The Bigotry of Social Justice

Two of 2020’s best-sellers were published in 2018 and 2019, respectively: White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo, and How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi. (DiAngelo, a consultant, is white; Kendi, a professor who recently left American University for Boston University, is black.) It’s strange for books to achieve their greatest commercial success a year or more after publication, but this year’s circumstances are even stranger. In America’s reckoning over race, catalyzed by George Floyd’s death while under arrest in Minneapolis, journalists, entertainers, professional athletes, and corporations have embraced a social justice dogma. DiAngelo and Kendi’s books provide many of its core principles, which distinguish acceptable thoughts and attitudes about race from unacceptable ones.