Hypocrite hector by Anthony Daniels

Anthony Daniels reviews “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism,” by Robin DiAngelo & “How to Be an Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi.

Vol. 39, No. 1 / September 2020LoginVol. 39, No. 1 / September 2020LoginAnthony Daniels

These two best-selling books about racism—White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo, and How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi—are tedious not because they are long but because of their almost unrelievedly hectoring tone.1 You feel in reading them that you have been cornered at a party by a monomaniac who will not let you escape until he has preached you into total silence, if not acquiescence. I can only conclude from their sales that people like being hectored.