Ibram X. Kendi on What Conservatives — and Liberals — Get Wrong About Antiracism
About this episode
Ibram X. Kendi discusses the whirlwind reception of How to Be an Antiracist and argues racism and antiracism should be defined by outcomes: policies are racist when they produce or sustain inequity, antiracist when they reduce it. He makes the case for a policy-scoring body, like a Congressional Budget Office for racial equity, that would grade legislation by its effects; defends antiracist training in institutions while urging it be judged by results; and weighs police reform against defund/abolition arguments, tracing violent crime to its root causes. The episode also addresses the critical race theory panic as a distraction from substantive debate, what conservatives and liberals each get wrong about racism, and the persistence of the racial wealth gap.