Hi LT,

It's useful to know who you were thinking of (everyone) in your comment about fatigue, and I'm with you on the narrowness of the "black"/"white" binary.

As for not being tired, it seems like this is something you have I have in common, which is why we are here! Reflecting on why some are tired and some not is a valuable inquiry. Clearly, as you write, the capacity to persist in exploring complex issues, which often requires a lot of personal work, is a big part of it. Another part of it—and this is the point of my essay—is that the framework Kendi and others provide isn't broad enough. It doesn't include enough valuable perspectives.

You write that you don't think most people are ready for deracialization (and Omni-American and developmental politics). I would agree. Where we might see things differently is in the sequencing. For you, once enough people work with the antiracist teachings and practices, more will be open to deracialization. Part of me agrees to this. Yet there is a subset of people—those who've already been engaged in antiracist teachings and have developed themselves over years—for whom I think deracialization may be a valuable addition, one that frees them to take more action. In both cases, we are making hypotheses. Can't prove either because they haven't been tried.

As for Kendi, you may recall from the ebook my take on his disinterest in proposing deracialization. To me, it wasn't based on an assessment of what people are ready for nor even an ethical stance, but instead a logical error. Given that his entire book, How To Be An Antiracist, is a catalogue of things he once believed with certainty and now considers misguided, I am hoping he will go through the same re-assessment with regard to deracialization. Because I don't consider it any more challenging intellectually, emotionally, or conceptually than many of the other things he advocates for. More on this in a new piece I'm working on called "Can Ibram X. Kendi help you grow?" And I don't have a clear answer to that question yet...

Finally, I like what you say about antiracism being mostly about deconstruction and that we need reconstruction. Also appreciate this comment: "living with and thriving, regardless of racism, isn't the same as stepping back, taking a wider view, and exploring the evolution of racism and anti-racism in service of improving everyone's lives."