Ibram X. Kendi on Great Replacement Theory

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Good Fight
Episode: Ibram X. Kendi on Great Replacement Theory
Host: Yascha Mounk
Date: March 18, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk sits down with renowned anti-racist scholar Ibram X. Kendi to discuss his new book, Chain of Ideas, which positions Great Replacement Theory at the core of interconnected global political movements. The episode delves into the history, transformation, and utilization of Great Replacement Theory across different contexts, the practical and philosophical challenges of anti-racist education, and the ongoing debate between equity and equality. The conversation is robust, with significant focus on the implications of affinity groups in education, how children perceive race, and how best to address racial disparities in society.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Central Argument of Chain of Ideas

• [04:36] Kendi identifies Great Replacement Theory as the "chain of ideas" linking diverse nationalist and authoritarian movements globally, from the U.S. and Europe to India and Russia.
  • Quote: “It’s this political theory that suggests that there are these quote unquote, globalist elites who are enabling peoples of color to displace the lives and livelihoods and even electoral power of white people.” [04:36]
• The theory's manifestation varies by country and context (e.g., in India, Muslim minorities are cast as a threat; in Russia, LGBTQ+ communities are positioned as eroding "traditional" culture).
  • Quote: “What I’m finding is that this originally racist and even anti Semitic idea has mutated… to justify new forms of Islamophobia, of xenophobia, of homophobia, of transphobia.” [08:24]

2. The Roots and Spread of Great Replacement Theory

• [11:36] Kendi clarifies he doesn’t argue a particular European thinker (Renaud Camus) directly caused the diffusion; rather, Camus named an idea already present since the 19th century.
• Explains that fear of “countercolonization” or reversal of historical power structures underlies much of the contemporary rhetoric.

3. Human Nature, Identity, and In-Groups

• Mounk offers a psychological critique: Are these movements about a universal human tendency to draw in-group vs. out-group boundaries?
• Kendi agrees humans form groups but emphasizes that political and social actors have long shaped what counts as an in-group or out-group (race, religion, etc.), often arbitrarily for political ends.
  • Quote: “You have long had political thinkers… cause human beings to put meaning on particular human characteristics and downplay other human differences for specific political gains.” [13:49]

4. Identity, Patriotism, and Multiculturalism

• The conversation turns to whether fostering a shared national or civic identity (e.g., patriotism) is the antidote to divisions, or if it erases vital historical and cultural differences.
• Kendi critiques both the “segregationist” position (races are biologically real and separate) and the “liberal” position (deny race entirely and focus only on shared national identity).
  • He argues that we need to acknowledge race’s sociological power while recognizing its biological falsehood, in part because measurement is necessary to address disparities.
  • Quote: “It’s possible for us to identify by race while also knowing it doesn’t exist biologically. But we’re identifying it so that we have a sense of the spread of racism.” [20:30]

5. Affinity Groups in Education: Productive or Problematic?

• Mounk challenges the practice of mandatory affinity groups (both in higher education and elite private schools), suggesting that:
  • Kids may feel pressured to choose between parental identities, or that sorting by race teaches them it’s the ‘most important’ thing about themselves.
  • This could backfire, especially for white students, fostering a sense of grievance or separateness.
• Kendi responds:
  • Affinity groups are rarely mandatory; feels it’s a myth that this is widespread.
    • Quote: “It is rare that affinity groups are mandatory… this idea that they’re generally or mostly mandatory is a myth.” [25:23]
  • He opposes mandating affiliation, acknowledging cultural and personal reasons some may not want to join.
    • Quote: “I don’t think anybody should be mandated to do anything…” [25:56]
  • Most scholars do not believe race is the “most meaningful” aspect of anyone’s being; rather race is made salient by society, not by anti-racist educators.
    • Quote: “I know very, very few scholars and writers who study racism… who would say that the most meaningful aspect of a person’s being is their race. I’ve never said that.” [26:26]

The Science of Early Racial Attitudes

• Citing his book How to Raise an Antiracist, Kendi details studies showing that children form racialized attitudes as early as age three, and by seven or eight start expressing such ideas.
  • Many teachers/parents respond by ignoring or silencing, rather than correcting or directly teaching about race and racism.
  • Affinity groups, especially for young children, are intended as proactive interventions—based in research—rather than political statements.
    • Quote: “What studies actually show is that as early as three years old, in this larger environment where no one… is essentially protecting children from these racist ideas… you have kids connecting skin color to negative and positive characteristics.” [30:54]

