Ibram X. Kendi
HNN
Washington, DC, United States
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Past articles by Ibram:
Ibram X. Kendi: A Reading List for Ralph Northam
In the years before he became Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam apparently chose not to read books in which blackface was present. “I used just a little bit of shoe polish to put under my—or on my—cheeks,” he said about the day he impersonated Michael Jackson in blackface. “I look back now and regret that I did not understand the harmful legacy of an action like that.” Now, as governor, Northam… → Read More
A House Still Divided
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln warned that America could not remain “half slave and half free.” Today, the country remains divided by racism—and the threat is a ... → Read More
Why Frederick Douglass's struggle for justice is relevant in the Trump era
Douglass fought against the horrors of President Andrew Johnson who, like Donald Trump, represents the same force of racist progress, of white male nationalism, ... → Read More
More Devoted to Order Than to Justice
Political moderates who counsel against confrontation and warn of incivility would abandon the tools that have changed America for the better. → Read More
It's Time for Police to Start Snitching
Communities of color are actually disproportionately likely to report crimes—it’s police themselves who have maintained a corrosive culture of silence. → Read More
What's the Difference Between a Frat and a Gang?
They’re both blamed for predisposing their members to violent acts, but they’ve sparked radically different public-policy responses. → Read More
The Soul of W. E. B. Du Bois
How the 1899 lynching of Sam Hose affected the writing of W.E.B. Du Bois's classic. → Read More
History's Emancipator: Did Abraham Lincoln Have "a Drop of Anti-Slavery Blood in His Veins"?
Ibram X. Kendi chronicles how reluctantly President Lincoln came to the idea of emancipation. → Read More
Trump sounds ignorant of history. But racist ideas often masquerade as ignorance.
The White House's fumbling about slavery and the Civil War fits a long pattern in American politics. → Read More
Trump sounds ignorant of history. But racist ideas often masquerade as ignorance.
The White House's fumbling about slavery and the Civil War fits a long pattern in American politics. → Read More
Ibram X. Kendi asks and answers this question: What would Jefferson say about white supremacists descending upon his university?
... His ideas lend ammunition to both sides. He was a champion of human hierarchy and human equality. He was a defender of the freedom to oppress and the freedom from oppression. Jefferson also had a complicated relationship to the Confederate States of America and their white nationalist defenders. Jefferson stood in history as both the inspirational relative and ideological enemy of the… → Read More
What would Jefferson say about white supremacists descending upon his university?
Thomas Jefferson’s legacy embodied the clash that snatched and harmed human life in his city over the last few days. → Read More
Inside the Gun of the Black Panther Party –
This post is part of our online roundtable on Robyn Spencer’s The Revolution Has Come On May 2, 1967, Black Panthers amassed at the Capitol in Sacramento brandishing guns to protest a bill before an Assembly committee restricting the carrying of arms in public. Photo: Walt Zeboski / AP In 1973, Amar Casey arrived in Oakland to work at the Oakland Community School. Casey was part of a small… → Read More
The Civil Rights Act was a victory against racism. But racists also won.
The bill unleashed a poisonous idea: that America had defeated racism. → Read More
Confederate Monuments and the Forgotten Warning of a Crisis to Come
As many cities debate what to do about monuments to Confederate leaders and soldiers, defenders of such monuments commonly claim they “have nothing to do with hate or racism but everything to do with our history and heritage,” as a Tampa resident proclaimed Wednesday to his county commissioners before they voted to keep a nearby monument. But not every aspect of that heritage and history is well… → Read More
Sacrificing Black Lives for the American Lie
... Fifty years ago, some Americans blamed the “rioters” who rebelled and were killed by the police in nearly 130 cities for their own deaths. And over the past few decades, prosecutors and juries ruled that the officers who killed Eleanor Bumpurs and Amadou Diallo and Rekia Boyd and Michael Brown and Eric Garner were innocent. When black criminality ceased, black death would cease, President… → Read More
Historians called on to write books that impact the public
Fraudulent news allegations circulate, the "alternative facts" of politicians have become commonplace, and funding for the arts and humanities faces the threat of decline. In the age of Trump, scholars must step out of the shadows of their libraries, their labs, and their classrooms — or risk the day when those libraries, labs, and classes will not be able to cast shadows. Today more than ever,… → Read More
Masterless Men: A New Book on Poor Whites and Slavery –
This post is part of my blog series that announces the publication of selected new books in African American History and African Diaspora Studies. Today is the official release date for Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South, published by Cambridge University Press. The author of Masterless Men is Keri Leigh Merritt. Merritt works as an independent scholar in Atlanta,… → Read More
Fugitive Science: A New Book on Scientific Racism in America –
This post is part of my blog series that announces the publication of selected new books in African American History and African Diaspora Studies. New York University Press recently released Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture. The author of Fugitive Science is Britt Rusert. An interdisciplinary scholar who works at the intersections of race, science, and… → Read More
Uncovering the roots of racist ideas in America
Donald Trump proclaimed during his inaugural address, “When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.” Opening our hearts to patriotism will not solve the problem of racist ideas. Some of the nation’s proudest patriots have also been the nation’s most virulent racists. The organizing principle of the Ku Klux Klan has always been allegiance to the red, white and blue… → Read More