{"id":78438,"date":"2022-10-23T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-23T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=78438"},"modified":"2022-10-24T12:36:42","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T16:36:42","slug":"stamped-from-the-beginning-by-ibram-x-kendi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/stamped-from-the-beginning-by-ibram-x-kendi\/","title":{"rendered":"Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More than 50 years after the Civil Rights Movement<\/a> and more than 14 years after electing its first Black president, why is the United States still divided along racial lines? What is the new theory of racism<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the central question of Stamped From the Beginning<\/em> by Ibram X. Kendi, which argues that contrary to common wisdom, racism doesn\u2019t begin with prejudice and hatred. It begins with self-serving policies whose proponents justify their actions by inventing racist ideas<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below is a brief overview of the key takeaways from Stamped From the Beginning<\/em> by Ibram X. Kendi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 1: A New Theory of Racism<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stamped From the Beginning<\/em> by Ibram X. Kendi presents a new theory of racist ideas\u2014which Kendi argues is necessary if we\u2019re to effectively fight racism. Kendi makes two major conceptual claims in this book. First, he argues that racist ideas are invented to justify racist policies already in place. If we don\u2019t realize this, he says, we\u2019ll mistakenly try to address racism by fighting racist ideas when it would be more effective to fight racist policies. Second, he argues that debates about race encompass three possible stances\u2014segregationism, assimilationism, and antiracism. He suggests that if we don\u2019t learn to recognize all three stances, we might accidentally perpetuate racist ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claim #1: Racist Policies Lead to Racist Ideas<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Kendi argues that while most people think that ignorance and hatred lead to racist policies, the reality is the exact opposite: People who are motivated by economic or political self-interest introduce racist policies, they justify these policies by inventing racist ideas, then those racist ideas take hold and produce ignorance and hatred<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Kendi\u2019s account of American anti-Black racism, the original racist policy<\/a> was the African slave trade, which slave traders and enslavers justified by inventing ideas about Black inferiority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we\u2019ll see in Part 2, much of Kendi\u2019s book is dedicated to tracking the evolution of these policies and ideas over time. Kendi argues that it\u2019s crucial to understand the policy-first nature of racism because otherwise, we\u2019re likely to take the wrong approach to combating racism<\/a>. In other words, if we believe that racism stems from hatred and ignorance, we\u2019ll focus on educating racists to show them the illogic and factual inaccuracy of racist ideas\u2014an approach that can\u2019t possibly work<\/strong> because racist ideas don\u2019t come from ignorance in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claim #2: There Are Three Positions on Race<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While we might assume that ideas are either racist or nonracist, Kendi\u2019s other major theoretical argument is that there are three types of thoughts on race: segregationist, antiracist, and assimilationist<\/strong>. When we think about racist ideas, we tend to think about openly hateful, hostile, or discriminatory rhetoric. But as we\u2019ll see, Kendi\u2019s three positions show that racist thinking can take subtler forms and even disguise itself as nonracist:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) <\/strong>Segregationist <\/em><\/strong>ideas blame racial disparities on Black people by proposing that they\u2019re inferior or defective in some way. These are the kinds of ideas we\u2019d typically identify as racist. For example, a segregationist explanation for the low number of Black Fortune 500 CEOs<\/a> might be that Black people lack the intelligence and motivation to be business leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) <\/strong>Antiracist<\/em><\/strong> ideas blame racial disparities solely on racism and maintain that all races are equal. An antiracist explanation for the lack of Black Fortune 500 CEOs might be that hiring and promotion procedures discriminate against Black candidates and employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3)<\/strong> Assimilationist<\/em><\/strong> ideas blame racial disparities on Black people and <\/em>on racism. Assimilationist ideas can take two forms\u2014they can maintain that both Black people and racist Whites are at fault, or they can propose that Black people are defective <\/strong>as a result of <\/em><\/strong>racism.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the first type of assimilationism might explain the low number of Black Fortune 500 CEOs by saying that hiring policies are discriminatory and <\/em>that many Black people lack the skills to be business executives (such an explanation might even suggest that businesses should try harder to find the few qualified Black people out there). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second type of assimilationism is especially pernicious because its racism is subtler\u2014for example, it might argue that after centuries of racial discrimination, most Black people can\u2019t imagine themselves in leadership roles. As Kendi points out, an idea like this seems to place the blame on racism, but in doing so, it also promotes the idea that Black people <\/strong>are<\/em><\/strong> inferior<\/strong> (even if the inferiority isn\u2019t their fault, but was caused by racism).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 2: The History of Racist Thought in America<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Now that we\u2019ve discussed Kendi\u2019s overarching theoretical principles\u2014namely, the policy-first nature of racism and the segregationist\/assimilationist\/antiracist trichotomy\u2014we\u2019ll see how these principles play out in the context of American history. The bulk of Kendi\u2019s book is an extensive study of the history of American racist thought through five time periods, each of which covers a major era in US history and assigns an important historical figure as a \u201cguide\u201d to that period. The five time periods are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) The early colonial period<\/strong>. The representative of this period is Cotton Mather, perhaps the most influential preacher in colonial New England. Mather owned slaves and argued that slavery benefited Black people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) The founding of the United States and the first few decades of the new country<\/strong>. The representative of this period is Thomas Jefferson, the third US President and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence<\/a>. Jefferson owned slaves and held ambivalent views about slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3) The American Civil War and the periods just before and after it<\/strong>. The representative of this period is William Lloyd Garrison, a publisher and one of the loudest public advocates for the abolition of slavery. Kendi explains that Garrison opposed slavery while propagating racist assimilationist attitudes about Black people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4) The post-Civil War Reconstruction and the ensuing Jim Crow era up through the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. <\/strong>The representative of this period is W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent Black scholar and activist. According to Kendi, Du Bois initially advocated assimilationist ideas before eventually adopting antiracist ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5) The Civil Rights movement through the present<\/strong>. The representative of this period is Angela Davis, a Black feminist scholar and activist. According to Kendi, Davis has consistently argued for antiracist as well as other antidiscriminatory policies (for example, feminist and pro-LGBTQ platforms). