EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: UF speaker compares America's 'metastatic racism' to cancer
The former UF professor also claimed that people often use the excuse of being “conservative” to justify their own racism.
A guest lecturer at the University of Florida insisted that America is facing “metastatic racism.".
Students at the University of Florida were told that their home country is facing the “lethal threat” of “metastatic racism” during a guest lecture from an “antiracist” activist last week.
In his recent presentation at the University of Florida, former UF assistant professor of African American History Ibram X. Kendi asserted that racism, climate change, and nuclear warfare currently threaten humanity’s existence.
“Humanity right now is facing three major lethal threats. Of course, climate change. Of course, nuclear war. But I would also argue bigotry, and more specifically racism,” Kendi said, adding “This nation has always been riddled with racism,” and that America “has metastatic racism.”
Kendi compared America’s “metastatic racism” to his January 2018 diagnosis of metastatic cancer, claiming that he, just like Americans in relation to their metaphorical racism cancer, failed to recognize his “condition” by making excuses.
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WATCH:
“I was in so much shock because, again, I did not expect that someone like me could have cancer. I’m so young. I workout. I’m vegan. That’s impossible. I’m not going to have cancer… Just like you have so many Americans who say they’re a Democrat, so therefore they can’t be racist,” Kendi said.
Kendi also criticized Second Amendment advocates, accusing their efforts to curtail gun control to be “dog whistles” with the message that Americans need to arm themselves against “Latinx invaders,” “Muslim terrorists,” and “black criminals.”
During the Q&A portion of the event, Kendi endorsed black liberation theology as the only anti-racist form of Christianity.
“The church is to be the citadel for revolutionaries,” Kendi said. He contrasted liberation theology with other forms of Christianity, saying opponents of the liberation theology movement believe that “the job of the church is to civilize these behaviorally backward people” and that they “breed racist theology.”
Liberation Theology, a school of thought that Kendi claimed was essential to the black power movement in the 60s, has faced controversy in recent years. Jeremiah Wright, a notable proponent of Liberation Theology and former minister to President Barack Obama, once delivered a sermon in 2003 where he cried “No, no, no, not God bless America! God damn America — that’s in the Bible — for killing innocent people.”
Kendi spoke to attendees at the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on campus, which hosts over 1700. Students, faculty, and Gainesville locals nearly filled the entire auditorium.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @TonyDLeonardi
