

Prior to the event, Kendi participated in an online question-and-answer session with student leaders at the University.

Kendi, named one of Time magazines’ 100 Most Influential People of 2020, is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities and Founding Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. He won the 2016 National Book Award for Non-Fiction for Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. His recent book, How to Be an Antiracist, was a New York Times bestseller this year and has been described by The Times as the bravest book to date. on the problem of race in the Western mind.

Kendis’ work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, and the Salon, and he is a guest commentator on CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, and the BBC.

Kendi addresses police violence, COVID-19

Kendi discussed two incidents involving Rochester Police that made national news a 9-year-old girl who was handcuffed and pepper-sprayed following a domestic disturbance, and the case of Daniel Prude, who died after was physically restrained by police while suffering from a mental illness crisis.

Prude’s situation hit Kendi. I don’t know if I’ve said this publicly before, but it has been devastating for me on many levels, he said. My brother suffers from a mental handicap. It could have been my brother. The fact that these officers were (not charged) because they were following the procedure says all that is wrong with these officers and this procedure.

Kendi was also upset after watching a video of the 9-year-old girl being pepper-sprayed in the back seat of a police car. One of the most horrific racist ideas, especially for parents of black children, is knowing that black children are treated like adults and black adults are treated like children. You know the police and society in general are not going to look at your 9 year old and see a child.

Kendi said that when many activists talk about abolishing the police, they are in fact talking about abolishing violence. It’s important to realize that the most dangerous racist idea is the idea of ​​the dangerous black neighbor, he said. Across the country, there are all-black neighborhoods with low levels of violent crime, just as there are all-black neighborhoods with high levels. The distinction? Neighborhoods with low levels of violence have low levels of poverty and unemployment. All black people need all that everyone needs are resources and opportunities.

In the United States, people of color have suffered a disproportionate number of deaths from the coronavirus. In a perfect world, Kendi said, there would be racial demographics to identify hot spots of racial disparity in order to respond in real time.

This data from the start would have been critical, he said. Blacks are dying at the highest rate, not because of pre-existing conditions, but because they cannot work from home. Essential workers, people working in the service sector, cannot do this. And black people are dying at higher rates because they don’t have access to health insurance, and there are people who live in the highest levels of air and water pollution.

As we sit across from 500,000 people who have died from coronavirus, when are we as a people going to take our lives seriously? The people who look like us and who don’t look like us?

The MLK address was established by the University in 2001 to promote issues of diversity, liberty, civil rights and social justice to commemorate Kings’ legacy. The event is hosted by the Office of Minority Student Affairs and the Office of the President and co-sponsored by the Office of Equity and Inclusion and the Office of Alumni Relations and Voter Engagement.

Previous speakers include Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, Michael Eric Dyson, Maria Hinojosa and Symone Sanders, chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Tags: diversity, event, post-sidelight, MLK memorial speech

Category: University news

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