Ibram X. Kendi
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If Boston University professor and anti-racist activist Ibram X. Kendi is to be believed, millions of new first-time African American gun owners support slavery. That includes huge numbers of African American women, the fastest growing membership demographic within the National African American Gun Association (NAAGA) over the past two years.

Kendi joined CBS’s Face the Nation and somehow equated support for the Secondment Amendment and supporting the freedom to own a firearm with supporting the “freedom to enslave” people.

“There are people who are fighting for freedom – freedom from assault rifles, freedom from poverty, freedom from exploitation,” Kendi told show host Margaret Brennan. “And there are others who are fighting for freedom to exploit – freedom to have guns, freedom to maintain inequality.”

Kendi’s estimation is that if someone supports gun ownership, they also support exploiting people. Got it. There was no follow-up or pushback from Brennan. Naturally.

Recent History

Over the last 30 months or so, law-abiding black Americans have been among the most likely to embrace the Second Amendment and take up lawful firearm ownership. NSSF data showed that African Americans purchased firearms at a rate of 58 percent more in 2020 than they did in 2019.

gun store buying surge
(AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

It wasn’t just black gun buyers either. During the same span, 49 percent more Hispanic Americans purchased firearms and the rate was 43 percent more for Asian Americans. Since 2020, more than 14 million first-time buyers have lawfully purchased a firearm making the gun-owning community the most diverse it’s ever been.

NAAGA Founder and President Philip Smith saw it coming even further back. He started his group in 2015 but noted recently he’s seen “an awakening” among African Americans and their interest in the Second Amendment.

“It’s a value-add to their family household, as opposed to, let’s say, 10 years ago or six years ago. This is a movement in a certain direction, and I think it’s a good direction,” Smith added.

He also owns several firearms, including more than one Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR), or the so-called “assault weapon” Kendi described.

Liberals aren't capable of discussing gun rights
courtesy Black Guns Matter and Twitter

Far from the “old white man” caricature often portrayed in a media that is generally pro-gun control and antigun, Pew Research tells a different story. A truer one. While 36 percent of white Americans freely reveal they are gun owners, 24 percent of African Americans and 15 percent of Hispanic Americans say so too, likely under-reporting gun ownership figures.

Professor Kendi may be disappointed to learn that a simple Google search of “Changing face of American gun owner” returns no shortage of fact-based reporting on who exactly is embracing the Second Amendment. It is not Americans seeking to “exploit” and “enslave.”

Empowerment Over Exploitation

NAAGA’s Smith has revealed his national pro-Second Amendment group has nearly 50,000 members and has gained 1,000 or more new members each month since 2020. One of those members is Zhe Parson of Petersburgh, Va.

Parson’s father, grandfather and uncles were all gun owners and they helped teach her safe and proper gun use. She owns three guns today and encourages her girlfriends to learn about gun ownership.

“A lot of people of color don’t necessarily want firearms in their possession or anywhere near their children or their family because of fear something could happen,” Parson told media. “A lot of that is about not knowing about gun safety. But the numbers are going up because of one thing: black people, black women included, want to protect themselves.” 

Kendi gets plenty wrong in his analysis and equating being pro-Second Amendment with being pro-enslavement, as he terms it. He ignores the long-standing history of black gun ownership in America and African American support for that God-given right. The NAAGA website highlights the pro-gun rights struggles of the black Panthers, the Tuskegee Airmen, Harriet Tubman and more.

In his op-ed in The Hill, law professor Jonathon Turley points out the numerous flaws in the “Second Amendment is racist” narrative. Kendi and those who share his views get it wrong, Turley writes, and how far too often, their theories are, “not challenged on the Second Amendment’s history or purpose, despite overwhelming (and largely ignored) evidence to the contrary.”

The Second Amendment is colorblind and is for all law-abiding Americans, no matter one’s race, gender or creed. Recent history shows us more African Americans are exercising their right to own a gun. They are choosing empowerment over exploitation no matter what Prof. Kendi believes or claims.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

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86 COMMENTS

  1. The fact is that those that oppose the 2a are the racists. And classist. Guns are not for the poor or poc.

    • Well……..yeah the oppressors don’t like mere slaves being able to shoot them.

