American University professor Ibram X. Kendi says that the U.S. Constitution should be amended “to fix the original sin of racism” by adding an “anti-racist amendment.” The professor also says that a federal “Department of Anti-Racism” should be established, giving empowered “experts” the “disciplinary tools to wield over and against” public officials expressing “racist ideas.”
“The amendment would make unconstitutional racial inequity over a certain threshold, as well as racist ideas by public officials,” states professor Ibram X. Kendi his piece published by Politico, entitled, “Pass an Anti-Racist Constitutional Amendment.”
In his piece, the professor insists that “racist ideas” would be “clearly defined.”
Kendi, who is also the director of the school’s “Antiracist Research & Policy Center,” went on to say that the “anti-racist amendment” would establish a new federal department called the “Department of Anti-racism (DOA),” and would be permanently funded using taxpayer dollars.
“[The anti-racist amendment] would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees,” writes Kendi.
According to the professor, the DOA would be comprised of powerful “experts” tasked with monitoring public officials “for expressions of racist ideas.”
While Kendi did not clarify how “racist ideas” would ultimately be defined, he did mention that these so-called “experts” would be “empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against” public officials upon the discovery of “racist policy and ideas.”
The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.
“In order to truly eliminate racial inequities, we have to eliminate racist policies,” elaborated Kendi. “We have to prevent public officials from dividing Americans through racist ideas. You can’t necessarily fix political divergence and political difference, but what you can fix is making sure those ideologies are based in facts — not based in bigotry.”
While Kendi did not specifically cite any of the “racist policies” that still exist in the United States, the professor did, however, suggest that “new and sophisticated voter suppression techniques” have been enacted since the 2013 Supreme Court ruling, Shelby County v. Holder.
With regards to the definition of “racist ideas” and “antiracism,” a university spokesperson referred Breitbart News to the professor’s book, entitled, How To Be an Antiracist.
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