• Doug Most

    Associate Vice President, Executive Editor, Editorial Department Twitter Profile

    Doug Most is a lifelong journalist and author whose career has spanned newspapers and magazines up and down the East Coast, with stops in Washington, D.C., South Carolina, New Jersey, and Boston. He was named Journalist of the Year while at The Record in Bergen County, N.J., for his coverage of a tragic story about two teens charged with killing their newborn. After a stint at Boston Magazine, he worked for more than a decade at the Boston Globe in various roles, including magazine editor and deputy managing editor/special projects. His 2014 nonfiction book, The Race Underground, tells the story of the birth of subways in America and was made into a PBS/American Experience documentary. He has a BA in political communication from George Washington University. Profile

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There are 52 comments on Ibram X. Kendi, Leading Scholar of Racism, to Join BU and Launch BU Center for Antiracist Research

  1. This is absolutely wonderful. I’m excited as to the new developments and growth that will take place at the University.

  2. So excited by the proposal of an anti-racist degree program, Dr. Kendi, and the possibilities that lie ahead. Welcome to Boston University!

  3. This literally put an ear-to-ear smile on my face. What a wonderful news! WELCOME Dr. Kendi to the BU community. We are exceptionally lucky to have you.

  4. I’m thrilled but I hope you’ll consider revising the way you have framed Dr. Kendi as a “scholar of racism.” He is more appropriately described as an intellectual historian whose work analyzes racist ideas, and advocates for anti-racist policies. Or at least say scholar of racism and anti-racism.

  5. I oppose the appointment of someone who thinks reparations are the solution to racism. Millions of immigrants enter this country every year with little to nothing. Why? Because there is so much opportunity here. To claim that a certain demographic deserves reparations is appalling and does not match with reality.

    1. Andrew, the opportunity is there in part because so many black lives and livelihoods had been sacrificed in the process of building the economic base for this country. Yes, I am referring to slavery. I am an immigrant — and now a citizen — myself, and I support reparations. If a person glories in what their newfound home has done right, that person should also be aware of what it has done wrong.

    2. Reparation for native black families whoes ancestors were burtalized and forced to toil this land contritubed to the stable country that other ethnic groups seek. We have nerver been compensated! How much more blood and hatered must we experience ? Truthfully this land is our land much more than these groups who come seeking and collect!

    3. I am stunned at such a sweeping statement. We cannot move forward until reparations are in place. I urged my daughter to attend BU and I am so hopeful that Mr. Kendi will do a lecture during parents weekend!

  6. Welcome Dr. Kendi! This is the best news I’ve heard all week, and we are so lucky to have you. Eager to see the work you can do in the new Center!

  7. Best news I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you for this, Provost Morrison and everyone who helped make this happen. Welcome to Prof. Kendi. Proud to serve on the same faculty as you.

  8. Excellent. How can current BU staff and faculty get involved in the creation and long term success of the Center for Antiracist Research?

  9. I hope BU will allow for (and attempt to seek out) multiple points of view on these important topics whether for BU Today or on campus. Even within the African-American community, there are different points of view out there. As an example, I present this City Journal editorial from Coleman Hughes, a recent graduate from Columbia who has spoken before Congress and has a different view of Dr. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist”.

    https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-be-an-antiracist

  10. Welcome Prof. Kendi! Thank you to Jean Morrison, Crystal Williams and everyone else on the committee who made this opportunity possible.

  11. So glad to support the Center. Looking forward to strategies and particulars of policy change. Eager to contribute to this work. Feeling the locomotion moving forward to vision, collaboration, reform, justice, belonging, love, and peace.

  12. Welcome to BU…I am so looking forward to collaborating -both from a national research center perspective on mental health and in providing mental health services that serve our black students well and in the way they want and need them.

  13. I am so pleased you will be at BU and working toward changing racist policy based on research and data. I just listened to your Globe interview with Bina Venkataraman and feel more hopeful with you at the “wheel.” Your clarity and compassion shine out. Your explanation about what to do as an individual was very useful and the clearest I have heard. It will help me assess “What can I give?” Thank you Ibram for who you are and all you do.

  14. Dr Kendi, I admire your work. I have questions regarding Chapter 12 “Class” of your book How to Be An Antiracist. Specifically, pages 160 – 163. Could you please help guide me? Thanks.

  15. Dr. Kendi has his work cut out for him-Boston has a long history of segregation and separation. Given how divided the neighborhoods and enclaves are, I will be interested to see where he chooses to live.

  16. Welcome Dr. Kendi,

    The challenges facing racism both domestically and internationally are disconcerting to me. I would very much like to continue the action and conversation when both of us are able.

    Thank you,

    Dennis O’Brien

  17. What a lost soul; to turn an act of love into something motivated by racism. Please terminate this professor. He is lost in his own narrative.

    And to the other professors and administrators who say nothing about his comments regarding Judge Barret, you are cowards or just as lost as he is. Don’t know which is worse.

    You need to get on your knees and beg forgiveness from God for your actions or lack thereof in condemning his comments.

  18. As a BU alumnas I am embarrassed that BU has appointed Ibram X. Kendi to its new Center on Antiracist research. Dr. Kendi’s latest outrage has been to callously call Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett a “white colonizer” for her charitable act of adopting two Haitian children. John Silber must be turning over in his grave at what the university that he built has become.

    1. Hello @ Tony Conte. The idea of Amy being a “white colonizer” makes you feel uncomfortable, why is that? I think it would be a good idea to look into the white savior complex, the history between Haiti and their relationship with the United States, etc.. Missionary trips are a form of colonization. Often when white people go to Haiti, they try to assimilate the population into Christianity, taking away their culture and beliefs because they are a vulnerable population that need resources. This is not beneficial to their community. I urge you to not take my comment in a negative light but take time to use google and be open-minded. Question why things are the way they are and perhaps you will be able to understand where he is coming from.

      1. Dear Mrs. Chamba, there is no possible light that can be shed positively on the adjective “white colonizer” – both of those adjectives are in fact, pejorative and they build a strong, racist sentence regardless of the context it may have been used in. No Google research can change this and the only ‘openness’ of the mind related to this sits exactly at its opposite – the hallucination of a ‘new found light’ that is only bringing further darkness. If this seems to make you happy – you and many others here, please suit yourself. It won’t, however, go in the direction many think it will go towards. Good luck, Fil Solo

  19. Being a 1st generation Irish White American that has one my parents an indentured slave I can only hope that we realize that many white Irish were slaves and not forget the sacrifice that they have made. Ireland is still being occupied by England and it people still are hated in this country and in England

    John Holland
    BUMC Facilities

  20. As an aluma, I am amaze at what I am reading here. Dr. Kendi highlights what many do not know or do not want to know. I will expect that students and alums of esteemed BU would expand their reading lists and understand the history of this country and the colonialism started by the Bristish and Spaniards.
    Blacks and natives are still suffering from the fisrt sins of this country. We have been making progress but it appears we are moving away from that progress.
    I am thrilled that BU has the vision to bring someone like Dr. kendi to shape the pedagogy an help us understand the problems tomove away and bove it.

    It will be an honor to work with and besides him and his team.

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