      • RE: “There was no follow-up or pushback from Brennan. Naturally.”

        And to add insult to injury my “follow up” got the mod…maybe it’ll display later.

        Either Gun Owners properly define Gun Control as a history confirmed agenda rooted in racism and genocide or some sneaky Gun Control zealot like kendi gets away with rewriting history.

    • A worthless lying ignorant Gun Control pos comes along and gets his say. Once again…It is what happens when Gun Owners fail to define Gun Control as a history confirmed agenda rooted in racism and genocide.

      If you do not want to be enslaved by a murderer, rapist, pervert, child molester, tyrant then you better have the means to prevent it. In other words…poop for brains kendi is on the road to becoming someone’s b**ch.

      Bottom line…A Black American belonging to the democRat Party makes as much sense as a Jew belonging to the nazi party.

      • Another example of what has happened to education, gone from education to indoctrination.

    • Note to self: don’t send kids to BU. Plus, their law school rejected me 30 years ago, so there’s that.

    • Meh. Kendi is a race hustler who constantly prey’s upon white liberal guilt in exchange for career gibs. It’s pathetic.

  2. I hear the wackadoo kool-aid is good this time of year.

    Even though instead of saving you 16 cents on your BBQ its gonna cost %36 more.

    • Don’t tell me I’m not even going to save my 16 cents on the family BBQ this year. I was going to use that for a drop of gas. Enough is enough!

      • Oh come now I am sure wages have increased in proportion to inflation.

        do I need to add sarc?

  3. He’s just the latest incarnation of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and his like. A race hustler who makes his living by ginning up the left.

  4. He’s got it exactly backward. Gun control laws are demonstrably racist. The very first gun control laws on this country were passed specifically to ensure that the slaves could not rise up against their masters. Little has changed in ~500 years since. Gun control laws are always passed in states, cities, and municipalities to ensure that the black man remains subservient to those in authority. Gun control laws are most enforced where black people are in the majority. Gun control laws are seldom enforced where white people are involved.

    How can a black man look at these facts, and miss the obvious?

    Maybe he’s paid a lot to remain on the plantation, and keep his fellow blacks working the fields with him

  5. Don’t give Kendi attention, unless it’s to properly scorn him. Enough with the “Anti-Racist” Double Speak as well. Kendi is a Black Racial Separatist. Nothing less and nothing good at all. That being said.

    Adam Winkler debunked the Slavery BS about the 2nd Amendment years ago. I met Winkler. Overall, he’s definitely Of Center, but he has integrity that so many lawyers seem to be allergic too nowadays. Great conversations on 2A Politics with him as well.

  6. Hah, you want to know where I see diversity? The gun range. You want to know where I don’t see it? White progressive liberal safe spaces. But to the point, the second amendment is for everyone period end full stop. If Kendi wants to carry a weapon that’s up to him. If he doesn’t then it’s also his choice. But that right exists and extends all the way up and down the social chain which I why I am so strict in ‘interpreting’ gun laws. I figure if the poorest man can’t afford to do it then it isn’t a right it’s a privilege. Therefore we need to preserve this right so that the poorest man can still own a gun for self protection against anything, including his own government. My guess is Kendi came on the show for some stipend, an opportunity to plug a book deal and probably a cookie. He apparently isn’t self aware enough to realize to his so called ‘friends’ on the left he’s just a token, a fill in the blanks spot. He’s just a quick little golf clap from white liberals who need to justify the sign on their front lawn. Nothing more nothing less. Need the proof? Ask the people who walked out of the Biden administration.

    • So true. I went to a public range twice when I was in CA (I’m not proud of either of those things), and it was like a racists nightmare. Jam packed, which was a pucker factor in its own essence, but the diversity was everything they don’t want to admit. And that was two random days in a year lol. I did more actual “polling” than liberals have done in the past 400 years.

      • I’m lily white. From WV of Scots ancestry. When I go to a range here in the San Fran bay area I’m a minority for sure.

