The reliably woke, intellectually dishonest and frequently ridiculous New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg issued another one of her propaganda pieces, this time trying to excuse and rationalize the implosion of Boston University’s Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research, which is laying off most of its staff and looks headed for the dustbin of history. As for that, good. Kendi is one of the worst race-hustlers extant, and BU giving him such a platform for his divisive and destructive ranting was academic malpractice.

Goldberg’s dutiful excuse-making in “Ibram X. Kendi and the Problem of Celebrity Fund-Raising,”meanwhile, would be an embarrassment to the Times if it were a legitimate paper any more. She absolves Kendi of blame because he had no management experience and it was irresponsible of woke donors to give him so much money in their rush to signal their virtue. (I guess all those corporations should have just stuck with discriminating against white applicants in their hiring…) What she is admitting without having the integrity to do so openly is that Kendi was and is a blowhard phony who talked big but was untrustworthy. Ann Althouse sharply observes the hypocrisy here:

If we’re going to do critical race theory, let’s not hold back when the insights are inconvenient. Lavishing money on an unprepared — but charismatic — black person and then treating him like a naif when he fails to perform according to existing conventions — that too is racism… under the theory. 

Bingo.

But the surprise was the reaction of the Times readers, who overwhelmingly rejected Goldberg’s effort to relieve Kendi of responsibility. Some examples:

• “’…the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.’ — Oscar Wilde. This is certainly true of many of the people supporting the recent “everything’s about race” fetish but not sure if the “try to do good” part applies to Kendi or the CRT purveyors.”
• “As I see it, anyone who can take this guy seriously and believe his nonsense about race, anti-racism, etc., etc. blows my mind. He’s taking advantage of the moment to make oidles of money but he’s harming society — blacks, whites, everyone else — with his divisive and, frankly, ridiculous views.”
• “If you are in the “anti-racist” business you do not want to eradicate racism. Your message is that it is a permanent condition (like original sin). Very few people embrace this belief, but most of academia can’t or won’t challenge it.”
• “Never understood the hype around “Kendi”. Poor arguments. Lots of slogans. But I do let Kendi off the hook in a sense. It is the intelligentsia and its endless pursuit of shine objects to celebrate that caused this debacle. If you put money in a bad idea just because the idea spousers have a profile you want to elevate, you are using them. Destroying them actually. It is as McWorther says racial essentialism.”
• “the center’s apparent implosion is more the result of a failed funding model than a failed ideology.” Why is it that the woke left always falls back on the “if only we had more (fill in as necessary) it would be all fine. “
  eg. the Soviet Union failed because there wasn’t enough communism. Hilary lost because she wasn’t left-wing enough etc etc Woke is a failed ideology, so why on earth would anyone expect a grifter institution like this to succeed?”

The Times apparently didn’t appreciate its readers’ analysis, and the comments were closed.

There is hope!