6. Risks and Effectiveness of Anti-Racist Education

• Mounk counters that some diversity trainings and affinity groups fail or even backfire, especially with white students, potentially pushing them toward racial identity politics.
• Kendi argues:
  • There’s a conflation between diversity trainings and anti-racist educational interventions for children/teens; the latter are distinct and supported by literature.
  • The evidence suggests anti-racist education “is protective for white students from racist ideas.” [50:11]
    • Quote: “The argument that you’re making also has no scholarly or scientific basis. And actually all the evidence points to the very opposite. Scholars have documented that it is the students whose parents and their teachers do not talk about racism… are more likely to believe that white people are superior.” [48:29–49:53]
  • The conversation often focuses on the possible negative impact on white students, with less attention paid to the benefits for Black or other minority students.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Kendi on why we can’t just “move beyond” race:
  “How would we even go about measuring the spread of racial disparities if no one is identifying by race? How would we measure the spread of racist violence if no one is identifying by race?” [19:30]
• Mounk pressing on affinity groups:
  “If you agree with me that there is this tendency to form in groups and out groups … don’t you worry about the way in which that actually teaches these kids [that] the most important thing about you is the color of your skin?” [24:35]
• Kendi on not mandating affinity group participation:
  “No, I don’t think it should be mandatory because … one's racial identity may not necessarily connect to one's cultural sort of practices, and many of these affinity groups are connected to cultural practices.” [25:56]
• Kendi on the purpose of affinity groups:
  “Affinity groups exist across ethnicity and religion. And so the idea that Black people for instance, can’t get together based on a shared culture and history would also presuppose that particular religious groups… can’t get together either.” [36:31]
• Kendi, challenging focus on white students:
  “What often happens in these conversations, particularly around affinity groups, is the decision as to whether to have affinity groups is almost totally dictated based on what people think is best for white students. There's almost no conversation about what's helpful for Black students.” [50:00]

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Additional Key Segments and Timestamps

• Origins of Great Replacement Theory and its global adaptability: [07:15–11:36]
• Debate over affinity groups and childhood racialization: [24:35–31:00]
• Scientific evidence on early childhood attitudes toward race: [30:33–34:42]
• Comparison of race-based and religion-based groupings in education: [38:00–39:04]
• Equity vs. Equality – philosophical and policy implications: [52:33–55:40]
• (Preview of Part Two) Questions about Asian American success and Kendi’s proposal for a Department of Anti-Racism: [55:58–end]

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Tone and Style

The conversation is forthright, probing, and at times contentious yet maintains a spirit of intellectual engagement and mutual respect. Kendi presents his arguments with reference to research and his own books, while Mounk repeatedly pushes him to clarify positions and address possible unintended consequences.

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For Further Listening

The second half of the episode (for premium subscribers) promises discussion on:

• The conceptual difference between equity and equality.
• The causes behind Asian American academic/workforce success.
• Kendi's advocacy for a federal Department of Anti-Racism and the associated concerns about concentrated expert power.

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Overall, this episode deeply examines the intellectual roots and real-world implications of modern anti-racist thought, particularly as they relate to education and the struggle against authoritarian populism.

Transcript

[A]

And many of these affinity groups are connected to cultural practices. Or you have affinity groups that are oriented towards challenging a particular form of bigotry or let's say anti black racism. And you have black people who are reinforcing anti black racism. So I don't think they should be mandated to join the anti racist black group. They probably would feel more at home in the white supremacist group, that black person, you know, at that college.

[B]

And now the good fight with Yasha Monk. Well, my guest today is none other than Ibram X. Kendi. Kendi is the author of bestselling books like how to Be an Anti Racist and Anti Racist Baby. He is now the founding director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C. we had let's call it a lively conversation in which we started off talking about his latest book in which he argues that the way to understand a huge number of disparate political movements around the world is through the lens of Great Replacement theory, that what really unites everybody from Javier Milei in Argentina to Narendra Modi in India to Donald Trump in the United States, is the way in which they are advocating for a version of this political theory. We then got into talking more broadly about how to conceive of the anti racist enterprise and of anti racist education, talking at length, for example, about the question of whether affinity groups, particularly for younger students in schools, are productive or whether they might in important ways backfire. In the rest of this conversation, which is quite substantial, we talked about the difference between equity and equality, about whether there is something really conceptually new in the concept of equity, about whether the critique of equality is fair to the history of that movement and whether it is true to hold, as Ibram Kendi has written, that where there are racial disparities, they must be downstream from racist policies. I press him, for example, on what explains why Asian Americans are now more successful than white Americans, both in the job market and in gaining admission to the most selective universities in the United States. Finally, I asked him about his proposal for a Department of Anti Racism and whether empowering a small number of unalangited Experts in Washington, D.C. with the ability to override any policy passed by legislators at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level, wouldn't be investing experts with too much power. He responded by likening this new Department of Anti Racism with the Department of Transportation and asking me whether I have a problem with expert deciding on the safety of roads. To listen to that second half of the conversation to support the work we're doing here to make sure that you can listen to all of this without the annoying jingle ads that you will encounter again and again during this episode. Please become a paying subscriber, please go to writing.jashamunk.com listen and set up the private feed on your favorite podcasting app, Ibram X. Kendi, welcome to the podcast.

[A]

Thank you for having me.

[B]

So you have a new book out called Chain of Ideas, which covers an incredible amount of terrain, political movements from around the world from different time periods to some extent. And as the title of the book suggests, you argue that they're connected by one unified kind of chain of ideas. What is that chain of ideas?

[A]

Well, that chain of ideas in its totality is what's known as Great Replacement Theory. And this was a theory that was named in 2010, but it's been around for several decades. And it's this political theory that suggests that there are these quote unquote, globalist elites who are enabling peoples of color to displace the light lives and livelihoods and even electoral power of white people. So when you hear phrases like people of color and invading the United States or invading Europe, that's great replacement theory. When you hear notions like multiculturalism is harming the indigenous white Christian culture, that's great replacement theory. When you hear that attacks on those who are defenders of abortion or those women, particularly white women, who decide to not have children or only have a few children, that they're engaging in white genocide, that's great replacement theory.

