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| Photo Credit: Andre Chung |
“After taking this grueling journey to the dirt road of antiracism, humanity can come upon the clearing of a potential future: an antiracist world in all its imperfect beauty,” argues Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, in his book, “How to Be an Antiracist.” “It can become real if we focus on power instead of people, if we focus on changing policy instead of groups of people.”
It’s no wonder that 2020 was called the year that everyone wanted to say goodbye to:
· the start of the COVID-19 pandemic
· the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests that erupted after the deaths of unarmed Black people by police such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, both incidents of which happened within a little over two months apart of each other
· the presidential election
Racial tensions were and still are at its peak in the U.S. The pandemic has no doubt pried people’s eyes open on the importance of racial equity and addressing issues of systemic racism.
Despite the pandemic, the State University of New York Buffalo State College and SUNY Orange County Community College hosted a virtual Zoom event with this three-time New York Times bestselling author on February 22.
With the discussion led by the chief diversity officers of both campuses, Crystal Rodriguez of SUNY Buffalo State, who is also chief of staff to President Katherine S. Conway-Turner, and Dr. Willie Williams of SUNY Orange, the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research sat in front of his wooden shelf with his latest book, co-edited with historian Keisha Blain, “Four Hundred Souls,” behind him to the audience’s left and his international bestseller, “How To Be An Antiracist,” to the right. Named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, Kendi covered a range of topics from racist policies to racist behavior as well as possible solutions.
“A racist policy is a measure that leads to racial inequity or injustice,” Kendi explained. “Any ideas that suggest what’s wrong or right about a racial group is a connotation of inferiority or superiority.”
The Andrew W. Mellon professor of Boston University argues that racist people falsely claim and link problems to people of color. They fail to see that the problems lie not within groups of people, according to Kendi, but rather in the policies themselves.
“Evidence to date suggests that Black and Hispanic workers face much more economic and health insecurity from COVID-19 than white workers,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Kendi says it's time to question why the U.S. doesn’t have universal health care and why so much money is spent on policing and the military rather than on higher education.
One solution that he suggests in combating racism in the community is to implement project-based courses that examine the causes of problems, like food insecurity, and proposing policies that can reduce it.
“[Students] are learning. They’re getting skills. They're even getting confidence. They’re recognizing how change works,” Kendi said with enthusiasm.
When asked about police reform, Kendi argued that the most racist idea is that Black and brown neighborhoods are dangerous and it leads to the idea that “militarized police force” is necessary. Kendi proposes that the best way to fight crime is by providing jobs and resources, especially to those areas with higher poverty rates.
A contributor writer at The Atlantic, he also tackled issues of colorism.
“Even within communities of color, we have internalized this idea that the lighter, the better or the straighter, the better, or the more your noses or facial features look European, the more beautiful, which then means we've internalized this idea that white is right,” Kendi said.
The CBS News racial justice contributor mentioned how elected U.S. officials, instead of taking responsibility for the high amount of deaths, wrongly resorted to frame it as the “Chinese virus,” which led everyday Americans to believe that Asians worldwide were to blame.
In a press conference from March last year, former President Trump defended his repetition of the name, “Chinese virus.” “It’s not racist, at all,” he said. “Because it comes from China.”
Stop Asian-American Pacific Islander Hate (Stop AAPI Hate), a reporting center for Anti-Asian hate, stated that it received more than 2,800 reports of hate incidents directed at Asian-Americans nationwide last year.
To conclude the event, Kendi reflected on how his major made him the person he is today and gave an inspirational message for the new Africana Studies faculty saying that they “will shape the next generation [of] students and change-makers.”
The one hour Zoom conversation was closed off by the president of SUNY Orange Dr. Kristine Young.
