NASA employees will have the opportunity this week to hear a talk from left-wing professor and author Ibram X. Kendi, whose bestselling book “How To Be Antiracist” argues that any system that leads to different outcomes is racist and must be dismantled.
According to an email obtained by The Daily Wire, NASA employees were informed of Kendi’s upcoming lecture with the subject line, “Understand Anti-racism by Understanding What it Means to be Racist.”
The email read:
“The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it — and then dismantle it,” writes professor Ibram X. Kendi. “That is the essence of anti-racism: the action that must follow both emotional and intellectual awareness of racism.” Ibram X. Kendi is a renowned historian and the author of “How to Be an Antiracist.” Professor Kendi will speak to the NASA workforce on Wednesday, Aug. 12, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., via USTREAM. More information on how to watch this event will be made available as soon as it is available.
The email also listed a person of contact who, when called by The Daily Wire to confirm the authenticity of the email, eventually hung up without answering questions and did not respond to a callback.
NASA later sent a statement to The Daily Wire, which said:
NASA is committed to a culture of diversity and inclusion, where all employees feel welcome, respected, connected, and engaged. The presentation by Dr. Kendi is being made available to NASA employees as part of ongoing efforts to engage in a dialogue about diversity and inclusion and follows the recent announcement of inclusion as one of NASA’s core values, which will enable NASA to attract the best talent, grow the capabilities of the entire workforce, and empower everyone to fully contribute. Attendance at the event is not mandatory.
In his review of Kendi’s book in New York Magazine, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
Every now and again, it’s worth thinking about what the intersectional left’s ultimate endgame really is — and here it strikes me as both useful and fair to extrapolate from Kendi’s project. They seem not to genuinely believe in liberalism, liberal democracy, or persuasion. They have no clear foundational devotion to individual rights or freedom of speech. Rather, the ultimate aim seems to be running the entire country by fiat to purge it of racism (and every other intersectional “-ism” and “phobia”, while they’re at it). And they demand “disciplinary tools” by unelected bodies to enforce “a radical reorientation of our consciousness.” There is a word for this kind of politics and this kind of theory when it is fully and completely realized, and it is totalitarian.
Kendi’s lecture comes as NASA is reexamining “certain cosmic nicknames [that] are not only insensitive but can be actively harmful,” such as the “Eskimo Nebula” and the “Siamese Twins Galaxy.” In an Aug. 5 announcement, NASA said it is “examining its use of unofficial terminology for cosmic objects as part of its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Related: NASA: ‘Certain Cosmic Nicknames’ Are ‘Actively Harmful,’ Will ‘Reexamine’ Their Use