'Approximately 1,619 Kendis': Ibram Kendi arrives late to debate about quantifying racism, then fails to get the joke



Anti-white activist Ibram Kendi arrived late to a recent debate regarding the quantification of racism — but just in time to embarrass himself.

The set-up

A political science professor at Kentucky State University suggested in the pages of the National Review last week that intersectionality "is just a badly done 'woke' version of regression analysis."

Dr. Wilfred Reilly wrote that "racism or sexism can only be said to exist where we find that pretty much identical people, who differ only in terms of the characteristic of race or sex, are still being treated differently — after all of the other factors which might explain performance differences between them have been accounted for."

"This sort of real bigotry is, today, fairly rare," said Reilly.

"Many 'intersectional' studies that purport to find giant residual effects of race or sex on some specific thing — individuals' chances of going to prison, let's say — literally just consist of unadjusted comparisons between citizens in two or more different groups," continued Reilly. "This, however, is not how serious people conduct this sort of analysis."

Reilly's assertion prickled one Harvard Ph.D. student who apparently found himself in the unserious camp.

Kareem Carr, a self-described statistician, claimed on X that the argument that racism and sexism "are essentially non-existent because their effects on stuff like income disappear if you control for all relevant variables like education, work history and so on" is wrong.

Having indicated he could explain why Reilly and others were wrong, Carr suggested that "[s]ocial forces like sexism and racism aren't magical. They act through specific mechanisms in the physical world."

After granting sexism and racism special powers, Carr then had his followers imagine that the impact of the "racism" could be tracked and measured.

— (@)

Carr later admitted that it is "hard to frame this issue objectively."

The Kendi scale

Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, responded to Carr's post, asking, "What is the scientific definition of 'racism' here? How do you measure it quantitatively? How do you determine the causal influence from racism to intermediary institutions to individual income?"

"With what controls?" added Rufo. "And what is the current quantity of racism in the United States?"

Colin Wright, the evolutionary biologist behind "Reality's Last Stand," had an answer ready for Rufo: "Depends on what units you use. But assuming you're using the Kendi scale, as is standard in the US, then approximately 1,619 Kendis."

Wright clarified, "For those not familiar with the Kendi scale, 1 Kendi refers to the quantity of racism, measured in Kendis, in order to reach 1 Kendi."

Ibram Kendi, originally Ibram Henry Rogers, is the identitarian academic who runs the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University — the race-obsessed center that recently fired half its staff and is facing an inquiry over allegations of employee exploitation, poor pay, failing to provide any halfway decent research, and a mismanagement of $43 million in donations, according to the Washington Post.

As the inquiry may soon confirm, Kendi's expertise is not managing think tanks but rather in accusing multitudes of Americans of racism. His antidote is, evidently, more racism.

"The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination," Kendi wrote in 2019. "The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."

The figure Wright used in his joke appears to have been aimed at "The 1619 Project," Nikole Hannah-Jones' fact-averse revisionist history, which spun out a derivative containing direct contributions from Kendi.

Rufo pressed the joke further, writing, "Can't believe we're approaching 1,619 ku of racism in America, in 2024. We need the Department of Antiracism to shut it down—15 days to slow the spread."

On Sunday, Kendi seized upon Wright's days-old joke, writing, "In your imaginary, racism does not exist but the 'Kendi scale' does exist? I am not familiar with the 'Kendi scale' but I am familiar with racism."

"I suspect this is one reason why people like this become propagandists. It is easy to deny reality and make things up," added Kendi.

— (@)

Colin Wright responded to Kendi, "It's just a joke dude."

Wright later noted with apparent glee, "Kendi thought my post about measuring racism in America using the 'Kendi scale,' which I said came out to '1619 Kendis,' was serious. I even defined the units of the Kendi scale with Kendi-esque circularity."

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Ibram Kendi and other identitarians claim Claudine Gay's short fall from grace was due to racism



Claudine Gay resigned as president of Harvard University Tuesday following scores of plagiarism complaints and controversy over the costly perception the institution had become an incubator both for anti-Semitism and segregationist tendencies under her leadership.

In her resignation letter, Gay set the script for her would-be defenders: she was a victim "subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus."

Critical race theorist Ibram X. Kendi and other race obsessives embraced the script and took the stage, suggesting Gay's short fall from grace was all about racism.

Kendi tweeted, "Racist mobs won't stop until they topple all Black people from positions of power and influence who are not reinforcing the structures of racism. What these racist mobs are doing should be obvious to any reporter who cares about truth or justice as opposed to conflicts and clicks."

Kendi's tweet was quickly met by a community note linking to a recent New York Times article detailing the latest of nearly 50 plagiarism complaints against Gay, who appears to have appropriated content from black and white scholars alike.