Others who took part in the event, in order of appearance, were the Zoom moderator, Dana Salkowsky, the director of the Center For Teaching and Learning, and an instructor at the Communications Department of SUNY Orange; Paul Basinski, the chair of the Department of Global Studies and professor of Political Science at SUNY Orange; and Dr. Conway-Turner, the president of SUNY Buffalo State College.
· the start of the COVID-19 pandemic
· the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests that erupted after the deaths of unarmed Black people by police such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, both incidents of which happened within a little over two months apart of each other
· the presidential election
Racial tensions were and still are at its peak in the U.S. The pandemic has no doubt pried people’s eyes open on the importance of racial equity and addressing issues of systemic racism.
Despite the pandemic, the State University of New York Buffalo State College and SUNY Orange County Community College hosted a virtual Zoom event with this three-time New York Times bestselling author on February 22.
With the discussion led by the chief diversity officers of both campuses, Crystal Rodriguez of SUNY Buffalo State, who is also chief of staff to President Katherine S. Conway-Turner, and Dr. Willie Williams of SUNY Orange, the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research sat in front of his wooden shelf with his latest book, co-edited with historian Keisha Blain, “Four Hundred Souls,” behind him to the audience’s left and his international bestseller, “How To Be An Antiracist,” to the right. Named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, Kendi covered a range of topics from racist policies to racist behavior as well as possible solutions.
“A racist policy is a measure that leads to racial inequity or injustice,” Kendi explained. “Any ideas that suggest what’s wrong or right about a racial group is a connotation of inferiority or superiority.”
The Andrew W. Mellon professor of Boston University argues that racist people falsely claim and link problems to people of color. They fail to see that the problems lie not within groups of people, according to Kendi, but rather in the policies themselves.
“Evidence to date suggests that Black and Hispanic workers face much more economic and health insecurity from COVID-19 than white workers,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Kendi says it's time to question why the U.S. doesn’t have universal health care and why so much money is spent on policing and the military rather than on higher education.
One solution that he suggests in combating racism in the community is to implement project-based courses that examine the causes of problems, like food insecurity, and proposing policies that can reduce it.
“[Students] are learning. They’re getting skills. They're even getting confidence. They’re recognizing how change works,” Kendi said with enthusiasm.
When asked about police reform, Kendi argued that the most racist idea is that Black and brown neighborhoods are dangerous and it leads to the idea that “militarized police force” is necessary. Kendi proposes that the best way to fight crime is by providing jobs and resources, especially to those areas with higher poverty rates.
A contributor writer at The Atlantic, he also tackled issues of colorism.
“Even within communities of color, we have internalized this idea that the lighter, the better or the straighter, the better, or the more your noses or facial features look European, the more beautiful, which then means we've internalized this idea that white is right,” Kendi said.
The CBS News racial justice contributor mentioned how elected U.S. officials, instead of taking responsibility for the high amount of deaths, wrongly resorted to frame it as the “Chinese virus,” which led everyday Americans to believe that Asians worldwide were to blame.
In a press conference from March last year, former President Trump defended his repetition of the name, “Chinese virus.” “It’s not racist, at all,” he said. “Because it comes from China.”
Stop Asian-American Pacific Islander Hate (Stop AAPI Hate), a reporting center for Anti-Asian hate, stated that it received more than 2,800 reports of hate incidents directed at Asian-Americans nationwide last year.
To conclude the event, Kendi reflected on how his major made him the person he is today and gave an inspirational message for the new Africana Studies faculty saying that they “will shape the next generation [of] students and change-makers.”
The one hour Zoom conversation was closed off by the president of SUNY Orange Dr. Kristine Young.
Others who took part in the event, in order of appearance, were the Zoom moderator, Dana Salkowsky, the director of the Center For Teaching and Learning, and an instructor at the Communications Department of SUNY Orange; Paul Basinski, the chair of the Department of Global Studies and professor of Political Science at SUNY Orange; and Dr. Conway-Turner, the president of SUNY Buffalo State College.
For more information about this speaker please visit prhspeakers.com.
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