Professor pounces on Amy Coney Barrett's family: 'Some White colonizers adopted Black children'
A Boston University professor compared Amy Coney Barrett's adoption of children from Haiti to "White colonization."
He then said the Supreme Court justice nominee is "using them as props."
In response to President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Boston University Director of Anti-Racist Research Ibram Kendi attacked Coney Barrett, suggesting that her family’s adoption of two children from Haiti is comparable to “white colonialization.”
Kendi, who wrote the book How to Be an Anti-Racist, which colleges and professors frequently encourage students and faculty to read, tweeted, “some White colonizers ‘adopted’ Black children. They ‘civilized’ these ‘savage’ children in the ‘superior’ ways of White people.”
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Some White colonizers “adopted” Black children. They “civilized” these “savage” children in the “superior” ways of White people, while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity. https://t.co/XBE9rRnoqq
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) September 26, 2020
Despite the fact that the comment came in direct response to a tweet about Coney Barret, Kendi said that his tweet was not necessarily about the judge. “Whether this is Barrett or not is not the point. It is a belief too many White people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can’t be racist,” Kendi wrote. He then suggested that Coney Barrett is “using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity.”
Kendi argued that he was simply, “challenging the idea that White parents of kids of color are inherently ‘not racist.’ In that same tweet, he also said, “[People] completely change what I’m saying to ‘White parents of kids of color are inherently racist.’ [. . .] Let’s not argue with them.”
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I’m challenging the idea that White parents of kids of color are inherently “not racist” and the bots completely change what I’m saying to “White parents of kids of color are inherently racist.” These live and fake bots are good at their propaganda. Let’s not argue with them.
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) September 26, 2020
Kendi’s remarks were in response to a now-deleted tweet by Jenny Martin. Martin said, “With 2 adopted children from Haiti, it is going to be interesting to watch the Democrats try to smear Amy Coney Barrett as racist.”
Coney Barrett was nominated to the Supreme Court by Trump on Saturday.
A conservative Catholic with seven children, Barrett is a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as a professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School. Barrett previously clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, as well as Judge Silberman on the Court of Appeals.
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