Ibram Kendi (Ph.d., Temple University) is Professor at the School of International Service and Director at the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University. He’s 2016 book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (STP), is ground breaking. It is a winner of the National Book Award and is a New York Times Bestseller. I concur with the accolades. Readers from all ethnic or racial groups will be challenged by STP’s new perspective. This is a must-buy.
Dr. Kendi identifies the objective of this work as narrating “the entire history of racist ideas, from their origins in fifteenth-century Europe, though colonial times when the early British settlers carried racist ideas to America, all the way to the twenty-first century and current debates about the events taking place in our streets” (STP., pg. 6). Kendi sets out to do this through 5 main characters while also providing historical background to relevant persons and philosophical persuasions that contributed to their development. These five figures are Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W. E. B. Dubois, and Angela Davis.
PURITANS AND THE DANGERS OF AN INCORRECT REMNANT THEOLOGY
Allow me to first highlight what Kendi does right in STP. It rightly identifies that theology has been used to undergird racist ideas. Cotton Mather is stated as having preached “racial inequality in body while insisting that the dark souls of enslaved Africans would become White when they became Christians” (pg. 6). He correctly identifies the Puritans as espousing a remnant/chosen self-identity. He writes, drawing from Kenneth Silverman’s The Life and Times of Cotton Mather (1984), that “as dissenters from the church of England, Puritans believed themselves to be God’s chosen piece of humanity, a special, superior people, and New England, their Israel, was to be their exceptional land” (pg. 16).
KENDI’S INTERPRETATION OF ST. PAUL
However, when Kendi gets to St. Paul on page 17 he seems to present the apostle as a contributing part of a “new Christianity” upon which the Puritans later rely on. What’s the problem? The way he treats St Paul is as if it’s not the Puritans’ interpretation of his writing but how he is to be understood. Allow me to place it this way: there is a difference between saying (1) the Puritans interpret St. Paul to mean, or say, etc., as opposed to (2) St. Paul means. . . If my reading of how he phrases his statement here is correct, at the very least the alternative is that it is not altogether clear what to do with St. Paul.
A possible pushback may be that perhaps Kendi meant it to be understood differently. I suggest that readers take a close look at page 18 where he writes, “however, these antislavery and egalitarian champions did not accompany Aristotle and St. Paul into the modern era.” Here, St. Paul is standing side by side with Aristotle as being brought into a new era with their racist ideologies. Aristotle and St. Paul are contrasted against the proper articulations of the “champions”: Alkidamas (rival to Aristotle), Herodotus, Lactantitus, and Augustine. Is my observation correct?
Prior to mentioning St. Paul, Kendi identifies Aristotle as the origin of the Puritan’s belief “that some groups were superior to other groups.” By this, Aristotle promoted Greek superiority while the Puritans “believed they were superior [to] all non-Puritans” (pg. 17). It is after this that Kendi eventually reaches the “common era” in which he cites Pauline texts from 1 Corinthians and Galatians as evidence of St Paul’s contribution to a “God ordained human hierarchy” (pg. 17). Hence, it can be said that the section is meant to highlight ancient contributors to racist ideologies being mainly Aristotle and St. Paul.
UNQUESTIONABLE
A general observation I’ve noted is the anger and frustration that arise whenever the work of social scientists is critiqued. This is unique when it involves those that are writing on race. I suspect that this is partly due to the emotional impact of years in which racist ideologies were the only perspectives with a platform. Just when minority voices are getting out there to make a difference, critique is coming. This is understandable but inexcusable. This position those of such persuasion as types that are not based on the factual nature of the arguments but solely on the emotions it causes.
To be frank, I find it rather odd that scholars on race exist in a realm in which their work is to simply be accepted. This is not on the scholars themselves but it seems to be the emerging consensus when it comes to race scholarship. This is problematic. No field grows and expands without feedback. if we are so critical of everything else then we ought to be as critical of our scholars as well. None benefits from the idea that there is a field of study that exists without scrutiny simply because the intent is honorable.
Featured image: Ibram Kendi from CBS Sunday Morning