[B]

So Great Replacement theory, obviously is very influential around the world. There's a kind of conspiracy theory about me in Germany because I gave an interview on a major German television channel when my book the Great Experiment came out. And somehow people are claiming that this is proof that I was at Harvard at the time, that sort of, you know, this Harvard University professor and Angela Merkel are conspiring to replace the German people. So I'm well acquainted with some of the sort of feverish sort of imaginations of people who believe in these ideas. You know, as an intellectual historian, I always struggle to think about what the contours of ideas are, right? Like, where does a particular set of ideas start and where does a different set of ideas begin? And in this book, you cover a huge range of different political movements, from the people who actually coined Great Replacement Theory and who themselves say that they're advocates of these ideas, to people who advocated for Britain to leave the European Union, to people who I would describe as right wing populist. But you have some ideological differences between them and so on. Right. Why do you think that it's sort of helpful to connect them all to this particular idea? And do you recognize sort of any significant differences of people within those political strains?

[A]

So there are tremendous differences in the way Great Replacement Theory manifests in different national, even regional context, because the demographic makeups and certainly the political histories and even the political organization of every country is different. And so that's why in chain of ideas, I not only had that definition that really sought to classify Great Replacement Theory as a racist idea. So the one I just named that it's this political theory that powerful elites are enabling peoples of color to replace that, say, white people, who apparently now need authoritarian protection. But I also tried to show how this theory has mutated in different geopolitical and even demographic contexts. So it's not just this notion that, let's say African immigrants are replacing white Germans, but there's also this. You take a country like India, where you have authoritarian leaders positioning Muslims as replacement, or you take a nation like Russia where you have a Putin administration making the case that queer people are seeking to replace traditional Russian, heterosexual, Christian culture. And so what I'm finding is that this originally racist and even anti Semitic idea has mutated to justify new forms of Islamophobia, of xenophobia, of homophobia, of transphobia. And it's really linking these different ideological movements into this notion that not only are these disadvantaged groups inferior, but they're literally dangerous in coming to destroy you.

[B]

Yeah. So in your book, the idea is that this is one unified political theory and you trace its emergence to a particular French thinker who starts out on the far left and then migrates over to the far right. Renaud Camus, who comes up with the set of ideas. I guess a different way of putting this might be that these are distinct political phenomena that come from a unified psychological force that is just inherent in humans. Right. That when Hindus in India are trying to insist on the majority status within the country and trying to redefine what was founded as a secular nation by Mahatma Gandhi and others in the late 1940s as a nation that's really defined by the fact of the religious identity of its majority to turn it into a Hindu nation, they're not influenced by this French thinker who came to prominence in the early 2000s. They are acting in their own local political traditions. And another way of putting this might be that we as human beings are tribal creatures and that we have a tendency to be generous and even altruistic in dealing with the in group, but that we also have a tendency towards drawing lines and can very easily justify being cruel and discriminatory towards the out group. And what we're seeing in these different phenomena you're describing isn't sort of one political theory that started in the south of France and then spread around the world. It's simply different manifestations of that aspect of human nature, you know, with a goal of decent politics always being to manage that aspect of human nature to make sure that it doesn't take over and gain to access. Why would you disagree with that kind of way of explaining these very disparate phenomena, you know, from Narendra Modi in India to Donald Trump in the United States to Marine Le Pen in France?

[A]

Well, first, I think in chain of ideas, I don't argue that Camus in particular influenced these great replacement theorists around the world. What I show is that he named a theory that was already circulating in different contexts around the world and indeed had been circulating in global political thought since the 19th century, since colonial thinkers were fearful, frankly, about what would happen if there was a global decolonization movement and started to imagine that if global white supremacy did not persist, that there would be a turning of the table and formerly colonized people in Latin America, Asia and Africa would then come and colonize Europe. And indeed, Renaud Camus and others, whether influenced by him or not, have also argued that the quote, great replacement is what he calls countercolonization, which directly sort of connects to that old ideological sort of fear. So again, in the book, I try to sort of show that all Canoe did is name an idea that was already circulating and connecting around the world. And then I tried to show how those different ideological movements started to organize together, particularly by 2016 and 2017. And then as they organized together, we began to see their ideas coming more closely together. At the same time, they became specific, they maintained the specificity to their own national context. I think in terms of this notion that this is just sort of natural to humans, that humans are tribal creatures and we are only naturally going to be suspicious or hostile to our groups, and we are only naturally going to be protective of in groups. I think first and foremost, I actually wouldn't necessarily challenge that idea, even though I think there's no evidence that supports it being inherently natural. I certainly think that there's a tremendous amount of evidence showing that it's a sociological phenomenon, meaning we're socialized to believe that. But what I would emphasize is how do people come to consider what Is an in group and an out group. And so, to give an example, we as human beings have been led to believe that there's something meaningful about the color of one's skin, but there isn't something meaningful about the color of one's clothes. How did we come to think that, to think that way? You know, how did we come to think. Think that there is something meaningful about particular religious characteristics, but there's not something meaningful about the ways that people eat, as an example? And these may seem ridiculous sort of ideas, But I'm just trying to go to show that you have long had political thinkers and political actors Cause human beings to put meaning on particular human characteristics and downplay other human differences for specific political gains. And we're seeing that in this moment.