        A large number of women of color use these ranges. I don’t know how they vote. But they’re armed. Which is good.

      • The gentleman who does my Cerakoting is Black. He works at a “Rambo” kind of Gun Store.

    • He’s gotten rich from it, just like that home_O_fobic lady on MSNBC. White libs support them as penance for being terrible people. They think that makes them good people.

      *More annoying misspellings to avoid the silly moderation on here.

      • Racism is racism no matter the color of skin it comes from. Kendi? In triplicate.

        1/4 of my blood went down the Trail of Tears, 1/8th were slaves, the rest were Gaelic Scotch & Irish. Repression and discrimination is at the very heart of my bloodlines, and I hold nothing but utter contempt for those irredeemable scum like him.

  7. lol
    “freedom from assault rifles”
    LMFAO

    These people have it all upside down and backwards. He either has no clue what he is talking about or is getting paid to say it. Maybe both. It’s hard to believe people can be this ignorant, this idiotic. But here we are.

    • I guess anything can be a “professor”…may your chains rest heavily on your X butt.

    • He’s just preaching to the choir and making bank doing so. It doesn’t matter what he believes. The same can be said for most of the paid contributors on the cable news networks. I’m talking about all of the networks. They’re paid to deliver a particular position. I’m sure it isn’t terrible money. The people that come on to promote their articles probably aren’t paid.

    • I take it you are unfamiliar with the unhinged ranting of dacian the stupid, or the pathetic “sarcasm” of MinorIQ????

      The very essence of being a Leftist/fascist is uninformed, unhinged, ignorance and magical thinking. I’m sure that they will both take it as compliments, but they are certainly excellent students of Ibram Kendi’s deranged, fact-free idiocy – they both spout it here on this forum on the daily. Welcome to “Insanity 101: Deranged Leftism in its Natural Habitat”.

  8. Oh for God’s sake, EVERYTHING is racist! Even the dumbest among us are starting to see through that.

    • Yes, everything is racist which is bad. Alternatively, now everything is gay which is good.

  9. Notice Keane conveniently failed to mention how much of a percentage increase was White People and for good reason and that is it was indeed due to racism and was a far higher percentage of Whites that bought guns.

    In the period of 2020 compared to 2019 according to the study, 55% of new gun owners were white, 20.9% were Black and 20% Hispanic which is at odds with the claims of the NSSF pro gun propaganda machine.

    So in reality Kendi’s claim was correct in regards to racism in modern times and Kendi failed to mention it was definitely true when the States decided in Colonial times to join the Union.

    Jefferson and Madison’s surviving letters prove that they came up with the idea of a Second Amendment during the slave revolt and bloody uprising in Haiti. It was to cajole the states into joining the Union by giving them their own private armies to slaughter black slaves if they too revolted in Colonial America. This proves what many Supreme Court Justices of the past claimed and that was 2A had zero to do with the individual’s right to own firearms but it was slickly written in the vaguest of terms on purpose to give the people the false assumption that they did have the right to own firearms. All of the anti-gun laws passed since 2a was passed once again proved that past Supreme Court Justices correct in stating 2A has been viewed not as an individual right by the courts for the last 246 years.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/20/us-gun-purchases-2020-2021-study

    • Keane is referencing the percent increase in various demographics. You’re referencing the total demographics of the new purchasers. You can compare the US demographics with the demographics of the new purchasers to see if a trend emerges.

      2020 Census

      White, not Hispanic or Latino 58%

      Hispanic or Latino 19%

      Black, Not Hispanic or Latino 12%

      New Gun owners in 2020 according to the Guardian

      55% White — Underrepresented

      21% Black — Over represented

      20% Hispanic — Slightly over represented

      • Mathematics are racisssssss – you can’t expect simple minded dacian to comprehend the obvious.

    • dacian,

      Serious, honestt question: Are you COMPLETELY retarded??? Do you have a single functioning brain cell????

      IF YOU HAD ACTUALLY READ THE STUDY YOU CITED, they noted that the PERCENTAGE of “white” new gun purchasers actually decreased compared to POC (and women, for what that’s worth).