Seven of Gay's 17 published works, including her 1997 doctoral thesis, are implicated in the plagiarism complaints.

The latest complaint, filed Monday and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, alleges Gay lifted nearly a page of material verbatim from University of Wisconsin political science professor David Canon's 1999 book "Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts" without using quotations.

Despite this and other indications she may have reaped the fruit of others' labor, Gay said in a Dec. 11 statement, "I stand by the integrity of my scholarship."

Extra to the plagiarism scandal, Kendi recently raised eyebrows for suggesting during a congressional hearing early last month that calls for the genocide of Jews could be protected under the university's policies on bullying and harassment "depending on the context."

Kendi was put on blast Tuesday for claiming the controversy about Gay's perceived deficit of academic integrity and tolerance of anti-Semitism on campus was actually about her race.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote, "Kendi's cry of 'racism' in response to a termination of employment that had nothing to do with race—and appears to have been undertaken with great caution, perhaps based on considerations related to race—is itself a form of ugliness akin to racism."

Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw (Texas) responded to Kendi, "'Yeah ok so I know I refused to condemn genocide or anti-semitism, and maybe I plagiarized my way to the top of academia....but really you're all just a bunch of racists.'"

Jeremy Redfern, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' press secretary, responded, "Did you expect anything less from Henry Rogers (his real name), here? Pointing out plagiarism is racist, obviously."

Megyn Kelly quipped, "Henry Rogers weighs in (spoiler: everyone's racist)."

Spectator columnist and author Douglas Murray tweeted, "Or.... you shouldn't be a plagiarist with a blind-spot on anti-Jewish racism."

The intellectual diversitarian group Free Black Thought wrote, "Can you imagine how much motivated reasoning it would take to convince yourself that Claudine Gay was toppled by racism?"

Kendi doubled down on his racism claim in a series of posts, which were again countered with facts.

"When a racist mob attacks a Black person, it finds a seemingly legitimate reason for the attack that allows for it to accrue popular support and credibility, and which allows the growing mob to deny they are attacking the person in this way because the person is black," wrote Kendi. "The seemingly legitimate reason, in this latest case at Harvard, is primarily academic misconduct or plagiarism."

"The question to assess whether this was a racist attack isn't whether Dr. Gay engaged in any misconduct," continued the identitarian academic. "The question is whether all these people would have investigated, surveilled, harassed, written about, and attacked her in the same way if the Harvard president in this case would have been White."

Respondents noted at least two instances just over the past several months that neatly provided an answer to Kendi's question, thereby killing his preferred narrative.

Liz Magill, a white woman who served as the 27th president of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned in disgrace in December. While ostensibly not another plagiarist, she similarly bungled her response to anti-Semitism on campus, failing to explicitly say during a recent congressional hearing whether demands for the genocide of Jews amounted to bullying and harassment on campus.

Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a white man who served as the president of Stanford University for seven years, resigned in July after the board of trustees discovered that multiple academic reports he had authored contained falsified information.

Dr. Anthony Bradley, distinguished research fellow at the Acton Institute, highlighted for Kendi another instance proving his understanding wanting: retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen resigned as president of the University of South Carolina in 2021 after being exposed for plagiarizing — not seven books or his doctoral thesis — part of a speech.

Bradley wrote, "Prof Kendi wrongly thinks Prof Gay’s resignation is about race. It's about plagiarism. And yes, @ibramxk a little bit of research would show that white presidents resign for plagiarism with great regularity. We can't hold students to higher standards than college presidents."

Kendi was not alone in suggesting Gay's resignation was about race or at least something beside her foibles.

The leftist blog Mother Jones suggested Gay was the "latest casualty in a growing conservative crusade against 'diversity in education'" and her resignation was further proof that a "larger trend of racial regression" is underway.

Don Moynihan, the chair of the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, claimed, "Gay was attacked because she is seen by the right as undeserving of the job. A diversity hire."

Daily Beast contributor Wajahat Ali's takeaway was that "[r]ight-wing actors are so obsessed with 'truth' that they will not target, bully & 'scalp' anyone/anything in academia who threatens them (people of color, women, liberals, books)."

Mara Gay of the New York Times' editorial board indicated the efforts to hold Gay accountable amounted to an "attack on diversity."

"The fact that she's a black woman and the first person, uh, who is a black American to lead Harvard only added to [critics'] thirst to dethrone her," Mara Gay told MSNBC. "Those attacks ... I don't have to say that they're racist because you can hear and see the racism in the attacks."

Al Sharpton said in a statement obtained by CNN Tuesday, "President Gay's resignation is about more than a person or a single incident. This is an attack on every Black woman in this country who's put a crack in the glass ceiling."

