*Activist and Author Ibram X. Kendi is responding to Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy comparing him to a Klu Klux Klan Grand Wizard.
“On the one hand, I was surprised for a few seconds, but then I just remembered that this type of rhetoric over the last three years has become more and more extreme,” Kendi told Insider. “It went from describing those of us who are fighting against racism as dangerous, to describing us as seeking to harm America, to now the most extreme, which is that we’re somehow the modern KKK.”
Ramaswamy recently compared Kendi and US Congressional Rep. Ayanna Pressley to grand wizards of the KKK, due to their past comments on reparations.
“I would bet that he doesn’t believe what he’s saying,” said Kendi, who penned the bestseller “How to Be an Antiracist.
“I think it doesn’t take somebody who has a deep knowledge of American history to know that it was people like me and Congresswoman Pressley who were being targeted by the Klan then and even to this day,” Kendi added.
According to Ramaswamy, he has never experienced white supremacy, therefore, he denies it exists.
“I’m sure the boogeyman white supremacist exists somewhere in America. I’ve just never met him. Never seen one, never met one in my life, right?” Ramaswamy said at a campaign lunch in August, per Insider. “Maybe I’ll meet a unicorn sooner. And maybe those exist, too.”
According to Kendi, Ramaswamy’s comments simply highlight how he is “auditioning to become Donald Trump’s VP.”
“To me, that was probably one of the most dangerous and disingenuous and outrageous things that he said, because it is a consensus among experts that white supremacists are the greatest domestic terrorist threat of our time,” Kendi said about Ramaswamy’s remarks that white supremacy isn’t real.
“You’re not running based on what’s happened to you, you’re running and speaking to what’s happened to the American people,” Kendi added. “And right now, the American people of all racial groups and religions are being subjected to white supremacist violence at incredible levels.”
READ MORE: CNN Fires Don Lemon After Explosive Race Debate with GOP Hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy | Video
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