      You are a complete, drooling moron. Your mother is embarrassed by your existence. Please end your life, and put ALL of us out of our misery.

      You may be the single stupidest person on the planet.

      • His mother is a desiccated husk in an upstairs bedroom.

        Special Commissar Dacian’s Caravan of Death will bring social justice to the masses while leaving scorched earth in their wake.

      • You are right LampOfDiognes. Mother is embarrassed that dacian exists. We’re all embarrassed.

        • All but dacian himself – he’s too stupid to be embarrassed. ‘Course, then, he’s also too stupid to breathe.

    • “Jefferson and Madison’s surviving letters prove that they came up with the idea of a Second Amendment during the slave revolt and bloody uprising in Haiti. It was to cajole the states into joining the Union by giving them their own private armies to slaughter black slaves if they too revolted in Colonial America.”

      Still recycling this line?

      You provided one cite to prove this claim, that claim did not show these letters between Jefferson and Madison. Where are these letters young man? You make the assertion, therefore you are responsible to provide the facts and the letters. Not some cite of someone who cited another’s work who did not produce these evidential letters either.

      “proved that past Supreme Court Justices correct in stating 2A has been viewed not as an individual right by the courts for the last 246 years.”

      If society at large, and the Congress were of the opinion that the 2A was an individual right, why would SCOTUS need to rule it as so?

      Thaddeus Stevens during the debate of the 14A was asked if freedmen who were to be citizens would also be allowed to have 2A rights.

      https://www.historynet.com/thaddeus-stevens/

      Then Sen Jacob Howard, R-MI wrote what the 14A meant for freedmen. Specifically mentioned bearing arms.

      https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/congressional-debate-on-the-14th-amendment/

      • to Strom Trooper

        quote————You provided one cite to prove this claim, that claim did not show these letters between Jefferson and Madison———-quote

        Read their letters Moron or take the shortcut and read the documentation on the letters in Carol Anderson’s new book.

        And there were even more Congressmen concerned over the slave revolt in Haiti.

        On the crafting of the Second Amendment at the Constitutional Convention

        It was in response to the concerns coming out of the Virginia ratification convention for the Constitution, led by Patrick Henry and George Mason, that a militia that was controlled solely by the federal government would not be there to protect the slave owners from an enslaved uprising. And … James Madison crafted that language in order to mollify the concerns coming out of Virginia and the anti-Federalists, that they would still have full control over their state militias — and those militias were used in order to quell slave revolts. … The Second Amendment really provided the cover, the assurances that Patrick Henry and George Mason needed, that the militias would not be controlled by the federal government, but that they would be controlled by the states and at the beck and call of the states to be able to put down these uprisings.

        https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment

        Ok Storm Trooper its your turn to reject all this history with the wave of your hand because it does not fit your far right propaganda.

        • Carol Anderson again? Where are the letters? Have you seen them? She didn’t show these letters either.

          You have provided nothing to support your belief. Nothing at all.

          If you were a 1/4 as intelligent as you claim, showing these letters would be easy. Why haven’t you shown them?

        • Trooper,

          If dacian had 1/4 the cognitive function of a planaria, he would have a greater ability to actually deal with facts and evidence. Alas, when God was passing out brains, dacian was behind the door. He is bereft of intellect, curiousity, knowledge, cognition, reason, or learning. He is a know-nothing, uneducated, halfwit, with delusions of gender.

    • Sounds made up. Are you a race hustler too? Are you next going to try to guilt trip modern day americans for slavery hundreds of years ago? When are you going to get the fuck over it and man up and stop being a milksop soyboy?

  10. I would argue that if race is the lens in which you view everything then that individual that does that is a racist..

    • The Far Right’s hallmark is to deny racism exists in the U.S. and that it never existed in the past either, that is why they are against teaching children the honest history of the U.S. Many Southern History books to this day practically skip over slavery as if it never existed.

      • Nobody is denying racism. People that favor gun control are a grand example of racists.

