Ibram Kendi Faces Growing Backlash From the Left Over His Failing ‘Anti-Racist’ Think Tank
“the story of a huckster who was happy to cash in on America’s racial trauma”
Now that Ibram Kendi’s ‘anti-racist’ think tank at Boston University is being examined for possible financial mismanagement, it’s incredible how quickly people on the left are turning on him.
Aren’t these people supposed to be his supporters?
FOX News reports:
Ibram Kendi assailed by left as ‘huckster’ ‘charlatan’ as backlash to antiracism center grows: ‘Real damage’
The backlash against Ibram X. Kendi and Boston University doesn’t appear to be fading, as two academics wrote scathing commentaries attacking the liberal figure and the university for peddling his “antiracist” ideology.
Last week, following many layoffs at the center, workers came forward with bombshell allegations that the center “exploited” staff and “blew through” millions of dollars in grant money while failing to deliver on its promises.
Progressive professor Tyler Austin Harper said the center’s “implosion” proved how “White American elites on both sides of the political spectrum,” were “always waiting in the wings to turn a shiny new Black intellectual into a mouthpiece for their political agenda,” in his Washington Post op-ed, Thursday.
Harper, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates University, described Kendi as a “huckster” who was “happy to cash in on America’s racial trauma” by transforming into an “antiracism guru” during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement…
BU professor of theology David Decosimo also commented on the center’s downfall in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal. He blamed university leaders for contributing to the “cultural hysteria” on racism following the death of George Floyd.
Here’s more from that Washington Post piece:
As one of a number of left-wing commentators who have been critical of mainstream anti-racism — and who believe the movement is little more than self-help for White people that runs interference for corporations and wealthy universities — I’ve watched the Kendi crisis unfold with a touch of schadenfreude. Yet though this public reckoning feels long overdue, I can’t help but also have a smidgen of empathy for the embattled anti-racism guru…
The prospect of Kendi’s unraveling is not — or at least, is not only — the story of a huckster who was happy to cash in on America’s racial trauma, slapping his name on strange children’s books, including “Antiracist Baby” and “Goodnight Racism,” while raking in hundreds of dollars a minute to give short talks at American universities. Instead, the Kendi affair is yet another example of an age-old truism: White American elites on both sides of the political spectrum — academics, publishers, members of the media, corporate leaders — are always waiting in the wings to turn a shiny new Black intellectual into a mouthpiece for their political agenda
Though conservatives tended to focus on the book’s famous catchphrase — “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination” — in my view the real damage that Kendi’s philosophy has wrought on American culture is in the way he turned words like “racism” and “white supremacy” into banal, everyday terms like any others.
It looks like it’s all falling apart.
Lol now they admit it https://t.co/pnWqfLYUUc pic.twitter.com/SnpNz2JpXZ
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) September 29, 2023
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Comments
The Dems turn on him because he got caught in his arrogance.
He got caught because he was too lazy to actual fake up the fake research they were theoretically paying for.
He could have put out literally anything and the race baiters along with the guilty progressives would have lapped it up. He couldn’t even bother to do that nor could any of the other dead weight in his cabal
When we abolish all Affirmative Action it should be attributed to Ibram Kendi’s conduct.
His conduct is bad but when we abolish all Affirmative Action it should be attributed to understanding that all racism is racism.
I agree, but think it would be funny for him to be branded in the black community, the other racists mad that their gravy train is gone.
“ White American elites on both sides of the political spectrum — academics, publishers, members of the media, corporate leaders — are always waiting in the wings to turn a shiny new Black intellectual into a mouthpiece for their political agenda [.]”
Translating this to be a bit more blunt: Kendi danced to da Man’s tune, yo!”
Kendi this appears to have no integrity or backbone.
I don’t think Kendi was ever an intellectual, just the latest in a long string of race hustlers.
Unfortunately he didn’t even have the sense to call the Justice Brothers and get pointers on how the shakedown works. Arrogance at work
Arrogance driven stupidity.
‘Anti-racist Baby’ is supposed to be some sort of intellectual work? Gimme a break.
It’s about as intellectual as “Prom Night Dumpster Baby,” and nowhere near as humorous.
I’d bet $100 he’s no Einstein. Probably should be making lattes at Starbucks.
He’s inauthentic, which became increasingly clear. He cares nothing about racism. So the question becomes, what does he care about? It was only a matter of time for this crook. We have seen his kind time and again. Maybe the guilty whites should ask why they always fall for the stinky garbage of race hustlers. They’re supposed to be the intelligent ones. Good luck, Kendi!
Why would I care about what he cares about, or him at all?
“Aren’t these people supposed to be his supporters?”
Even the uninvolved can now see DEI’s faddish popularity collapsing.
“These people” his supporters are Democrats.
Did you expect them to crawl under the bus themselves?
Democrats never take responsibility for their own mistakes.
When are they going to wake up and realize that Kendi, BLM, Affirmative Action and the NAACP are just scamming us for money and not producing results of any kind.
We have a government for that sort of thing, you know!!
So when can we go after that 1619 Project chick with the dyed hair. She Makes Kendi sound like Einstein
I greatly admired Einstein and was in awe of Relativity. As I got a bit older I was horrified by his treatment of his first wife. Fifteen years of so later I came to understand how and why that happened, on a personal level, but stuck with the marriage for my children’s sake. It was interesting that my wife loved pregnancy’s and babies, up to about three, and then she had little interest. Being self employed, I was able to raise them them rest of they way. By the time we are old enough to fully understand implications of our decisions, the die is cast and too late.
I don’t get it. I mean, he was always, obviously a charlatan. His whole schtick was that any criticism of a black person, especially himself, was racist. “Shut up, pay me, and grovel,” that was the sum total of his thesis, and he was quite up-front about it. Now they find that objectionable?
No, they don’t. But they are NPCs and got their programming update.
It’s basically the same formula that has worked for pimps since time immemorial, and most of the girls in the stable never see through it.
So now it’s our fault for listening to him? Bollocks. We’re not responsible for what he does.
It’s all his fault, 100%. Blame him. If possible, fire him for cause. Tenure doesn’t protect against that.
“Show us da money”
Better get those books out quick son because you have gone and pissed off the rubes that constitute your base and got you your cash.
In 2013 “Ibrim X Kendi” was a 30 something history professor at SUNY named Henry Rodgers.
He changed his name, wrote a book about how to race scam for fun and profit, and here we are.