Noted “anti-racist” academic Ibram Kendi has teamed up with a fellow Boston University professor to make his 2016 book “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” available to a “broader readership.”<\/p>\n
According to BU Today<\/em><\/a>, Kendi and artist Joel Gill did so by turning it into a comic book-style graphic novel.<\/p>\n “Stamped” calls out even black figures such as Frederick Douglass, WEB DuBois and Barack Obama for their alleged “racist thoughts” — such as assimilation into \u201ctraits held in esteem by the dominant White Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n “Stamped” artist Gill apparently believes that assimilation, aka the “melting pot,” is a phenomenon exclusively applied to blacks; he told the School Library Journal<\/em><\/a> in late 2020 that racial desegregation really should be dubbed “forced assimilation” because “Black cultural identity wasn\u2019t integrated into American schools in a way that was respectful.”<\/p>\n Regarding the 44th president, Kendi noted Barack Obama believes in the theory that oppression “has led to Black people feeling hopeless and therefore not striving as much.”<\/p>\n Kendi told\u00a0BU Today<\/em> he’s been thinking about expanding the availability of his “history of anti-Black, racist ideas” to “different types of readers” for some time.<\/p>\n Gill\u00a0<\/em>said he’s happy Kendi allowed him to insert a few “fart jokes” into the graphic novel. “Trying to make something as serious as racism and the history of racist ideas in America funny is difficult,” Gill said. “I feel most of the jokes are funny-not funny.”<\/p>\n MORE:<\/strong> Netflix scraps two Ibram Kendi shows<\/a><\/p>\n Kendi and Gill (pictured) <\/em>said they expect the new version of “Stamped” to be “swept up in the current book-banning net.”<\/p>\n “[B]ook banning, just like racist ideas, is another cyclical, moral panic,” Gill said. “It was hip-hop in the 90s, weed in the 70s, hippies in the 60s. In the 50s, it was comics. We had Maia Kobabe, whose Gender Queer <\/em>[see here<\/a>] is one of the most banned books in America, on campus in October.”<\/p>\n Tonight we are going to Providence, Rhode Island, where I wrote most of the original, Stamped from the Beginning. For a sold-out event @MosesBrown<\/a> School to launch our new graphic novel. Can't wait to chop it up with Joel, Seth, and everyone. 1\/2 pic.twitter.com\/meoNFWqJ92<\/a><\/p>\n — Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) June 6, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n