[B]

So I actually agree with that idea quite strongly, which is to say that whether we think that the tendency to draw these boundaries between in group and out group are natural, as I would think, or sort of sociologically rooted, I think we agree that human beings are very quick to latch onto them. And we also agree, and I think history very clearly shows this. That what defines you as a member of an in group. And what defines you as a member of an out group has greatly varied over time. That at different junctures of history, different things marked you as an in group, as a member of the in group, or as a member of the out group. What do you think that means for the kind of identity we should construct in order to keep that tendency in check? My sense is that one of the reasons why, for example, a sense of patriotism can be very healthy Is that it can provide a common sense of identity to people who, for example, stem from. Have different skin colors, come from different regions of the world, perhaps have different religions. So emphasizing the fact that you and I are both American can be one way of keeping in track the tendency we might otherwise have to organize ourselves around lines of identity that are more likely to lead to discrimination and exclusion. There's obviously a tension between recognizing the ways in which different forms of identity structure society. And making sure that you don't allow those to, you know, lead to persistent discrimination, et cetera. But also perhaps that if you are really teaching people to make that the primary prison through which they see society and the primary thing with which they identify, that actually can precisely create a division between in group and out group along lines like race or religion. That are extremely susceptible to being exploited by the people who you and I both politically oppose. So how are you thinking about the implications of precisely the Malleability of these lines, for whether schools should teach patriotism, for how schools should talk to young students about questions like race.

[A]

So I think, as it relates to. I'm happy you asked this question, because I think that there has largely been two answers to this question, which I think are both equally fraught. One answer to the question is that which is in my work I would classify as a segregationist answer is to say that in a nation like the United States, or even when we think globally, that there are these separate racial groups and they're imagined to either be biological or in the case of Camus, Camus would argue that they are cultural, historical constructs, but fundamentally, they're separate. And so therefore, every person is inherently a member of one of those separate groups. And then typically, these thinkers position a hierarchy among those groups, you know, certain races being superior and inferior. And they claim that's what explains racial disparities. Like black people are more likely to be incarcerated because black people are more likely to be breaking the law. And that is just natural, and we should just accept that reality. And those who reject the racial hierarchy are not willing to accept common sense. So that's one position which I reject. The other position, which is the more liberal position, is a position that rejects the idea, rightfully so, that there is a such thing as race as a biological construction. And obviously, we know geneticists have now proven that. Indeed. And then they take a step further and say, since race doesn't exist biologically, since it doesn't exist scientifically, none of us should identify by race, and that everyone in the United States, for instance, should identify only and totally as an American. And that when black Americans identify as such, they are reinforcing the segregationist position that there's this separate race of black people, and that if we stop identifying by race, then we will undermine racism. So that's a second sort of position. And the reason why I actually would reject that position as well is because it doesn't account for cultural and historical differences. But what it also doesn't account for is that scholars and historians of racism have long found that race is not the creator of racism, but racism is the product, the creator of race. And so there's almost no way to eliminate the persistence of racism without identifying the mirage that is race. So from a statistical standpoint, how would we even go about measuring the spread of racial disparities if no one is identifying by race? How would we measure the spread of racist violence if no one is identifying by race? It's possible for us to identify by race while also knowing it doesn't exist biologically. But we're identifying it so that we have a sense of the spread of racism. And we're also identifying that there is a such thing as ethnicity and ethnicities are racialized. And particular racialized ethnicities have developed particular cultures that we should seek to value in a multicultural society. So I'm saying that all to say that I think what great replacement theorists have said is, well, you folks who we can have a society of multiplicity and that if we have a society of multiplicity and multiculturalism and multiracialism, one race and culture is going to destroy the others. So then the response to that is okay, let's, let's deny the existence of multiplicity and let's all be one. But then that erases the actual multiplicity, if that makes sense.

[B]

Yeah, that makes sense. And I agree with you in rejecting the sort of two poles that you outlined. I guess I would just argue that there's a huge amount of terrain in between those two poles. And where I think our differences might emerge is that we're going to be in different kind of parts of that in between terrain. Right. So when you think about questions like education, one kind of approach you could have as a teacher is to say that, you know, racism exists in the United States and that it has historically deeply structured how this society works and that continues to have real influence today. And of course, in order to understand the contemporary United States, you need to understand the existence of different racial groups. And there's good reasons to value the cultural traditions that come with different ethnicities. But what's really important is that you 6 year old child, 8 year old child, 10 year old child, recognize that those things are not the most important in this classroom. That what we need to create is a society where those things come to matter less rather than more. And therefore we're going to instruct you together we're going to come down very hard. When kids exclude each other on the basis of ethnicity in any kind of way, we're modeling very clearly that while we're deeply aware of those realities in society, we're trying to eliminate them from the classroom so far as possible. The way in which particularly the most progressive institutions in the United States have gone over the last 10 years, including some of the most elite ones, is very different. What they have started to do is to create affinity groups which aren't just self selecting. It's not just 15 or 16 year olds deciding that as an after school club they want to spend Time with each other. You know, they're often mandatory. They often start very young. You know, in elementary school, sometimes in kindergarten, they take those kids at the age of six or seven and for at least part of a week, they teach them separately. And now the idea here is laudatory in certain ways, right? Like what is meant to happen is to make people aware of that history of discrimination, of the ways in which they can organize together and so on. But, but if you agree with me that there is this tendency to form in groups and out groups, right? And actually even more so, if you believe that it is the society that sends that signal that it's not a natural tendency, don't you worry about the way in which that actually teaches these kids. The most important thing about you is the color of your skin. The most important thing about you is your developer, is you belonging in these racial groups. And you're actually encouraging these school communities to really organize and polarize around racial groups much more than they might do on the first pedagogical approach that I outlined.

