Ibram X Kendi: Stamped from the Beginning

[Music] morning so I'm usually not up at this hour but I got up this morning for all of you and and so on I'm quite happy and excited to be here to really share with you a little bit about my my bulk stamped from the beginning because I think it's a book that really gives us the ability to understand some recent events in this nation for instance how is it that a candidate endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan could follow into the White House the first black president or the first biracial president how could that happen right and I think through understanding the history of racism in this nation I think it actually is quite fitting that that happened and what I mean by fitting is that's indicative of what as long happened in this country and what I mean by that is historically when people have broken through barriers the people who put those barriers in place did not just go home and go to sleep they erected new barriers new and more sophisticated barriers to exclude people what I call this in my book and stamp from the beginning I call it that we've experienced as a nation racial progress but the simultaneous progression of racism that we've actually this nation has had two historical forces as it relates to race and I know that's not necessarily what we've been taught President Barack Obama in his final speech to the nation talked about a singular historical force a singular historical force of of race progress of a force in which sometimes you know we take steps back but it's a but but typically we're taking steps forward right anybody heard that analogy for it right you know we heard it a lot during Black History Month right and and and what I'm here to tell you is that that's actually not historically accurate and also that it's better to understand our racial history as this dual force these two historical forces in which racist forces have continuously made progress in this country just as anti-racist forces have continuously made progress in this country I don't need to tell you the ways in which anti-racist forces have made progress I mean the fact that I'm even here is indicative of that but as it relates to racist forces post-racial theory is quite possibly the most sophisticated racist ideology ever created it is more sophisticated than any other set of racist ideas ever created and if anything it is to a certain extent the climax or pinnacle of racist ideas because to a certain extent every racist idea in history has been like a post-racial idea every racist idea in history has been like a post-racial idea what do I mean well from the beginning of this country there has been racial inequality that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone right and there's only two explanations for racial inequality for racial disparities for racial inequities there's only two explanations there's only two explanation as to why over the last 50 years the black unemployment rate has been twice as high as the white unemployment rate there's only two explanations as to why 40 percent of the incarcerated population in this country is black even though black people make up about 13 percent of the population there's only two explanations as to why white people in this country have roughly 15 times more wealth than black people there's only two explanations for many of these racial inequities that persist in every sector of our society either there's something wrong or inferior about black people racist idea or racial discrimination those are the only two explanations for any racial inequities either there's something wrong or inferior about black people either it's the case that black workers are lazy black workers on qualified black workers enjoy living on welfare there's something wrong and inferior about black workers and that's why they're twice as likely to be unemployed or job discrimination either it's the case that black people are more criminal minded they commit disproportionately more crimes they are immoral they are violent more violent than others and that is the reason why they're disproportionately in America's prisons or racial discrimination in the criminal justice system these are the only two explanations and throughout American history we've had racial inequities throughout our society and you've had people who have been trying to get Americans to think racial discrimination doesn't exist that the actual cause of those inequities the actual cause of those inequities is black inferiority which essentially in their mind and in their society they were creating a post-racial society a society where racial discrimination doesn't exist even though we have persisting in existing racial disparities and then that causes people if racial discrimination doesn't exist then it causes people to assume that the causes of those disparities must be what black inferiority I I am you know studied nearly 600 years of racist ideas from their origins in 15th century Portugal to the literally to the President and and I found that the principal function historically of racist ideas has been to suppress resistance to racial discrimination because again if you have these inequities and you have been led to believe that there's something wrong or inferior about black people then that's going to normalize those inequities and you're certainly not going to be able to see let alone fight or challenge the discrimination that's actually causing those inequities and so then those who benefit from those policies that actually cause those inequities will actually continue to be able to benefit from that right whether that benefit is making money because people are enslaved whether that benefit is getting an office because you're able to manipulate people to vote for you because you convinced them that there is an affirmative action problem a crime problem a welfare problem whatever benefit and I you know I actually entered into writing stamp from the beginning thinking that you know this the the real issue the underlying issue the root of this problem is ignorance you know the people just don't know right know about black people and that's why they've been creating these racist ideas that's what I assumed that's what I thought uh but I decided in writing stamps in the beginning that I didn't just want to write a history of racist ideas I wanted to write a history that showed the ways in which racist ideas impacted the course of American history and the way American history impacted the course of racist ideas so this history of racist ideas is largely intertwined with the history of America you know all the major events that have happened in this nation's history are chronicled in this book and so I you know in seeking to do so I realized that I couldn't just give the story of what what racist ideas had had been created I had to give the story of why these racist ideas were created and recreated over the course of American history and who created them so who created them and why did they create them and again I assume that it was because they were just ignorant like that was my assumption but when I ended up first and foremost distinguishing between the producers of racist ideas and the consumers and I decided you know I wanted to study the producers I didn't want to study the people who are watching the television show I wanted to people I wanted to study the people who are on the television show I didn't want to study people reading the books I wanted to people to study the people writing the books making the films making the speeches providing these scientific ideas and I also wanted to sort of show their development of their ideas within a specific historical context so why is it that john c calhoun anybody heard of him John C Calhoun US senator from South Carolina who was in the news recently because Yale finally decided to take this person's name off off of the hall why is it that he in 1837 stood up before his colleagues in the US Senate and stated slavery as a positive could why did he do that why is it that John McWhorter weeks after Obama's election wrote in Forbes that we are now living in a post-racial society I mean I wanted to sort of answer these questions why what was going on and and in doing so I had to basically investigate the motives and I had to investigate whether in fact it was the case that these people were ignorant and I found over and over again that these influential producers of racist ideas were actually some of the most brilliant American minds in history and many of them loved black people the second major character in my book is Thomas Jefferson y'all know how much he loved black people and so I realized that these producers of racist ideas we're not producing these ideas ignorance or even hate that typically they were producing these ideas to justify existing racist policies to normalize racial inequities - and the reason why they wanted to justify those policies and their effects inequities is because they benefited them right and so what happened you know they produce these racist ideas and then we consume them and then we were led to believe there was something wrong with black people as opposed to those policies and so then we spent our time trying to either incarcerate or civilize black people because again we thought something was wrong with them as opposed to these policies and and so I I sold this history in which really the roots of racism in this country historically has been political economic and cultural self-interest and people have produced and created racist policies out of self-interest and then those policies have beget have begat racist ideas racist policies led to racist ideas and then they circulated those racist ideas oftentimes through the media and then Americans consumed those racist ideas they became ignorant and hateful and so that's sort of this history that I showed we saw this recently a particular party recognized that the demographics of this country and even the ideology of this country was turning against them they recognized that they no longer had the votes so so what did they do did they say oh you know well this is a democracy no they stated okay we're gonna figure out a way to suppress the votes we're gonna figure out a new way to suppress the votes specifically of people who we think won't vote for us so they created voter ID laws across this country because they benefited them politically and then they created a justification voter fraud which of course has a very long history of this idea of the corrupt black voter and then people began believing them and getting their guns and they went to black polling sites thinking they were doing something that is indicative of this long history of racist ideas that I show in stamped from the beginning thank you you

Channel: frank gathering & Cntr Public Interest Comms

Views: 91,148

Keywords: Ibram X Kendi, race, racism, injustice, policy, Stamped

Id: nBFYQu1ZYD0

Length: 15min 27sec (927 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 25 2018