CHRISTOPHER RUFO: The downfall of 'antiracist' Ibram X. Kendi

Every era has its grifters, gurus, quacks, and frauds. This is an American tradition, from the snake oil salesmen to the pyramid-schemers to the New Age prophets of the 20th Century. One might be tempted to dismiss them as ethically compromised men, duping the gullible for personal benefit, but they're something more than that: symbols of each generation's hopes and anxieties. 

Kendi cashed in. The professor signed a lucrative Netflix contract and switched to designer clothes. He secured $55 million for his "Center on Antiracist Research" at Boston University, which promised to engage in scholarship and activism. 

A market for Black radicalism has long existed in America. Kendi was never a creative exponent of that line of thought, whatever its merits. Considered against more substantial figures like W. E. B. DuBois, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, or even Angela Davis, Kendi seems shallow. His bedtime stories and picture books - "Antiracist Baby," "Goodnight Racism" - would embarrass even a middling intellectual. His "adult" books are only slightly less vapid. 

The problem is not really Kendi, though, but the broader, predominantly White progressive left, which, in the wake of George Floyd's death, was desperate to find someone who would lecture them about "systemic racism" and instruct them how to "do the work" of healing themselves. They frantically searched through the catalog of Black academics and, through some unknown combination of bad luck and human error, selected Kendi, the soft-spoken professor, as their racism whisperer.  

In that sense, White "antiracists" set Kendi up for failure. He was not capable of leading the nation through a "racial reckoning," nor of managing $50 million in charitable donations. When this reality became undeniable and Kendi became a liability, the progressive machine cut him loose. 

At the end of January, Boston University announced that Kendi would be decamping to Howard University and that his Center for Antiracist Research would close - the proverbial house of cards collapsing. Kendi will no doubt find a receptive audience at Howard, but he will no longer enjoy the unqualified adoration of America's prestige institutions, or be asked to lead "privilege walks" at Fortune 100 corporate retreats. He will, in time, be seen as another American guru who failed to deliver - a symbol of the furious, destructive passions of the BLM era.