On the season one finale of On the Yard, MSRC Director Dr. Benjamin Talton sits down with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, historian, author, and the inaugural Carter G. Woodson Endowed Chair in History for the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University. The conversation covers Dr. Kendi’s new book, Chain of Ideas, which examines the origin and rise of “the great replacement theory” as a dominant political idea. They also discuss Dr. Kendi’s new position at Howard, his groundbreaking work studying anti-Black racism, and his goals for advancing influential scholarship on Black history, social justice, and American policy. On the Yard is a production of The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and is produced by University FM.
On the season one finale of On the Yard, MSRC Director Dr. Benjamin Talton sits down with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, historian, author, and the inaugural Carter G. Woodson Endowed Chair in History for the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University.
The conversation covers Dr. Kendi’s new book, Chain of Ideas, which examines the origin and rise of “the great replacement theory” as a dominant political idea. They also discuss Dr. Kendi’s new position at Howard, his groundbreaking work studying anti-Black racism, and his goals for advancing influential scholarship on Black history, social justice, and American policy.
Episode Guide:
On the Yard is a production of The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and is produced by University FM.
White is a race too
18:25: I think it's important to distinguish between white or even Black as a racial category and Black and white as a color. So that's the main reason. And the other reason, particularly as it relates to capitalizing white, is we're living in a moment in which racist theorists are pushing the idea that white people are not racialized, that majority-white districts are not about race, but majority-Black districts are. And so, I'm just normal. I'm human, right? And so I think that by ensuring that people understand that white is a race too.
Historians as storytellers
03:38: Historians, at our core, we should be storytellers, right? And, you know, part of, I think, what makes us, to me, the best storytellers of the past is that we're able to share the nuance and complexity and the context. But there's a way in which we can clarify that nuance, that context, that complexity in ways that people can understand.
Can you imagine a world without whiteness?
14:12: Well, first, I would say that for the better part of human history, whiteness as this construct didn't exist. And so the construct of whiteness really only started to emerge in the 15th century. And so I think, to me, someone who can't imagine a world without whiteness is someone whose own conception of history is only a modern conception of history.