[A]

Well, I think first, I think it's important to just emphasize that it is rare that affinity groups are mandatory, whether in colleges or even schools. Certainly many colleges and schools have created affinity groups, but this idea that they're generally or mostly mandatory is a myth.

[B]

And you think this shouldn't be mandatory?

[A]

Would I oppose it or.

[B]

Yes, would you oppose mandatory affinity groups?

[A]

I don't think anybody should be mandated to do anything because you have black students, for instance, who may go to a college or university, and let's say they were raised in a predominantly, almost all white community, and the culture that they sort of learned with their upbringing is certainly not black American culture. And so they go to that affinity group, they're gonna not feel that that's their place, particularly if that affinity group is organized around black American culture. So to me, no, I don't think it should be mandatory because I recognize that you have, you may have one's racial identity, may not necessarily connect to one's cultural sort of practices, and many of these affinity groups are connected to cultural practices. Or you have affinity groups that are oriented towards challenging a particular form of bigotry, or let's say anti black racism, and you have black people who are reinforcing anti black racism. So I don't think they should be mandated to join the anti racist black group. They probably would feel more at home in the white supremacist group, that black person, you know, at that college. So. But I think the other thing I just wanted to emphasize is I know very, very few scholars and writers who study racism and who talk about the importance of black history, who talk about the importance of recognizing the, you know, and supporting African American culture, who would say that the most meaningful aspect of a person's being is their race. I've never said that. I've actually never. I've rarely came across a thinker or an activist who would say that. So I think that that's been incredibly overblown. And I'm still looking for the people who actually say that because to me, what actually people are being saying, what people are saying and what I've said in my work is as we move through life, other people look upon our racial identity as the most important thing about us and make determinations about us based on our racial identity. And people reject that. And anti racist thinkers push back on that.

[B]

Look, in some ways it's a question of emphasis. You went in your answer to talking about the college context where people have a lot more agency and where if you're saying it's not mandatory, then perhaps it's somewhat easier for students to actually decline to engage in these activities. I've heard for many people who show up at an orientation activity on the first day of college and they're told that as part of this orientation activity there's an affinity group and they feel pressure to join one of those affinity groups, often when they themselves might have two parents from different affinity groups and they feel like they have to choose between the identities of their parents. Now, it may be that this is not technically mandatory, but if everybody in the first year of college is there, and as part of a broader sort of welcome activity, it may in practice be quite hard to get out of there. But at the college level, I agree that for the most part people have the agency to get out of this. How do you feel about somewhere like Dalton School in New York? One school, but a very influential one, one that a lot of New York City's elite goes to that says that the purpose of a progressive education is to get children to see themselves as racial beings. So that is one of the prime purposes of that. And you know that like other private schools does start to do affinity groups when kids are much, much younger than college age. Right. Some of these schools have these affinity groups in kids that are seven or eight years old. Now perhaps at some level those may be technically voluntary, but again, if you're seven or eight years old and your teacher says we're now doing this activity, and if you're black, you're going to go to this group over there, and if you're Latino, you're going to go to that group over there. It's going to be very, very hard to have the agency to get out of that. I mean, just do you think that it's helpful to have those kind of groups for 7 year olds, for 8 year olds, or do you think that there's a risk that that might backfire?

[A]

So I actually wrote a book called how to Raise an Anti Racist, which analyzed about a century worth of scholarship and studies on racial attitudes in children. And what that book documented and what scholars have shown is that the overwhelming number of educators and parents in this country do not talk to five, six, seven, eight year old children about race, about racism, about the history of particular racial groups, because it's imagined that it's a subject that people are too young from. It's also imagined, generally speaking, that a child who's 7 years old cannot think that people with dark skins are ugly. But what studies actually show is that as early as three years old, in this larger environment where no one, generally speaking, teachers, daycare workers, parents, are essentially protecting children from these racist ideas that studies show as early as three years old, you have kids connecting skin color to negative and positive characteristics, and then by the time that they are 7 or 8 years old, according to studies, children have developed the language to now start expressing those ideas that connect skin color to negative qualities. And studies consistently show that, generally speaking, teachers and parents, when kids start articulating those ideas, like I don't wanna play with that bad black kid, the response from teachers and parents is, don't talk about that. That's not a subject we talk about. And so then those ideas continue to deepen and spread among our youths with very few people checking them. So then when a school decides, you know what we know, according to scholarship and studies, that kids are already making connections between skin color inequalities and negative and positive qualities, that we need to actively teach them that there's nothing superior or inferior about any racial group. We need to actively teach them that white people do not have more because they are more. Black people do not have more because they are less. That's actually making an intervention that's actually responding to the socio sort of cultural environment that kids are operating in. And part of that can be affinity group teaching, which studies have shown are actually particularly effective for, for white students who consistently are being told by their parents that they are colorblind and even can be helpful for certain black students who feel more comfortable saying certain things among other black kids than they do in more integrated classrooms. And so what's actually the case is these schools have actually responded to the science as opposed to the politics.

