Your kids are being indoctrinated and you may not even know that you're actually the culprit.
Ibram X. Kendi is a far-left critical race theorist who has helped completely change the national conversation around race—for the worse.
Thanks to his work How to Be an Antiracist, white progressives have adopted a remarkably radical view: racism is to blame for virtually every obstacle confronting black Americans.
Poor grades? Institutionalized racism in the education system. Poor health outlooks? Well, the health care system is systemically racist. High prison populations? The criminal justice system and police were created to oppress. This way of looking at the world reduces every black person to a victim. It's a racist worldview that was trotted out by radical left-wing voices as a basic fact about being black in America.
While the progressive voters who have adopted this view are loud in voice, they're not yet large enough in numbers to sway the culture. Most Americans understand our racist past—and it is, in fact, the past.
While racism certainly still exists, we reject the notion that this country was founded on white supremacy that permeates our every institution. That Democrats have adopted that thinking seems likely to turn a red wave into a red tsunami in purple districts this fall. Society isn't willing to accept that extremist thinking. Americans by large are frankly sick of the idea that everything is racist.
But it would be a mistake to dismiss Kendi as a flash-in-the-pan race extremist whose influence dies with a midterm election this fall that hopefully ousts the Democratic Party's most radical members.
Kendi isn't merely a radical; he's a marketing savant. And he's got a plan to shift the culture—not merely to win over some politicians to pursue supposedly antiracist policies.
Educators across the country usually spend February celebrating Black History Month. Now, it's used to introduce radical Black Lives Matter lesson plans into the classroom. The month now belongs to BLM.
Kendi's work is a big part of the month (and the academic year). And it's Kendi's lesser-known book that poses the biggest threat to breaking apart the very foundation upon which this country was built.
Antiracist Baby is marketed as a children's book, though it's geared towards parents and educators. It follows a politically woke baby who gets involved in social justice.
In the opening pages, the illustrated book shows the child, fist in air, attending a social justice rally. The antiracist baby is surrounded by protest signs, including "Equity now," "Black Lives Matter," "Climate justice is racial justice" and "We demand justice!"
Parents and toddlers then learn that "there's no neutrality" on racism. Your baby, the reader is told, might just be a racist.
"Babies are taught to be racist or antiracist," Kendi writes. It mirrors his central claim in his more popular book, How to Be an Antiracist.
How does one become an antiracist baby? One must adopt Kendi's far-left positions. That includes babies addressing their own racism and calling out policies that disproportionately impact communities of color.
Babies aren't racist, of course. And they obviously won't call out racist policies, because they don't even understand the concepts being discussed. But this book isn't actually for kids—and that's where the dangerous brilliance is revealed.
Antiracist Baby merely primes a child to be more susceptible to these concepts when they're older. Kendi promotes the book "as a tool" for parents to talk about racism. He argues it's important because babies "internalize" racist beliefs within months of birth. And in the back of his book, he tells parents, "We should teach our kids to be antiracist even before they fully understand what it means to be antiracist."
With the book, Kendi is teaching parents and teachers to frame discussions through a critical race theory lens. He's giving left-wing adults a tool to craft left-wing activists out of babies. It even comes with a guide for teachers to use when discussing the propaganda.
The book is presented to kids by the people they trust the most. Starting early will shape the kids' worldview.
There are plenty of adults who don't understand the coded language used in the book; pushing back against the canard of "antiracism" makes it sound like you're actually pro-racism. Some of these parents may not even realize they're just indoctrinating kids into a political way of thinking. They are just going with the times—and the times are pushing this woke ideology.
There are other adults, though, who know exactly what they're doing with this text. The book's left-wing viewpoint is the very reason it was chosen for the classroom to begin with. The coded language gives them virtuous cover—they're trying to teach how to be tolerant! Oh, the irony.
Kendi's whole brand relies on preying upon the white guilt of impressionable adults. So it makes plenty of sense that Kendi would use it against kids. That's the long game, and it will be effective unless we stop it. Get the kids to become true believers, bombarding them with propaganda until they make it to college—where left-wing professors then continue the job. Then, they get into the real world ready to implement real change.
It's a brilliant—and dangerous—strategy.
Jason Rantz is a frequent guest on Fox News and is the host of the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH Seattle, heard weekday afternoons. You can subscribe to his podcast here and follow him on Twitter: @jasonrantz.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