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we explore each of these periods of history, we\u2019ll focus on the prominent racist policies, ideas, and debates that characterize each era. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colonial New England<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Kendi begins his history in 17th century Colonial New England with Cotton Mather<\/strong>, a popular preacher from a prominent family. Mather is important to Kendi\u2019s story because he advocated<\/strong> one of the early justifications for slavery\u2014the idea that White enslavers could save Black souls by converting them to Christianity<\/strong>. Other important developments in this period include a foundational debate about the nature of race and some of the first political moves designed to pit White commoners against Black people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slavery as Salvation<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

According to Kendi, the first anti-Black racism comes with the start of the African slave trade and demonstrates the principle that racist practices<\/em> come first and are then justified by racist ideas<\/em>. Around 200 years before England established its first colonies in what became the US, Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal began trading in African slaves. Kendi explains that this was purely a business decision\u2014Henry didn\u2019t want to work with established Muslim slave traders, and he also saw an opportunity to enter an emerging market<\/strong> (African slaves) as the previously dominant market (Slavic slaves) waned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kendi says that after Henry\u2019s death in 1460, his nephew and biographer obscured these financial motives by arguing that Henry was concerned with uplifting and spiritually saving the Africans<\/strong> by moving them to better conditions in Portugal and introducing them to Christianity. Over the next several hundred years, slavery became an important part of the European and Colonial economies. The first African slaves reached the future US in 1619, when an English captain raided a Spanish slave ship and then sold a group of \u201c20 and odd\u201d captives to the governor of Virginia. By this time, Kendi says, enslavers had firmly established the idea that Africans were beasts who were better off in European and American servitude.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Kendi, this rhetoric reached its peak with Mather (1663-1728), whose main contribution was to conflate White and Black as racial categories with white and black as descriptors of moral character. In doing so, he perpetuated the idea that slavery was benevolent. Around 1706, Mather argued that Black people were savage and immoral by nature, but that all <\/em>people had (or were capable of having) white souls if they accepted Christianity and their God-given place in the social hierarchy<\/a><\/strong>. As we\u2019ll see, Kendi suggests that the idea that Black people need White leadership has persisted ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Invention of Race<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In order to describe Black people as an inferior race, enslavers had to explain what a race was in the first place. Kendi explains that ethnic and color discrimination began with the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who argued that lighter and darker skin was caused by colder or warmer climates. However, Kendi says that as early modern European explorers saw more of the world and encountered new peoples, they realized that this climate theory didn\u2019t hold up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, they posited that dark-skinned peoples were descendants of the Biblical figure Ham, one of Noah\u2019s sons who was cursed by his father and God<\/strong>. Kendi explains that at this time, \u201crace\u201d simply meant \u201cdescent\u201d\u2014so by saying Black people were descended from Ham, Europeans first conceived of the idea that Black people were a distinct (and cursed) \u201crace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to this lineal explanation of race, Kendi says that some other thinkers posited<\/strong> an alternative theory\u2014that different races came from different acts of creation, making them essentially different biological species<\/strong>. This idea was technically heretical (since it contradicted the Biblical creation story<\/a>), but it persisted for centuries, eventually evolving into a variety of scientific hierarchies of different human \u201csubspecies.\u201d These two theories\u2014that different races result from either one act of creation or several\u2014are known as monogenesis<\/em> and polygenesis<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pitting White Against Black<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Kendi finishes by saying that the Colonial period saw the first uses of policy to pit non-enslaving White people against Black people. Kendi points to Bacon\u2019s Rebellion (1676-7), in which planter Nathaniel Bacon led a group of poor Whites as well as free and enslaved Black people against the Virginia governor. The rebellion failed, but it scared Colonial authorities by showing them the power of people uniting along socioeconomic\u2014rather than racial\u2014lines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, the government pardoned the White rebels, harshly punished the Black rebels, and developed White militias to guard against future slave uprisings. Kendi explains that these policies were designed to prevent future cooperation between White and Black people by establishing and enforcing a racial hierarchy<\/a>. By publicly elevating poor White people above Black people, the authorities created animosity between the two groups and kept poor Whites focused on policing Black people rather than worrying about their own exploitation<\/strong> by richer White people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Founding of America<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By the time the Colonies began to fight for their independence (starting in the 1760s with discontent about British policies and culminating with 1776\u2019s Declaration of Independence), slavery and the racist ideas it engendered were entrenched in American society. But at the same time, racist ideas were transformed by the Enlightenment\u2014an intellectual movement that ran throughout 18th-century Europe, sparked by advances in philosophy and science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enlightenment thinkers promoted political ideals of democracy and universal equality, which challenged the institution of racism. But meanwhile, Enlightenment science\u2014with its emphasis on rationality and order\u2014created a biological hierarchy of races (with Europeans, who deemed themselves to be the most rational race, on top). Kendi suggests that no one embodied these tensions more than Thomas Jefferson, whose conflicted attitudes about race helped shape the country in its early years<\/strong>. Meanwhile, Kendi says, this period contains the first examples of antislavery sentiment and its assimilationist logic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Men Are Created Equal<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

According to Kendi, the Declaration of Independence reveals a contradiction in its author\u2019s thinking. In the Declaration, the slave-holding Jefferson asserts that \u201call men are created equal\u201d\u2014resulting in an ambiguity that Kendi says reflects Jefferson\u2019s larger ambivalence about race, as expressed in his often contradictory writings and actions. Kendi gives the following examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n