'How to be an Antiracist' author: focus on changing policies, not 'inferior' peoples

by Suzanne Hanney

You develop communities by changing policies, not by developing “inferior peoples,” Ibram X. Kendi said as the national plenary speaker of the virtual Strengthening Resilient Communities conference staged by 11 housing and community development associations across the U.S. Kendi is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “How to Be an Antiracist” and founding director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University.

Before the mid-1400s, there was no such thing as race, Kendi said in his October 21 talk on “How to be an Antiracist Community Developer.” Some groups had darker skin, some lighter. But the transatlantic slave trade created one, black, “inferior” people. “To be antiracist is to recognize that race is like a mirage, but it has an impact on people of color, [and] to challenge actual policies that are the problem, as opposed to thinking something is wrong with Black and Brown people.”

How can community development be more antiracist when many of its tools are market-based and therefore rooted in capitalism?

Become “outcome-centered,” Kendi said. As you focus on providing universal housing or eliminating housing insecurity, tell the capitalist that “actually this is good for the market too, but I am not as focused on that as you are, [but instead on] equity and justice.

“If we have to translate to our allies that this can be helpful to the market, that is what we should do. But we should never stop focusing on bringing health and well-being to the people. Be outcome-centered. We have to fight policies geared toward the wealthy and well-connected. Some would say racial capitalism is government policy for the wealthy and white. We want to transfer it to low-income people.”

How do we address antiracism in a multiethnic community?

“One of the things I have tried to argue in my work is we need to recognize racial groups as opposed to races: Latinx seniors, Black young people, Middle Eastern Americans.

“We shouldn’t just assume a person of color is going to see other people of color equally. Recognize there may be cultural differences, but they are in the same battle against white supremacy you are.”

Not long after the August 2017 Charlottesville, VA white supremacy and neo-Nazi “Unite the Right” rally, Kendi wrote that white supremacy was the nation’s biggest terrorist threat, but that it harmed White people too. He elaborated at the plenary, using the examples of the Civil War and World War II. When white supremacists recall history, “they reference a war that led to more White American deaths than all others combined or to the Nazis, who initiated a war that led to tens of thousands of deaths and nearly ruined Europe.”

What policies would he prioritize toward social justice and equity?

First, abolishing racial health disparities. Are they underfunded because they are related to race? Next, the economy, elimination of the racial wealth gap. And finally, racial justice. “How can we reorient funding from the police to organizations you work for, drive down the incarcerated population?”

Takeaways for the advocates amounted to “getting real.”

Tram Hoang, policy analyst at The Alliance for Metropolitan Stability in Minneapolis, said that hiring residents from the community would show you have your finger on the pulse. And instead of spending money on consultants, pay community members for their input. They can’t afford to attend meetings and receive just bus passes for their time.

“Sometimes I feel we are so data-driven we dismiss people with lived experience,” said Bambie Hayes-Brown, CEO of Georgia Advancing Communities Together Inc., an association for nonprofit housing groups. Some of her colleagues had never been to an eviction court.

“It’s so easy to dig up articles and pull together numbers, but if you go to these eviction proceedings and see how they dismantle people’s lives, people’s children, it gives you a whole other perspective than just data.”