Oddly, I am reading this piece experiencing an unusual amount of sympathy for Kendi and his ideas. Not because he is not wrong on many points; he is. But am trying to put myself in his shoes. Anyone would feel uncomfortable if it were their race or demographic group that seemed to be the manifestly unsuccessful one, and he is trying to find reasons that relieve that discomfort. Some are not terribly valid and perhaps some are better than we think.
Regarding his statement "What if the intellect of a low-testing Black child in a poor Black school is different from—and not inferior to—the intellectual of a high-testing White child in a rich White school?", I understand the impulse behind it. Though I think the real drivers of the low-test scores are poverty, legacy of Jim Crow, breakdown of family, culture that doesn't value academics, etc.
I guess what I am saying though is that, while we have to read Kendi critically and notice his many errors, it's important to understand what creates his point of view, mistaken though it may be.
And I'd add that letting his critique of America "interrogate" some of our fixed notions is ok by me, whether that critique has value or not.
This is how I see it. Resentful for the racism that still exists, and for being part of a culture that doesn’t have cultural dominance because numbers. (Although black culture is indivisible from American culture and is celebrated. But that’s apparently invisible because it’s not good enough I guess) I agree with Kendi that people without conventionally recognized intelligence should still be valued. Black or white. Where this leads him is bizarre. Achievement doesn’t have a race. Achievement can be living a decent life using what talent you have, no matter who you are. But kendi himself plays the game he’d define as a white man’s game. He’s obviously playing a racist game himself for reducing a human being to one factor. Just from the other side. It’s puzzling why the educated classes went so far down this road with him. Does resentment plus white guilt produce an intellectual Procrustean bed?
Oddly, I am reading this piece experiencing an unusual amount of sympathy for Kendi and his ideas. Not because he is not wrong on many points; he is. But am trying to put myself in his shoes. Anyone would feel uncomfortable if it were their race or demographic group that seemed to be the manifestly unsuccessful one, and he is trying to find reasons that relieve that discomfort. Some are not terribly valid and perhaps some are better than we think.
Regarding his statement "What if the intellect of a low-testing Black child in a poor Black school is different from—and not inferior to—the intellectual of a high-testing White child in a rich White school?", I understand the impulse behind it. Though I think the real drivers of the low-test scores are poverty, legacy of Jim Crow, breakdown of family, culture that doesn't value academics, etc.
I guess what I am saying though is that, while we have to read Kendi critically and notice his many errors, it's important to understand what creates his point of view, mistaken though it may be.
And I'd add that letting his critique of America "interrogate" some of our fixed notions is ok by me, whether that critique has value or not.
This is how I see it. Resentful for the racism that still exists, and for being part of a culture that doesn’t have cultural dominance because numbers. (Although black culture is indivisible from American culture and is celebrated. But that’s apparently invisible because it’s not good enough I guess) I agree with Kendi that people without conventionally recognized intelligence should still be valued. Black or white. Where this leads him is bizarre. Achievement doesn’t have a race. Achievement can be living a decent life using what talent you have, no matter who you are. But kendi himself plays the game he’d define as a white man’s game. He’s obviously playing a racist game himself for reducing a human being to one factor. Just from the other side. It’s puzzling why the educated classes went so far down this road with him. Does resentment plus white guilt produce an intellectual Procrustean bed?