Kendi's powerful insight is relatively simple: the desire to protect and expand chattel slavery drove the racist ideas that became American white supremacy, not the other way around. To put this another way, slavery came first and those who benefited from it created racist ideas to justify its existence and expansion and defend it against those would abolish or even just restrain it. White supremacy then isn't really an ideology based around core ideas that then inform goals, actions, and priorities, so much as it is a system of power based around protecting and expanding the power of the descendants of slaveholders. (I'll get to how this connects to the recent string of forced-birth legislation.)
As a system of power, its ideas do not have to be logical or internally consistent. They don't have to be based in facts. They don't even have to make sense. They just need to provide enough cover to keep the system going. For example, one of the most common racist ideas created to defend slavery was that black people are naturally docile and obedient, that they actually need and love the strict leadership of their masters and that, therefore, freedom is actually bad for them. And when the Civil War started and the Union began to recruit black soldiers, a racist idea was created that black people inherently lack the discipline needed to be effective soldiers. These two ideas are mutually exclusive, but, being an internally coherent logic system was never the point; preserving the system of slavery was and if calling black people docile out of one side of your mouth and calling them undisciplined out of the other helped preserve the system of slavery, you did it. You could do it in the same sentence.
One of the questions I had, when I started Kendi was, essentially, “What the fuck is up with the 3/5 compromise? I mean, seriously, fuckin' A.” One the one hand chattel slavery was built on the idea that black people were not really human (sometimes that argument was based on the Bible and sometimes on “science.”) and thus absolutely not deserving of citizenship in any way shape or form. Every other racist idea was drawn from and circled around that core, because it is very difficult for one human being to treat another human being as a slave or to allow such treatment to happen. So, logically, given that chattel slavery rested on the idea that black people were not really human, they should not be counted towards political representation, right? Only if logic is the point. The point was protecting and expanding slavery and counting slaves towards representation did just that by creating an over-representation of slaveholders in Congress. 3/5 was just the most the slaveholding states could get out of the Northern states and still ratify the Constitution.
When Richard Nixon succeeded through the Southern Strategy he formally transformed the Republican Party into the party of white supremacy and in doing so, he transformed Republican ideology (which, honestly, was pretty fucking racist, misogynist, theocratic, and autocratic already) into an expression of that system of power. The purpose of the Republican party changed from enacting Republican policies, to expanding and maintaining Republican power. This means the only question Republicans (in power at least) pose when deciding on a strategy or policy or evaluating an idea is “Does this protect or expand the power of the Republican party?” Everything else is irrelevant.
So it is not hypocritical for them to oppose every Democrat social spending program that would uplift Americans who are not white men by claiming the federal debt and deficit are existential threats to the economy and then radically increase the debt and deficit when they hold power. The deficit isn't the point, the power is. Nor it is laughably unprofessional for them to spend 6-7 years holding show votes to repeal Obamacare without every actually creating a workable policy replacement. Obamacare as a policy was completely irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was “Obamacare” as a tool to undercut the Democrats and inspire white supremacists to vote. Nor is it preposterously short-sighed and embarrassingly uninformed about the state of the criminal punishment system to respond to the idea that prisoner should have the right to vote with “Do you want the Boston Marathon bomber to vote?” Nor is it 3/5-Compromise level illogical to count inmates who have no connections to and are denied political engagement in the communities where they are detained towards those communities' proportional representation. Does denying prisoners and other people who have been in the criminal punishment system the right to vote protect and expand Republican power? Yes, so say whatever the fuck it takes to keep preventing those votes. Does counting prisoner populations as residents in the districts the prison happens to be in protect and expand Republican power? Given that prisons are often in more white, rural, and Republican spaces and especially given that prison populations are disproportionately drawn from poor, urban, POC and Democratic spaces, hell yeah, you do.
Which brings us to the latest assault on abortion rights. Initially, the Republican party, under Nixon, embraced the forced-birth movement as a way to pull Catholic votes away from Democrats. It eventually solidified into a core current in their base, one they leverage to keep people who disagree with them about nearly everything else, checking the “R” box in every election. But at a more fundamental level, at a level beyond turning out the base, it is a way to control women and especially women of color, who, unlike white women, will be less likely to afford illegal abortions. It will trap them in unsafe domestic relationships. It will restrict their economic mobility. It will drain them of the physical, emotional, and financial resources to be politically active. It will kill them. And given that women and especially women of color vote more Democratic than men, controlling women is the goal.
The reason why none of these new forced-birth bills have any funding for say, free contraception, sex education, or childcare is that reducing the number of abortions isn't the point: controlling women is. The reason why none of these bills make any medical sense is that medicine has nothing to do with it: controlling women does. The reason no one writing these bills seems to have any understanding of the actual biological processes of birth is that actually giving fucking birth is totally irrelevant to the goal, which is controlling women. These bills don't hold men responsible for their part in unwanted pregnancies, in any way shape or form, not because the bill writers don't understand that men are responsible for unwanted pregnancies, but because they don't care: controlling women is the point.
And if this process of proposing logically incoherent, radically ignorant, and wildly unpopular policies looks familiar to you, that's because it is. The Republican party is using the 3/5-Compromise technique again, presenting absurd, nonsensical, and overtly cruel policies so that, in the end, they get as much of that control as they can.
Ultimately, until the Republican party separates itself completely from white supremacy (I, for one, am not holding my breath) you don't actually need to listen to single argument a Republican in power makes, because it is not really an argument; it is a rhetorical device employed to preserve a system of power. That's why exposing their hypocrisy doesn't work. That's why refuting their statements with facts doesn't work. That's why showing logical inconsistencies doesn't work. That's why they don't even bat an eye when they line up to call for Al Franken's resignation and then put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. That's why it's all “free speech absolutist” until it comes to people protesting them. That's why it's all “states rights” until a city acts against their racist immigration policy. That's why it's all “fiscal responsibility” until it is time to conceal the damages of your trade policies with subsidies or write a blank check for war. That's why Republicans in certain places can say “Roe vs. Wade is settled law” while watching Republicans in other states explicitly create challenges to Roe vs. Wade as established law. That's why the party of family values and christian evangelicals can elect AND celebrate Donald Trump. And that's why for ever loving fuck's sake, it is not worth it for Democrats in power to court Republican votes or defend the systems and institutions that Republicans have been exploiting for decades.
The only meaningful, effective solution to the problem contemporary Republicans in power pose to our nation and the world is to completely remove them from power at every level of government and you don't do that by playing along with their systems of power. You don't do that by working within the legislative, executive, and electoral norms they have been exploiting for decades. And you sure as fuck don't do that by treating the humanity of women and people of color as a negotiable policy. You do that by expanding the electorate, turning them out to vote, and following the leadership of those who have already succeeded at both.
It is hard to fight when it feels like you're fighting against chaos. Fuck, it's hard to do anything when it feels like you have no fucking clue why all this fucking shit is happening. And it can be even harder to pull all of that rage into something actionable when you are watching powerful white men threaten the lives of people you love. And Republicans are threatening the lives of people you love. In fact, they have already taken some. And they will take more. Luckily, we still live in a world with Stamped from the Beginning. We still have authors, historians, and thinkers like Kendi who do know why this fucking shit is happening and can explain it to us in a way that snaps all that chaos into focus. And it's not that far from focus to action.
