Ken's Racism

I read recently of a white man named Ken who expressed deep concern that his one-year old daughter had developed an attachment to African American dolls. Ken worried about raising his daughter in an atmosphere free of the "smog" of blackness that he believes has become pervasive in our culture.

He says that he wants to protect his daughter from the black racism such as characterized the Waukesha massacre and the Brooklyn subway shooting.

I think Ken sounds like a racist, but maybe I don't understand racism. I read another article recently in which another father experienced very similar concerns with his daughter, but apparently this father is not a racist because he's an "antiracist."

The major difference is that Ken is white, but the other father is black, and the races of the dolls was different:

Self-described “anti-racist scholar” and author Ibram X. Kendi reportedly grew concerned about white supremacy when he noticed his daughter developed “an attachment” to a white doll, according to a column from the Los Angeles Times.

Kendi is slated to release a new book in mid-June titled “How to Raise an Antiracist,” according to the publisher Penguin Random House. A Los Angeles Times columnist reported that in the book, Kendi claims he began thinking about white supremacy and kids after his one-year-old daughter took a liking to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed doll.

“[Kendi] began to think about what it would take to help [his daughter] grow up without the pervasive ‘smog’ of white supremacy surrounding her,” the column reads.

The Los Angeles Times columnist proceeded to tie Kendi’s new book on raising anti-racist kids to the Buffalo shooting committed by an 18-year-old inspired by racism.

It seems that whether a set of attitudes is racist or not depends on the race of the person who holds them and not on the attitudes themselves. That's a very interesting cultural strategy, I suppose, but it is itself obviously racist.

Postscript: Ken is fictional. Does that make a difference?