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'Anti-racist' professor Ibram X. Kendi says Republican Party is 'party of white supremacy'



Ibram X. Kendi, who has made headlines for proclaiming himself to be the "anti-racist" professor, said that Republicans are the "party of white supremacy."

In addition to being a professor and author, Kendi heads up Boston University's Center for Anti-Racist Research.

What are the details?

Kendi, author of "How to Be an Anti-Racist," penned an op-ed for the Atlantic in which he branded the GOP as deeply sinister and racist.

In the op-ed, Kendi said that the Republican Party is guilty of using "dog whistles," such as calling itself the "party of parents."

He added that "Republican politicians care about white children," "anti-racist education is harmful to white children," "Republican politicians are protecting white children by banning anti-racist education," and that the "Republican Party is the party of white parents because it is protecting white children."

“The foundational assumption of this great myth is that Republican politicians care about white children,” Kendi claimed. “But if they did, then they would not be ignoring or downplaying or defending or bolstering the principal racial threat facing white youth today.”

The principal racial threat, he said, is that white children are "being indoctrinated" into white supremacy online and not taking advantage of learning critical race theory in many public schools.

White supremacy, he explained, is the "toxic blend of racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic ideas" that are "harmful to all minds," but is targeted toward "white youth."

He added that the Republican Party is fueling the fire by trying to "ban what can protect their kids from white supremacy."

“Instead of countering white supremacy by supporting antiracist education, Republican officials have turned white parental attention away from that threat, rallying their support in order to ban what can protect their kids from white supremacy,” Kendi claimed, pointing to critical race theory. “The GOP crusade against antiracist education has left impressionable white kids unprotected from the threat of white supremacists sliding into their feeds, chat rooms, games, DMs — into their minds.”

Kendi noted that white Republicans who are averse to what he refers to "anti-racist education" are helping to perpetuate the degradation of young, white minds.

“The Republican attacks on what they call ‘critical race theory’ aren’t about protecting white kids, or any kids at all,” Kendi added. “The attacks are intended to deceive, aggrieve, and mobilize enough white donors and voters to win contested elections this year and beyond.”

“This Republican Party is not the party of any group of parents, but the party of white supremacy,” he concluded.

Ibram Kendi inadvertently 'blows up entire life's work' in now-deleted tweet, then claims criticism is 'violent'



Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi, a prominent advocate of anti-racism, deleted a tweet on Friday after his critics pointed out that it may have inadvertently refuted his ideology.

What are the details?

On Friday, Kendi shared a news article of a recent survey that discovered more one-third of white students lied or misrepresented their race on college applications.

Four-fifths of white students who admitted to lying or misrepresenting their race said they did so to improve their chances of being accepted. Half of those students who admitted to lying explained they did so to improve their chances of being awarded financial aid earmarked for minority students.

"More than a third of White students lied about their race on college applications, and about half of these applicants lied about being Native American. More than three-fourths of these students who lied about their race were accepted," Kendi wrote on Twitter.

Kendi later deleted his tweet.

deleted, but the List comes for all, @DrIbram.✍🏼✍🏼✍🏼 https://t.co/Q0YtRfQEfI

— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) 1635562024.0

What was the reaction?

Kendi's deletion incited an avalanche of mockery. In sharing the news article, Kendi's critics said he was undermining what he believes about white privilege and systemic racism in America.

As the Post Millennial wrote, "[I]f white privilege is so prevalent and persuasive, why would white kids feel the need to disguise their whiteness in order to gain admittance to college and aid to help them attend? Could it be that these white students felt that as opposed to giving them an edge, their whiteness was a hindrance to admittance?"

  • "'White kids are lying about being black so they can get into college' doesn't make the point Kendi thinks it does," Noam Blum pointed out.
  • "Kendi deleted this tweet after a bunch of people pointed out it undermines his whole worldview that the US is an incredibly racist country where the system is rigged exclusively for White people," one person said.
  • "Kendi admits it's not actually a privilege to be White in America?" James Lindsay reacted.
  • "Race activist Ibram Kendi tweeted out a report claiming high numbers of white students falsely identify as people of color to reap benefits. He deleted the tweet after realizing it didn't advance his argument that whites are privileged in every way," Andy Ngo said.
  • "Collapsing your entire worldview into a giant sinkhole," Chad Felix Greene pointed out.
  • "[That feeling when] you accidentally blow up your entire life's work in a tweet and have to delete," Alex Griswold mocked.

How did Kendi respond?

Kendi accused one critic of lying about what he had said. That critic, Jack Posobiec, then responded that he "broke" Kendi.

In response, Kendi said that Posobiec's "broke" remark "has a long history within racist structures." Kendi then claimed criticism from white people is "violent."

"Jack couldn't deny his lies so this is how he responded. And his 'broke' reference has a long history within racist structures. White enslavers boasted of *breaking* Black people (when they did not *break* Black people)," Kendi said. "The resistance never stopped then and it won't stop today."

