Eager to deny accurate claims that Ibram X. Kendi endorsed “racial discrimination,” MSNBC’s Joy Reid falsely told her viewers that a Republican U.S. senator who cited Kendi word-for-word was “misquoting” Kendi’s book. She also denied that Kendi’s controversial writings have anything to do with Critical Race Theory and implied that conservatives want black farmers removed from all arable farmland in the United States.
And despite claiming to “school” conservative think tank scholar Christopher Rufo about CRT, Reid blundered the name one of the bestselling books Rufo cited in their discussion.
Reid interviewed Kendi on Monday night’s episode of “The ReidOut,” where she invited the author to respond to a clip of Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO):
Ibram Kendi wrote this: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” That’s right, that’s what he said. Think about that for a moment. He’s saying that he’s opposed to equality under the law. Dr. Kendi and his followers are in no uncertain terms advocating for state-sanctioned racism.
Before Kendi could respond, Reid immediately poisoned the well — implying that the quotation must be false, because Senator Hawley said it.
“O.K., now given the fact that they can’t seem to quote Dr. King accurately,” she said without proof, “I’m going to assume that they’re misquoting you or giving the wrong context.”
Unfortunately for MSNBC, Senator Hawley quoted Kendi accurately. On page 19 of his book, How to be an Antiracist, Kendi wrote:
[R]acial discrimination is not inherently racist. … The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.
Reid, who lectured Rufo that author Robin DiAngelo is “not a critical race theorist,” could not accurately name DiAngelo’s ubiquitous book.
“Your book took really off after the George Floyd murder,” Reid told Kendi, “and so did Robin DiAngelo’s book, White Rage — I think that’s the name of the book.”
DiAngelo’s 2018 book, White Fragility, has spent 92 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list for “nonfiction” paperbacks.
Reid spent the rest of the short segment railing against Republicans, claiming falsely that conservatives “are saying that white farmers need to get all the rest” of the United States’ farmland away from black farmers. Additionally, “They don’t believe the military should study whether there are racist and white nationalists in the military.”
The “American Armed Forces have a white supremacist problem,” averred Kendi.
During the segment, one of several Reid has dedicated to gaslighting viewers about CRT, Reid invited Kendi to sanitize his endorsement of “racial discrimination.” She asked, “Can you explain, please what that quote — even if it’s accurate — what it means?”
Kendi likened his plan for perhaps multiple generations of government-sponsored, racially discriminatory redistribution of wealth (which he describes as “equity”) to distributing the first COVID-19 vaccines to the elderly. “How are we going to create equity and justice for all if we’re providing the same resources to middle income people as we`re providing to billionaires?” he concluded.
Reid went out of her way to deny that Kendi is associated with CRT. “I just want to very quickly get this off the table. Are you a critical race theorist?” Reid asked Kendi, giving him a chance to take the bait.
Kendi gave a carefully worded response, saying that “I’ve certainly been inspired by Critical Race Theory,” but “I didn’t go to law school, and so I don’t necessarily identify as a critical race theorist.”
Kendi proved less guarded on last Thursday’s “Morning Joe,” where he was interviewed alongside professor Keisha Blain. Kendi did not contradict Blain after she called General Mark Milley’s defense of Kendi’s book “one of the most powerful speeches I have heard in defense of Critical Race Theory.”
Reid faced another setback when DiAngelo hocked her new book, Nice Racism, on Tuesday’s “Morning Joe.” Co-host Mika Brzezinski quoted New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg’s critique of DiAngelo. The Times noted that DiAngelo’s views, which promote “white people’s self-flagellation” but “accomplish very little,” are among the “ideas associated with C.R.T.” DiAngelo offered no objection to being associated with Critical Race Theory.
Reid went on to claim that Republicans divide society, because they “have a new boogeyman to latch onto, Critical Race Theory.”
“What these politicians are objecting to is the factual analysis to our history, warts and all,” she said falsely. “But what they’re doing is far more pernicious. They have taken legitimate calls for critical self-reflection and demonized it into a catch-all phrase that they wield as a political cudgel.”
We look forward to Joy Reid setting the record straight about Kendi’s racist quotation, and offering Senator Josh Hawley a full apology for her baseless calumny, on Wednesday night’s show.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.