        Racism is real. Kendi seems like a fine example of a racist.

        • jwm,
          …but they are denying the racist history of Democrats. And I’m not just talking about decades ago, I’m talking about today. They always embrace it in one form or another.

        • jwm, ever notice when a liberal is speaking to you privately they use disparaging terms for those “other people who just need to understand liberals know what is best for them”?

          Then look at how they attack Clarence, outright calling him a n word on Twitter, white liberals, and black liberals don’t say a word.

          Racism exists, not just where they think.

      • No, stupid. The right doesn’t deny that racism exists in America. We see it every day from the left, from Antifa, from BLM. Race hustlers like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the mayoral would-be assassin in Kentucky. Racism is alive and well, and growing stronger in the past 20 years or so, thanks to libtards.

      • The Far Right’s hallmark is to deny racism exists in the U.S. and that it never existed in the past either, that is why they are against teaching children the honest history of the U.S. Many Southern History books to this day practically skip over slavery as if it never existed.

        As long as you never stop talking about it, its never going to go away. But that’s what democrats want really. The weaponize racism for political gain, so they can win elections, at the expense of a divided and hate filled nation. I mean – what on earth would the democrats platform be without victims???? And it’s really not new either:

        https://cdn.quotesgram.com/img/75/76/1334932550-Booker_T_Washington_SM_zpswsevcx2a.jpg

      • And Lefty Loons like you see racism under every rock and in the Highways and byways like your butt buddy Pete Buttplug, Sec. of Transportation.

        I’ve never heard anyone on the Right deny that Slavery existed or claim that it was a “good thing” or that’s trying to rewrite history showing that White Folk are inherently racist, therefore their’re evil and worthy of extinction.
        Slavery didn’t begin with the Founding of the Colonies. It started with man’s ascent to be the dominant life on this mutually. It’s existed long before the written word. It existed in the America’s long before white Europeans hit these shores.
        Kindi is an Idiot and a Racial Arsonist. If you believe him, the you’re an Idiot too.

  11. “… and anti-racist activist Ibram X. Kendi…” LOL

    Kendi is a racist bigot and a black supremacist. He hates white people yet self loathing whites and woke corporations pay this despicable piece of filth to tell them how bad they are. He’s got quite the business model.

    FJB

  12. Some people are obsessed with finding racism where it does not even exist.
    Beginning to think “wokeness” should be classified as a mental illness.

    Like to see that on a 4473, “Are you ‘woke? YES, NO”
    Checking YES is a automatic denial of application for gun purchase and entry into the NICS, as a Red Flag/NO!

    • Epstein,

      “beginning to think” wokeness is a mental infirmity??? “Wokeness”, along with “anti-racism”, “feminism”, etc., are all symptoms of the same disease – pick a mental infirmity that YOU are actually suffering from, claim to be the opposite, then actually call everyone who IS against racism a “racist” (misogynist, homophobe, name your idiocy du jour). Lather, rinse, repeat.

      What they seem reluctant (unable??) to recognize is that they have literally made those accusations meaningless. They are like the Oprahs of insanity: “YOU’RE a racist, and YOU’RE a racist, and YOU’RE a racist – EVERYBODY’s a racist!!!!” Anyone who takes one iota of this seriously is brain-damaged, c.f., dacian the stupid and MinorIQ.

  13. Ibram X. Kendi himself is a black nationalist nut and one of the ideological ‘giants’ behind critical racist theory. Which itself is basically racial collectivism, American style.

  14. Has he said the same about the 1st, yet? All that “fake news” and “racist propaganda” is fueling [insert whatever is convenient here] after all. They’re using words to enslave the POC’s and recruit the fascists.

      • Did you just assume their gender? I guess I did too, although in fairness… “I’m a dude, he’s a dude, she’s a dude, we’re all dudes”

  15. “Facts, History and Reality”. Since when has the left cared about any of that?

      • alien,

        REALITY is not reality to leftists. “Reality” is what the narrative says it is . . . and the narrative changes on the daily. A Leftist is, in my dear daddy’s immortal words: “like a duck: they wake up in a new world every day.”