"A White man is attacking a Black person with lies (which are violent). The Black person resists. The White man keeps attacking until he declares he 'broke' the Black person," Kendi responded to one person on Twitter. "That's the context. Seek a book about slavery."

@Alexwhatdaa A White man is attacking a Black person with lies (which are violent). The Black person resists. The W… https://t.co/bbrRomfPD3

— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) 1635681309.0

‘White Terror Is As American As The Stars And Stripes’: How The Left Is Answering Ibram Kendi’s Call For Racial Strife

Although its participants may not know it, our ruling class is speaking in Ibram X. Kendi’s tongue, and realizing his ‘antiracist’ vision.

A Nation Primed To See Racism In Everything Will Think Only About Race

Trees are racist. Hiking is racist. Your cereal box is racist. Your depictions of Santa Claus and Jesus are racist. Claiming otherwise is also racist.

Prestigious San Francisco High School To ‘Combat Racism’ By Selecting Students Based On Skin Color

Excellence is falling prey to activists who prefer to believe that social justice means making outcomes equal for every race at any expense.

'Antiracist' Ibram X. Kendi caught on video making remarks that some say are 'transphobic'



New York Times bestselling author and founder of Boston University's Center for Antiracist Research Ibram X. Kendi made remarks on video that some are classifying as "transphobic." The left-wing author of the "How to Be An Antiracist" book talked about how it was "horrifying" that his daughter "wanted to be a boy."

Kendi made the controversial remarks during an online seminar held on Zoom titled "How to Be an Antiracist School" on Jan. 25 for the New York State Association for Independent Schools.

Thank you @NYSAIS and @DrIbram for the wonderful webinar. https://t.co/oBJJMoqzDc
— Avenues: The World School (@Avenues: The World School)1611616090.0

"You know obviously, talking about race, even talking about gender. I think it was last week my daughter came home and said she wanted to be a boy," Kendi said, as reported by The Post Millennial.

"You know which was horrifying, for my wife to hear, for myself to hear," Kendi said. "And of course, you know, we're like, 'Okay, what affirmative messages about girlhood you know can we be teaching her to protect her from whatever she's hearing in our home, or even outside of our home, that would make her want to be a boy.'"

Kendi then brought race into the discussion by saying, "And I suspect it's the same thing with you know with kids of color, in which they're regularly hearing these messages that may want them to want to be white. Or even white children who are like 'I'm happy I'm white,' right?"

He asked, "You know, what affirmative messages are we teaching them to break down those ideas?"

Kendi here says that his daughter came home and said she wants to be a boy, that it was horrifying, and that it mad… https://t.co/dI1IyUWVR7
— Allie Beth Stuckey (@Allie Beth Stuckey)1612554470.0

Thus far, there has been little to no outrage over Kendi's comments about being horrified about his daughter considering changing her sex by the leftist outrage mob, which praises him and his "antiracist" dogma.

Some argued that Kendi's comments were not transphobic, while others noted that had a conservative or J.K. Rowling made the same exact comments that they would have been raked over the coals and the cancel culture horde would make a concerted effort to have them deplatformed and fired from their job.

"Someone who doesn't have the same cachet as Kendi would be accused of being transphobic for saying the same thing," Reason and Newsday contributing writer Cathy Young said.

Thomas Chatterton Williams, contributing writer at New York Times Magazine wrote, "The point is not that Kendi is transphobic or should be cancelled. The point is that these comments would have ended other writers' careers."

@robbysoave Obviously true and obviously wouldn't save a lot of other people had they said it.
— Daniel Foster (@Daniel Foster)1612579483.0


That it happened isn't the story.The context isn't the story, nor is it relevant.Had JK Rowling or any feminist o… https://t.co/Bme941KO59
— James Lindsay, won't fit in your box (@James Lindsay, won't fit in your box)1612573810.0

Last week, "Saturday Night Live" comedian Michael Che faced backlash after he made a joke about transgender people serving in the military during the show's "Weekend Update" segment that many deemed to be "transphobic."

Kendi was smashed with adverse fallout in September when he said that Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett adopted two Haitian children to shield herself from accusations of racism.

During a Stanford University webinar in November, Kendi stated that "most organizations and institutions are racist."

Netflix-Sponsored ‘Antiracist’ Grifter Ibram Kendi Supports Totalitarian Government

Kendi suggested Justice Amy Coney Barrett was a 'white colonizer' for adopting children from Haiti. Apparently, he thinks we need a Department of Antiracism to stop behavior like that.

Netflix To Spread Racist Indoctrination With 3 New Ibram X. Kendi Projects

By catching kids early, and with catchy tunes, kids won't know there are other ways of interacting in a society where race isn't the primary factor.