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Racial Capitalism
Kendi defines the powerless defense as the false and disempowering idea that Black people can’t be racist because they have no societal power. Kendi believes that the powerless defense protects Black racists, and that it leads people of color to wrongly view antiracism as a fight against white people instead of a fight against racism.
Powerless Defense Quotes in How to Be an Antiracist
The How to Be an Antiracist quotes below are all either spoken by Powerless Defense or refer to Powerless Defense. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 11: Black
Quotes
Racist ideas are constantly produced to cage the power of people to resist. Racist ideas make Black people believe White people have all the power, elevating them to gods. And so Black segregationists lash out at these all-powerful gods as fallen devils, as I did in college, while Black assimilationists worship their all-powerful White angels, strive to become them, to curry their favor, reproducing their racist ideas and defending their racist policies.
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Powerless Defense Term Timeline in How to Be an Antiracist
The timeline below shows where the term Powerless Defense appears in How to Be an Antiracist. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 11: Black
The powerless defense is the racist idea that Black people can’t be racist because they don’t hold any...
(full context)
Kendi used to believe in the “ powerless defense ,” the idea that only white people can be racist because only white people have...
(full context)
The powerless defense makes it impossible to call out Black racists, like Ken Blackwell, the Ohio official who...
(full context)