[B]

Well, two things. One, I disagree with you reading on the scientific studies and we can go through various ones. There's a lot of them showing that all manners of diversity trainings and affinity groups actually aren't very effective and very often backfire that. For example, in the workplace a lot of the.

[A]

That's not the studies. That's not the studies that I. You can look at the work of Frank Dobbin.

[B]

I mean every can mention though in studies you could.

[A]

But the studies that I mentioned is that as early as 3 years old kids are connecting skin color to negative and positive characteristics. Studies have also shown that by six or seven or eight years old kids are articulating their ideas. Those are the only studies that I've cited. And so if you're saying you disagree with those studies, I'm not stating that diversity trainings as an example are incredibly effective. I didn't make that case. So I just want to just.

[B]

Well, you were saying that affinity groups are. That affinity groups are effective. Right.

[A]

So I said affinity groups in the context of that form of anti racist education can be effective, particularly with students, black students who don't feel comfortable talking about particularly sensitive topics in front of white kids. There's all sorts of evidence, particularly anecdotal evidence from black kids themselves who say they feel more comfortable talking in the midst of other black students.

[B]

Yeah. You are also saying that they're effective for white students. I think one of the concerns. So I want to make two points, right. One is that I think you're running together two quite different things, which is one, that there are going to be some racist attitudes that kids imbibe from the environment and may start to have at a relatively early age. And that of course, therefore teachers should address those, certainly correct them when they come up that more broadly we should have teaching about effects of race in America. All of which I agree with. And I think that's quite at least sort of in I think center left and more central spaces. That's quite an uncontroversial position. And then you're sort of tying it together with the idea of affinity groups, which I think is a much more controversial idea. Right. So I just want to separate those two things out because on the first one of those I agree with you.

[A]

Affinity groups exist across ethnicity and religion. And so the idea that black people for Instance, you know, can't get together based on a shared culture in history would also presuppose that particular religious groups in which, though that religion is essentially a culture and a culture derived from a particular history can't get together either. There's a way to create a society where we can both acknowledge that there are differences while simultaneously recognizing those differences as equals.

[B]

Of course, and I believe as a philosophical liberal, and freedom of association, and certainly every adult should be free to choose who they associate with. And that obviously includes things that we might call affinity groups. The question that I think we're discussing is should institutions with a lot of authority in society, like colleges and universities, but also like high schools and middle schools and elementary schools, be encouraging the formation of these kinds of groups? And in particular, should they be encouraging formation of these kinds of groups when there's children who are too young to have a lot of agency for themselves? So I would distinguish between a high school of 16, 17 year olds deciding that they want to have some kind of cultural club or whatever, and again, teachers coming into classrooms when kids are much, much younger and doing that. And one thing that I want to

[A]

ask is to abolish religious schools.

[B]

Well, so first of all, I think there is a difference between race and religion in this context. Secondly, again, the most totally, usually based on two ideas.

[A]

Either a shared cultural, historical, either a shared cultural or historical experience, or they're typically based on an effort to essentially challenge a particular bigotry that's affecting that particular ethnic group or racial group. In this context, I will say in the case of religious schools, I was sent to a Christian school, a Lutheran school. I didn't have much agency in choosing that school. I didn't have much agency in choosing the fact that I had to literally go to service chapel every week. I don't see any outrage about forcing kids, for instance. And this is not necessarily what affinity groups are doing, but there's no outrage about that. And so that's what, to me, doesn't really make much sense.

[B]

Well, so first of all, I think that when they're publicly funded schools, I certainly have a strong objection to this. The United Kingdom has publicly funded religious schools. And I think that that is certainly a mistake, that the state should not be encouraging more separation and division in its pupils. And the fact that the state is funding schools for Christians to go to one school and for Muslims to go to another school and for Jews to go to a third school, which is a policy that by the way, was introduced into the new labor government in the 2000s. I think that's a big mistake because it is a great virtue when students from different walks of life go to school together and are exposed to each other and learn together. And that is much preferable to a system that encourages that division on the basis of religion. I think it's very dangerous when that happens. Now, I also think that universities should

[A]

allow state banning any student clubs.

