By Halle Niehoff and Annie Titus
Professor Ibram X. Kendi, formerly Ibram H. Rogers, was born in New York City in 1982. Kendi’s political engagement began young as his parents were deeply involved Black liberation theology and the Black power movement. Values of human diversity and social justice were instilled in him from the start, and he expanded on those through his own endeavors of activism at Florida A&M University where he graduated with a degree in African American Studies and Journalism in 2004. Kendi has a strong appreciation of all cultures, including African and African American culture, and is a historian on racist and anti-racist movements. He is both a prolific author and an assistant professor of African American History at the University of Florida.
We had the honor of holding a Q&A session with Kendi in our PS 407 course and classmates were able to directly engage Kendi on a wide variety of topics. We began our discussion with the concept of “ladder altruism,” which he explained is investment in an individual’s success at the expense of the black community and that the Black Campus Movement challenged this structure. He discussed intention vs. acceptance in which the rhetoric of intention excuses racist or exclusionary behaviors and that we must have a greater consciousness of the effects of our behaviors. The conversation lead into the “diversity” officer phenomenon, where Kendi had given the specific example of the contradictory position at the University of Texas in which the officer was “promoting” diversity while simultaneously acting as racial PR against it. Students were interested in his approach to activism in which Kendi had presented the struggle between activists vs. intellectuals (or actions vs. ideas) and how the two should be working concurrently to create ideas that are relevant to society, thus actively changing the conception of how to challenge racism. With this type of philosophy, Kendi seeks to navigate academia with transformative, activist-oriented intentions. Kendi had discussed the relationship between racist policies and ignorance/hate where the former really does generate the latter, and not the other way around: racist policies are created in self-interest which generates ignorance and hate, ignorance and hate are not derived from racist policies. When asked about the exclusionary parameters of measuring academic performance, Kendi had suggested creating a more holistic policy by changing admissions criteria, thus expanding the applicant pool. Kendi was critical of standardized tests and their history of eugenics and had said they are far from being the most encompassing means of evaluating students. We had ended the discussion on a note of revolution as Kendi outlined steps to mobilize/galvanize a people in which one must first engage in reform, where they gain the realization and perspective of a reformist, and can then mobilize towards revolutionary campaigns. Though it is daunting, especially considering police and administrative backlash, Kendi had asserted that fearing activism because of its potential consequences is a CHOICE and that there are ways to maneuver around these obstacles. Using the Black Campus Movement as a reference, Kendi talked about how influential one’s personal decisions can really be within a movement.
His book which covered the history of the Black Campus Movement can be viewed as a training guide on how current movements can have more structure, and leverage for change. Kendi really offered a call to action for student activists and anti racists, he wanted us to acknowledge the power we inherently have as students and in our current social environment. His topic of “ladder altruism” and many of the other point Kendi discussed deeply resonated with the current dynamics at the University of Oregon and called into question the methods and means of achieving a fog screen of diversity at the University of Oregon. Most importantly, his visit and discussion of black campus movements in his novel and in lecture set the stage for us to discuss tactics to use here at our own campus.