        Leftist/fascists are the living embodiment of Lewis Carrol’s Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’”

        Ibram Kendi is demonstrably stupider than Humpty Dumpty.

  16. This goofball wouldn’t make a decent professor in a parlor house much less a teacher at a (supposedly) prestigious university. Tough being on the wrong side of history, which, when people are, they tend to screech the loudest rather than argue from facts.

  17. Kendi is yet another race-hustling grifter who the Left loves to stroke. And when I say stroke, I’m not just referring to his ego. Three degrees in African American Studies? Really?

  18. Whilst I understand and would support tighter forearms controls and more stringent licensing if I was in the USA I do not understand the connection between tighter firearm controls and SLAVERY.
    I also fail to understand the ineveitable connection made by the rabid gun control freaks [and all are not freaks by any means I might add – merely misguided! Just saying!!] between tighter firearm controls and linking them with any particular political persuasion. The fact is that it is becoming more obvious that supporters of more stringent controls come from across the entire of spectrum of opinion and that includes many gunowners themselves.

    • So, you want a limit on gripper tension and the number of times you can use one per day along with how long you can do gi hangs and stuff?

      You got some really fuckin’ wierd policy prefereces, brah.

    • There’s so much you don’t understand, including the proper usage of capital letters.

      • He’s probably had too many “gin and tonics” after Madam Lash’s last spanking session.

    • Albert the Subject,

      Let me simplify it for you: “I do not understand”. There. That is all you EVER have to post, on ANY topic. Whatever incoherent word vomit you were planning to type? I just saved you the time. That quote summarized every “thought” you have ever tried to infict on us. Now you don’t have to spend time at the keyboard typing your incoherent babble, and we don’t have to waste time scrolling through it.

      Win/win. You’re welcome.

    • See the 13A and 14A of the US Constitution and read the debates while they were being debated, especially the 14A.

      Now after you do this homework, report to us the connection.

    • Lemme spell this out for you, my simple Brit.

      The earliest gun control laws on this continent were explicitly written to prevent slaves from defending themselves. All through colonial and early American history, gun control laws only pertained to blacks, whether slave or free.

      In more recent history, the strictest gun control laws are found in cities where blacks are the majority, or at least a large minority.

      The least strict gun control laws are found were there are relatively few black people.

      Gun control laws are racist, have always been racist.

      I hope that helps to enlighten your poor benighted British mind.

  19. The most concise way to analyze anything this asshole has to say: Kendi is a racist.

    It really is that simple. It’s also entirely true.

  20. Even if they’re wearing lipstick and a dress and calling themselves Susan, it’s still a bunch of racist, bigoted men standing in the way of liberty.

    Kendi is just the latest flavor.

  21. Kendi is an Uncle Tom. Democracy (mob rule) is the most effective means of suppressing any and all minorities (again, because it is literally rule of the majority).

    The intellectual hoop-jumping is mind-blowing. People really just hate having their world-view or personal paradigm challenged. To a fault.

  22. The most regressive, damaging, and racist thing that the left has taught/conditioned the black community with is the idea that they are safer and freer without guns.

    • “The most regressive, damaging, and racist thing that the left has taught/conditioned American citizens with is the idea that they are safer and freer without guns”

      There. FIFY.

  23. The one fundamental overriding principle of all woke people and especially Kendi is: if it was done by white people then it’s racist. Period. Full stop. No further discussion required or allowed. Two examples:
    The Supreme Court decision – mind you, the decision – Brown vs. Board of Education was not just racist but sexist and anti LBGTQ+ because the Supreme Court was composed entirely of white heterosexual men. In Critical Race Theory as now applied, and in Kendi’s world the court’s composition is all you need to know to tell you the decision was racist. That’s how Critical Race Theory works.
    The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was racist for the same reason. Congress was composed disproportionately of white men who, by their skin color were racist and therefore the act was racist.
    That’s how Critical Race Theory works if you believe it. If you do, it’s your religion.

  24. did not read article. why read what a racist says about racism. I have better things to do.

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