“With Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson emerged as the preeminent American authority on Black intellectual inferiority. This status would persist over the next fifty years. Jefferson did not mention the innumerable enslaved Africans who learned to be… — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
“When men oppress their fellowmen, the oppressor ever finds, in the character of the oppressed, a full justification for his oppression.” — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
“assimilationists constantly encourage Black adoption of White cultural traits and/or physical ideals.” — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
“Enlightenment ideas gave legitimacy to this long-held racist “partiality,” the connection between lightness and Whiteness and reason, on the one hand, and between darkness… — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
“Hate and ignorance have not driven the history of racist ideas in America. Racist policies have driven the history of racist ideas in America.” — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
“From the beginning, it has been a three-sided battle, a battle of antiracist ideas being pitted against two kinds of racist ideas at the… — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
“newspaper reports of rape constructed white defendants as individual offenders and black defendants as representative of the failings of their racial group,” — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
“Donald Trump’s economic policies are geared toward enriching White male power—but at the expense of most of his White male followers, along with the… — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
“individualizing White negativity and generalizing Black negativity.” — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
“Racially discriminatory policies have usually sprung from economic, political, and cultural self-interests, self-interests that are constantly changing. Politicians seeking higher office have primarily created and defended discriminatory policies out of political self-interest—not racist ideas. Capitalists seeking to increase profit margins have primarily created and defended discriminatory policies out of economic self-interest—not racist ideas. Cultural professionals, including theologians, artists, scholars, and… — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share
“The vicious housing cycle had already begun. Racist policies harmed Black neighborhoods, generating racist ideas that caused people not to want to live next… — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
“For Jefferson, power came before freedom. Indeed, power creates freedom, not the other way around—as the powerless are taught.” — Ibram X. Kendi Copy Share Image
