Dear Babbling Bear,

I am so confused. I just read The Passing of the Great Race by Madison Grant for a class. Grant, who is clearly a racist, wrote:

The days of the Civil War and the provincial sentimentalism which governed or misgoverned our public opinion are past, and this generation must completely repudiate the proud boast of our fathers that they acknowledged no distinction in “race, creed, or color,” or else the native American must turn the page of history and write:

“FINIS AMERICÆ”

It seems that this racist outlook is being propagated at Cornell by people I thought were antiracists. For example, Cornell alum, Kimberleé Crenshaw ’81 advocated for a color-conscious, race-conscious approach to thinking about the continued significance of race disparity, and more recently, dozens of Cornell Faculty and Graduate Students wrote that every “colorblind” event, mechanism, and process at the university — from new faculty orientations to selection of endowed positions — perpetuates racial disparities and reinforces an unjust status quo.

Why do these antiracists choose the philosophy of Madison Grant over the philosophy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr who spoke these words on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today?

Please help me. It seems like antiracism is the same thing as racism.

Sincerely,

I think I am going to fail my prelim

Dear I think I am going to fail my prelim,

You are right, antiracism is the same thing as racism; and unfortunately, with your type of thinking, you are going to fail your prelim.