‘In 20 years most of the world could be racist dictatorships’: Ibram X Kendi on book bans and far-right fear-mongering

How have the rich and powerful convinced so many voters that the reason they are struggling is the poor and powerless? The American historian talks about the weaponising of divisiveness ‘I think I’ve had at least seven books that have been banned in the United States,” says Ibram X Kendi, in a tone that carries no bitterness but stops just short of pride. It’s proof, he says, that his works on racism, which extend from deep, scholarly histories to a biography of Malcolm X for children, are getting through to the right people – and annoying the right people. According to the writers’ advocacy group PEN America, his books have been banned at least 50 times by multiple US school districts during the tumultuous “anti-woke” backlash of the past five years. He’s not happy about that, but nor was he discouraged. “I understood that the major reason why people were singling me out and demonising me was because they did not want people reading my books,” he says. “And when the character assassinations did not work to the scale that they wanted them to, then they started banning my books, and the books of many others.” Kendi’s work is divisive almost by design. He