[B]

Yes, absolutely. Because again, I was telling you that when this is affinity groups that people who are old enough to make those choices for themselves choose to pursue it freely, that is a different thing. That is part of freedom of association. But what I'm talking about specifically is schools where you have very young kids being divided up into those groups and perhaps you can sort of ask your parents for some extra permission slip to skip that class or something like that. By the way, this is kind of what I experienced growing up Jewish in Germany, where there was confessional religion classes, which obviously were only for Catholics and Protestants because there was very few people of other religions around, at least at the time. And so I, and the two kids of Turkish immigrants sort of got to hang out and do nothing during that time. I think that was deeply alienating. I think that that was not a good system and I wouldn't want to replicate that system in the United States. But the question that I have more specifically is about the white students. Because I wonder what you think is going to happen to those white students. I think the aspiration here, the ambition here is for the advice students to learn about the white privilege, to learn about the ways in which society is skewed in their favor, and then to become good anti racist activists. If you believe that human beings can easily form different kinds of tribes, that they learn from the environment what the marker is that makes them part of this in group or that in group in group, it seems to me much more likely that the opposite is going to happen. That what you're actually teaching with students is we live in a school community where the most important dividing line is race, where this is how people are self organizing. This is how the teachers tell us to organize. When people advocate for their interests within this context, they do that on the basis of their racial affinity groups. And so actually the most important thing about me is that I'm white. And the most important thing, the most important way in which I'm going to be able to fight for resources within school to make demands, et cetera, is to organize along those lines. And I actually think we see a lot of evidence of younger white kids, including in very progressive environments starting to find the appeal of the alderite and to gravitate towards those ideas, but in part because they've been raised and grew up in an environment that is racializing them in that way. So do you worry at all that particularly versus affinity groups when you have to have to do something for white kids and either you have them hang out and do nothing like I did because I wasn't Catholic or Protestant when I was growing up in this German school, or you sort of put them together and say the most important thing about you is you're white and you have white privilege, et cetera. Don't you worry that it might backfire in those kinds of ways?

[A]

Well, the first sort of presumption of your question is that those white kids, before they entered into that space were not racialized as white, that did not, they did not see themselves as white. And that class exercise suddenly caused them to see that they were white. And that presumption is blatantly false. So all sorts of studies document and have documented that the most effective form of whiteness education in which white people, particularly white children and even white adults developed their sense of white identity is by no education about race and racism at all. And that actually all.

[B]

But can I just say I agree with you that that's wrong. And we've established that. Right. So that's not where we disagree.

[A]

So, you know, so I just want to just establish the fact that the presumption of your question and even the outcome is that this affinity space among white students or even anti racist education among white students made the student conscious of her or his whiteness and then led that student to then become a part of the white identity movement. I just wanted to.

[B]

No, no, with respect, I think that you're really straw manning my position. Right. So you want people to choose between either teachers, never mention race, pretend it doesn't exist at all, or we separate kids out at the age of 8 into these racially separate groups.

[A]

No, I'm just trying

[B]

on this question, you're trying to divide between, you know, either my position is nobody knows the color of their skin. You know, eight year olds aren't at all aware of the existence of race. Right. Like all these racial affinity groups are good. I think sensible middle position that I have is that yes, of course teachers should call attention before they enter into

[A]

that classroom, that those white students have a consciousness and a conception of the fact that they're white. I just want to ask.

[B]

Yes, I think they're aware of the fact that they're seen as white in society, but also aware of lots of other identity markers they have.

[A]

Okay, so then do you think.

[B]

I don't think that.

[A]

I don't.

[B]

I don't think that they. Necessary.

[A]

I just want to get a sense of what you're asking me based on your presumptions. Because you stated that my presumption about what you're stating is wrong. So now I'm just. I just want to ask a few questions to get a sense of what your actual presumptions are. So you're first saying, you stated that you believe that those white kids have a sense of their white identity before entering into those spaces. You're saying that that's something you do believe?

[B]

I think they're aware that they're white. I think if you ask an 8 year old according to those different census categories, which of those categories do you fall into? I think not all of them, but most of them will broadly give you the correct answer of how they would be classified in those census categories. I don't think that necessarily means that they think of that as the defining feature. I don't think that when you ask them, describe what is important about. No, let me finish. You ask me a question. Don't think that when you ask them, you know, describe yourself, what is important about you, they would foreground the fact of a whiteness. And my concern is that these beliefs in the wider culture in some of these schools is going to teach them that. Actually the most important thing about me is that I'm white. And I don't think that that's going to be conducive to the long term political development.

[A]

Okay, so that's actually thank you for underlying that, because I think the first assumption, just so I'm clear, is that they had a sense that they were white, but they had also a sense of other identities. They did not perceive their whiteness to be their defining aspect of their identity. Then you're arguing that when they enter into this education, the educators teach them your claimings that whiteness or them being white is the defining feature of their identity. Just so I'm clear that that's your

[B]

position, that as a result of what they're taught, they come to identify more strongly with their white identity because they come to understand, for one, that that is the criterion on which we're being separated out from the other kids. Right. Like at the very least, it's like, why am I in this room with these other people? Well, because this clearly is important enough that on Mondays at 3pm that's what governs which room I'm sitting in.

[A]

And then you're stating that then, because they then come to see their white identity as their defining feature, then they are pulled to these white nationalist sort of movements. So in your mind, it's actually these affinity groups and this education that is actually causing them, let's say white students and even adults to ultimately, let's say in the case of chain out ideas, become great replacement theorists. Am I correct? That's your position?

[B]

Yes. So let me elaborate on that. A. I think that is right for some reason.

