Ibram Kendi, director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, said last week that conservatives who oppose lockdowns are like slaveholders.
In his weekly podcast called "Be Antiracist With Ibram X. Kendi," he stated that "the right started pushing for the right and the freedom to open back up," mentioning a piece he wrote in the Atlantic in which he argues we are still "in a slaveholders republic." This desire to open the country back up, according to Kendi, is like wanting the right to own slaves.
"The slaveholder...wanted the freedom to enslave" he explained. "There's no difference between that and the individual saying 'I should have the freedom to infect people. I should have the freedom to kill and exploit and harass and terrorize.'"
"Enslaved people had a different philosophy. Instead of the individual to it was the community from. So how do we as a community gain freedom from slavery, from oppression, or in the case of Coronavirus, from infection."
In the Atlantic article from May of 2020, Kendi describes a consequential split on the understanding of freedom: "From the beginning of the American project, the powerful individual has been battling for his constitutional freedom to harm, and the vulnerable community has been battling for its constitutional freedom from harm."
Ibram X Kendi thinks that America is still a “Slave Holding Republic”
— Mythinformed MKE (@MythinformedMKE) July 31, 2021
He equates Republicans wishing to open-up from lockdowns to actual Southern slave owners desiring to enslave other human beings.
Critical Race Theory is a cult. pic.twitter.com/hCPDGfuEMI
Kendi's work has even found its way onto the United States Navy's reading list under the "foundational" section of books for sailors.
Kendi has also claimed that the events of January 6, which he describes as an act of white supremacy, were not as much of a shock to minorities because they've "lived with this violence our whole lives."
He describes his flagship book "How To Be An Antiracist" as "an essential book for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step of contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society."