The dogma of “anti-racism” began with an incontrovertible reality: For centuries, black Americans have been the victims of structural and often violent discrimination — slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and attitudes and norms that, to this day, exacerbate poverty and racial disparity. Where anti-racism made its radical departure was in its view about how to fix this knotty problem.
The proposed solution was no longer what Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall taught: that all human beings are created equal and therefore any kind of discrimination is evil. Instead, it was, explicitly, to embrace discrimination, but this time as a tool of “equity.” In practice, this meant racial discrimination against white and Asian people.
This vision of anti-racism, as imagined by Ibram X. Kendi and others, is no longer confined to universities and academic journals. It has long since escaped the confines of the quad and has seeped into so many corners of American life. And rather than eradicating racism, it has re-racialized the people and the places it has touched.
Across the country, there are a series of low-level battles unfolding — on campus, in the classroom, in the courtroom, in the boardroom and at the city council. But also: in farms in the Upper Midwest and the South, in bars and restaurants, in our major urban police forces.
The point is this: In late 2021, these ideas aren’t just ideas. Nor are they confined to elite institutions.They are affecting countless, less visible, ordinary Americans — and they are stoking a backlash that, I fear, we are only seeing the beginning of.
Here’s just some of what’s happening:
Farmers Versus Farmers
In March, President Biden signed the Rescue Plan Act, which was meant to help Americans still reeling from Covid-19. The bill set aside $4 billion just for farmers of color — who have been losing ground for years and now comprise just 2 percent of all American farmers. This was, supporters claimed, restorative justice, given that they had been especially hard hit by generations of systemic racism that stretched back to colonial times.