[A]

Can I just answer now your question though? Because you asked me a question, so I just want to respond to it. So again, I just want to, I want to reemphasize that you are just radically exaggerating the amount of time students are asked to sit in affinity groups. In the vast majority of cases that almost never happens. Would I say that there are cases in which teachers ask different racialized groups to sit in affinity groups? Does that happen? Yes. Does it happen often? No. How often? What's the amount of time they may spend? 10 minutes? 15 minutes? An hour. This notion that getting students to do that then completely reshapes their racial identity is a pretty amazing argument you're making. But ultimately I just want to state that the argument that you're making also has no scholarly or scientific basis. And actually all the evidence points to the very opposite. All sorts of evidence. Scholars have documented that it is the

[B]

students

[A]

who, their parents and their teachers do not talk about racism, do not talk about white privilege, do not talk about the benefits that white people may or may not may have as a result of racist policies and practices that those students, those white students, are more likely to believe that white people are superior. I should say white people have more or on higher ends of disparities because they're superior. They're more likely to believe that immigrants and black people are coming to harm them and replace them and that they're deserving. And they're more likely to actually be seduced by a Farage or Donald Trump again, according to studies. And so what actually studies have shown is that anti racist education is protective for white students from racist ideas. But I'm actually also happy you've asked me about white students because what oftentimes happens in these conversations, particularly around affinity groups, is the decision as to whether to have affinity groups is almost totally dictated based on what people think is best for white students. There's almost no conversation about what's helpful for black students. And most of our conversation, and most of your concern has been expressed for what you think could help or harm white students. So even though the studies show it actually helps white students, there's been no conversation. So can we at least talk about the how affinity groups can help black students or is that something you're not interested in?

[B]

Sure, I'm happy to talk about. To be clear here, I'm not talking about what helps and harms white students. I'm talking about how we can contain some of the ideas that you and I are both worried about. And my concern about these affinity students in the context of white students is not that they might be upset by those or that there may be challenging ideas they encounter in those. I know that some of the criticisms that are made of them. I think that being uncomfortable is actually an important part of an education and I'm not so concerned about about that. What I worry about specifically is that we don't want to incentivize white students to embrace ideas that you and I both agree are very dangerous to our ability to thrive together as a society. And so just to make clear, you're making it sound as well, I'm sort of concerned about the well being of these poor white students. I'm concerned about the long term future of our polity.

[A]

So to me, equity, particularly as it relates to a policy standpoint, is ensuring that every racial or gender or class group is not necessarily being undermined by policies that lead to them being less likely to have a particular opportunity. And so when we have equitable policies, we all truly have equivalent opportunities, equivalent forms of access, equivalent forms of resources in a democracy. Equality to me is, and I would just also add, as it relates to equity, to me, equity, to think even further, is about the groups that have the greatest needs, receiving the greatest amounts of resources. Or equity to me means that a, a low income person is going to pay less taxes than a billionaire. By contrast, equality from a policy standpoint is that a billionaire is going to pay the same dollar amount in taxes that a low income person would, which to me is not fair and I think to most people wouldn't be fair.

[B]

So I guess I'm a little bit confused by this way of framing the issue because there's a long tradition of egalitarian political philosophy and certainly people who argued for the value of equality in those debates have never been in favor of a flat tax. For example, the idea of higher marginal tax rates for people who earn more money is something that political egalitarians have advocated for for a long time. So, you know, it's not clear to me that the idea that we should, you know, adjust how we treat people based on their circumstances goes in any significant way against the long standing egalitarian tradition. The idea, for example, that we're not going to give out wheelchairs to everybody in society, we're going to give out wheelchairs to those people who have impediments that make it impossible for them to walk otherwise. Doesn't really seem to be contradicted by the idea of equality as understood, say by philosophers like John Rawls or Matia Sen or anybody else. But I want to get more specifically at what you measure.

[A]

Did I say something that was in contrary to any of that? Because I would agree that we shouldn't give out wheelchairs to everyone in society, that the people who need accommodations from a society should receive those accommodations. Like, so that's, I mean, that's pretty much.

[B]

I know you agree with that, but I think, right, the way you're defining it, you're implying that it, that people who believe in equality would not believe in that. And what I'm saying is that that is a strange redefinition of. Okay, well in that case, I misunderstand you. That's what I, that's what I understood you to be saying. How do you think that there are sometimes group differences that arise in societies that are caused by something other than racist policies? How, for example, do you explain the fact that Asian Americans are hugely overrepresented at top colleges in the United States? Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If you want to listen to the second half of it, please become a paying subscriber. In this part of the conversation we talk about the definition of equity and why Ibram Kennedy believes that it is better than equality. I press him on his understanding of disparate outcomes between groups always being downstream from racist policies and practices by asking him, among other things, about why it is that Asian Americans in the United States are now outperforming white Americans on college admissions, on the job market as a whole. Is this because policies and practice in the United States are somehow designed to favor Asian Americans over white Americans? And if not, then what is the explanation? And finally, we talk about his proposal for the creation of a department of Anti Racism that would have the power to override the legislation passed at the federal, at the state, at the local level, throughout the nation. I ask Kendi whether he isn't concerned about handing so much power over to unelected officials to listen to that part of the conversation. To support what we do here on the Good Fight, please go to writing.yashamonk.com/listen, become a paying subscriber and set up the premium feed of this podcast.